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South Korea’s Supreme Court confirms acquittal of Pyongyang retweeter
South Korea’s top court has upheld the acquittal of a free-speech activist for retweeting North Korean tweets, according to several local media reports. Park Jung-geun, a Seoul-based photographer, was arrested under the country’s anti-communist National Security Law for a series of tweets posted in late 2010 and early 2011. They included retweets from Uriminzokkiri, a China-based website with…
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“Hack North Korea” focuses Silicon Valley on information flow
A hackathon that aimed to find new ways to get information in, out and around North Korea took place over the weekend in San Francisco. The event, called “Hack North Korea,” was organized by New York-based charity Human Rights Foundation and brought together programmers, human rights campaigners and defectors. Several teams spent the weekend working on ideas…
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Pyongyang’s cooking website finally appears
A North Korean cooking website has appeared on the Internet more than two years after it was first reported to have launched. The website of the Korean Association of Cooks offers hundreds of recipes in addition to an introduction to restaurants in North Korea and details of the cooking association. State media first reported on its…
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DPRK Music Channel gone for good?
One of the most popular YouTube channels carrying North Korean content appears to have closed. DPRK Music Channel posted music videos of North Korean patriotic songs and traditional ballads, usually sourced from Korean Central TV. The channel had amassed more than 1.3 million views as of February this year, making it the number six most popular…
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North Korea’s newest website: Korea National Insurance Corp.
The Korea National Insurance Corp., North Korea’s state insurance company, has its own website. The company, which in the past has been accused of orchestrating international insurance fraud, offers basic information about itself and its financial health. While the site appears to be new, the information on it in both English and Korean dates to only…
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North Korea driving instructions come to Google Maps
North Korea has strict controls on internal movement, a scarcity of private car ownership and almost no Internet users. And now it’s also got satellite navigation through Google Maps. The service is available through the web and mobile apps and allows users to calculate travel time by car or foot between points of interest in the…
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North Korea attacks US funding of anti-censorship projects
North Korea’s state-run news agency issued a sharp criticism over the weekend of U.S. funding of technology projects that attack censorship. The commentary, published on Saturday, points to dissatisfaction among the North Korean elite with U.S. funding of projects that enable the free flow of information and bypass Internet censorship. It comes as U.S. State Dept.’s Bureau of Democracy,…
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YouTube terminates most popular North Korean channel
The most popular North Korea-related YouTube channel was deleted by the video website on Wednesday for copyright infringement. [April 26 update: The channel is now back. Read on for details of how that happened] The Stimme Koreas channel had amassed around 15 million views for the hundreds of videos it hosted, ranking it above second-placed North…
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DPRK organizations called out for censorship
Three of North Korea’s state security and censorship organizations have been called out by Reporters Without Borders in the organization’s latest ranking of “Enemies of the Internet.” The report was published on Wednesday, which RSF and Amnesty International have named world day against cyber censorship. The three organizations named by RSF are the Central Scientific and…
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Internet coming to Kaesong Industrial Zone
Officials from North and South Korea have come to an agreement that should allow limited Internet access inside the Kaesong Industrial Zone, the jointly-run manufacturing complex just north of the inter-Korean border. The agreement was reached during talks on Friday, according to reports quoting South Korea’s Unification Ministry. South Korean managers who work at the factories…
