9 ms·

North Korea's computer operating system mirrors its political one

86 points by dosshell 11y ago

phyzome 11y ago
Custom crypto? That will work out well for them.
- thedevil 11y ago
  My first thought exactly.
- io_ 11y ago
  Doesn't necessarily mean custom crypto, just "own version of encrypting files"; which could mean custom code using well known open source encryption libraries on files
- IvyMike 11y ago
  It sounds like you think they want strong crypto. But I think they want weak crypto that gives the NK government backdoor access.
- jmnicolas 11y ago
  You wouldn't say this about the US : we're not talking about a single individual here but a nation state. They can put a lot of people on this crypto and make it reasonably secure imo.
testtest 11y ago
The West trumps North Korea on many levels here. We have mass surveillance of virtually all private and public digital communications. Backdoored hardware (UEFI, SMM, et al.) and software. Fingerprinting of multimedia through DRM. Fingerprinting embedded as "a feature" in the MS Word. Fingerprinting embedded in printers and copy machines. Operating systems (OSX and Windows) calling back to the HQ all the time. Data stored and processed in the cloud for the government to check. Gag orders to keep the people from speaking out. Secret courts for those who do speak out. Torture prisons in Europe for those who might do something against the government.
- Drakim 11y ago
  All that doesn't count because the government doesn't physically attack your house with with black helicopters if you make a freedom blog (that nobody reads). Often I feel that we in the west have our own "whatabout-ism" when it comes to these issues. To those, I want to ask, if you wanted to enact fascistic surveillance and control over western society, how would you go about it differently from what we have today? Would you really want to bring attention to yourself by being loud and violent, like we seem to expect "real" evil governments are? Or would you just do it secretly, mix it up with other issues like child pornography, terrorism and piracy, and just paint the alarmists as overreacting?
  - igravious 11y ago
    Yes. Because Julian Assange is free to come and go as he pleases. And of course Edward Snowden is happily drinking cocktails in Hawaii. And Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda was never detained at freedom-loving Heathrow airport. Chelsea Manning posts freely and regularly on her blog. See also Jeremy Hammond. Also Aaron Swartz. Also Daniel Elsberg. Also Lavabit. Also... Ok, sorry for the sarcasm. Maybe literally they don't physically attack your house with black helicopters. But they will bring the full force of the legal system on top of you backed up by threat and/or use of physical force. And the tendency you describe is I think more properly denoted "whataboutery"? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whataboutery https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whataboutery
    - mikeash 11y ago
      David Miranda is alive and free. I won't defend what was done to him, but if that's on your list as among the worst anti-freedom things the government does to its enemies, we're doing great.
      - jabgrabdthrow 11y ago
        An honest debater attacks the strongest points, not the weakest ones. All you've done is given the parent comment the experience to make all examples in a list roughly equally bad.
nbzklr 11y ago
Link to the talk: https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7174-lifting_the_fog_on_red_star_os#video https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7174-lifting_the_fog_on_red_star...
- lawl 11y ago
  Submission should probably be changed to that, as it is the primary source.
  - ygra 11y ago
    Considering that the article was written before the talk I'm not sure the talk can be considered the primary source.
    - tomw1808 11y ago
      and its spreading... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/27/north-koreas-computer-operating-system-revealed-by-researchers http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/27/north-koreas-co... with the discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10797927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10797927 and here: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3yeuqy/north_koreas_computer_operating_system_revealed/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3yeuqy/north_koreas_... http://europe.newsweek.com/north-korea-politics-computer-operating-system-409205?rm=eu http://europe.newsweek.com/north-korea-politics-computer-ope... with the discussion on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3ygd3l/north_koreas_computer_operating_system_mirrors/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3ygd3l/north_koreas_... http://motherboard.vice.com/read/inside-north-koreas-totalitarian-operating-system http://motherboard.vice.com/read/inside-north-koreas-totalit... and one more http://recode.net/2015/12/27/north-koreas-version-of-linux-spies-on-those-who-use-it-researchers-say/ http://recode.net/2015/12/27/north-koreas-version-of-linux-s...
    - lawl 11y ago
      I'm a bit late by now, but I'd still consider it the primary source because reuters must have gotten the information from them. These guys did the research. I'm not sure I agree that the primary source necessarily equals to the first publication.
yaiu 11y ago
I didn't see any computers running this OS during my trip to Pyongyang. I saw a few machines running Win2k and one that ran a bowling alley ran Win3.1. Comical stuff..
- kapsel 11y ago
  I saw multiple machines running RedStar OS, even took photos of me interacting with one of them, on my 2-week trip a couple of years ago. I commented on another North Korea post here on Hacker News a while ago, where I also posted the URL to the photos, if anyone are curious. It even had IP addresses set and some sort of network (not Internet) access.
  - bmer 11y ago
    How did you end up getting a chance to visit North Korea?
    - threeseed 11y ago
      There are plenty of tours that operate in North Korea. Koryo Tours is one that I took a few years ago.
      - w8rbt 11y ago
        Also, the government occasionally allows a radio amateur to operate. Just this month, North Korea was active on HF (last time was 2002). They'll be active again in Feb 2016: http://www.arrl.org/news/p5-3z9dx-concludes-demonstration-operation-from-north-korea http://www.arrl.org/news/p5-3z9dx-concludes-demonstration-op... http://www.eham.net/articles/35853 http://www.eham.net/articles/35853
    - EliRivers 11y ago
      At risk of repeating other respondents, you can just go. You can find a tour organiser and simply book onto one of their tours, or you can organise your own through the DPRK state tourism companies. Going with an established tour organiser is by far the easier way to do it. I went with Koryo Tours in 2012 and it couldn't have been easier; filled in the form, emailed my details, paid a deposit and the rest at the start of the tour. But to reiterate, you can just book on a tour. There's no problem or difficulty doing it.
voltagex_ 11y ago
The CCC talk included a link to https://github.com/takeshixx/redstar-tools https://github.com/takeshixx/redstar-tools, asking for people to help "lift the fog" even further.
ars 11y ago
Seems like an extreme form of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law
joenathan 11y ago
The article has zero technical content, it's like a sandwich that's all bread and no meat. It's a shame too because it is a very interesting topic.
- Eyas 11y ago
  Not technical, but I thought it was interesting that it tags files with a record of every computer they have been on, even if it was not accessed. Or that privileged access is only really available to the government, and the operating system guards against many kinds of customizations that we think of as legitimate user actions.
- willscott 11y ago
  The researchers put the tools they used and decompiled code on-line: https://github.com/takeshixx/redstar-tools https://github.com/takeshixx/redstar-tools
nickodell 11y ago
>There's no sign in the operating system, the researchers say, of the kinds of cyber attack capability North Korea has been accused of. What were you expecting to find? A text file named sonyhack.txt?
- garrettgrimsley 11y ago
  It means that they didn't find the technological prowess exhibited in the various cyber attacks that the DPRK has been accused of reflected in the OS. The key word in the sentence quoted is "capability."
hellbanner 11y ago
DRPRK used to have dozens of <strong> tags in their HTML.. to show how strong they were, I guess.

86 points by dosshell 11y ago

phyzome 11y ago

Custom crypto? That will work out well for them.

thedevil 11y ago
My first thought exactly.
io_ 11y ago
Doesn't necessarily mean custom crypto, just "own version of encrypting files"; which could mean custom code using well known open source encryption libraries on files
IvyMike 11y ago
It sounds like you think they want strong crypto. But I think they want weak crypto that gives the NK government backdoor access.
jmnicolas 11y ago
You wouldn't say this about the US : we're not talking about a single individual here but a nation state. They can put a lot of people on this crypto and make it reasonably secure imo.

testtest 11y ago

The West trumps North Korea on many levels here. We have mass surveillance of virtually all private and public digital communications. Backdoored hardware (UEFI, SMM, et al.) and software. Fingerprinting of multimedia through DRM. Fingerprinting embedded as "a feature" in the MS Word. Fingerprinting embedded in printers and copy machines. Operating systems (OSX and Windows) calling back to the HQ all the time. Data stored and processed in the cloud for the government to check. Gag orders to keep the people from speaking out. Secret courts for those who do speak out. Torture prisons in Europe for those who might do something against the government.

Drakim 11y ago
All that doesn't count because the government doesn't physically attack your house with with black helicopters if you make a freedom blog (that nobody reads). Often I feel that we in the west have our own "whatabout-ism" when it comes to these issues. To those, I want to ask, if you wanted to enact fascistic surveillance and control over western society, how would you go about it differently from what we have today? Would you really want to bring attention to yourself by being loud and violent, like we seem to expect "real" evil governments are? Or would you just do it secretly, mix it up with other issues like child pornography, terrorism and piracy, and just paint the alarmists as overreacting?
- igravious 11y ago
  Yes. Because Julian Assange is free to come and go as he pleases. And of course Edward Snowden is happily drinking cocktails in Hawaii. And Glenn Greenwald's partner David Miranda was never detained at freedom-loving Heathrow airport. Chelsea Manning posts freely and regularly on her blog. See also Jeremy Hammond. Also Aaron Swartz. Also Daniel Elsberg. Also Lavabit. Also... Ok, sorry for the sarcasm. Maybe literally they don't physically attack your house with black helicopters. But they will bring the full force of the legal system on top of you backed up by threat and/or use of physical force. And the tendency you describe is I think more properly denoted "whataboutery"? https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whataboutery https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/whataboutery
  - mikeash 11y ago
    David Miranda is alive and free. I won't defend what was done to him, but if that's on your list as among the worst anti-freedom things the government does to its enemies, we're doing great.
    - jabgrabdthrow 11y ago
      An honest debater attacks the strongest points, not the weakest ones. All you've done is given the parent comment the experience to make all examples in a list roughly equally bad.

nbzklr 11y ago

Link to the talk: https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7174-lifting_the_fog_on_red_star_os#video https://media.ccc.de/v/32c3-7174-lifting_the_fog_on_red_star...

lawl 11y ago
Submission should probably be changed to that, as it is the primary source.
- ygra 11y ago
  Considering that the article was written before the talk I'm not sure the talk can be considered the primary source.
  - tomw1808 11y ago
    and its spreading... http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/27/north-koreas-computer-operating-system-revealed-by-researchers http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/27/north-koreas-co... with the discussion here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10797927 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10797927 and here: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3yeuqy/north_koreas_computer_operating_system_revealed/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3yeuqy/north_koreas_... http://europe.newsweek.com/north-korea-politics-computer-operating-system-409205?rm=eu http://europe.newsweek.com/north-korea-politics-computer-ope... with the discussion on reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3ygd3l/north_koreas_computer_operating_system_mirrors/ https://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/3ygd3l/north_koreas_... http://motherboard.vice.com/read/inside-north-koreas-totalitarian-operating-system http://motherboard.vice.com/read/inside-north-koreas-totalit... and one more http://recode.net/2015/12/27/north-koreas-version-of-linux-spies-on-those-who-use-it-researchers-say/ http://recode.net/2015/12/27/north-koreas-version-of-linux-s...
  - lawl 11y ago
    I'm a bit late by now, but I'd still consider it the primary source because reuters must have gotten the information from them. These guys did the research. I'm not sure I agree that the primary source necessarily equals to the first publication.

yaiu 11y ago

I didn't see any computers running this OS during my trip to Pyongyang. I saw a few machines running Win2k and one that ran a bowling alley ran Win3.1. Comical stuff..

kapsel 11y ago
I saw multiple machines running RedStar OS, even took photos of me interacting with one of them, on my 2-week trip a couple of years ago. I commented on another North Korea post here on Hacker News a while ago, where I also posted the URL to the photos, if anyone are curious. It even had IP addresses set and some sort of network (not Internet) access.
- bmer 11y ago
  How did you end up getting a chance to visit North Korea?
  - threeseed 11y ago
    There are plenty of tours that operate in North Korea. Koryo Tours is one that I took a few years ago.
    - w8rbt 11y ago
      Also, the government occasionally allows a radio amateur to operate. Just this month, North Korea was active on HF (last time was 2002). They'll be active again in Feb 2016: http://www.arrl.org/news/p5-3z9dx-concludes-demonstration-operation-from-north-korea http://www.arrl.org/news/p5-3z9dx-concludes-demonstration-op... http://www.eham.net/articles/35853 http://www.eham.net/articles/35853
  - EliRivers 11y ago
    At risk of repeating other respondents, you can just go. You can find a tour organiser and simply book onto one of their tours, or you can organise your own through the DPRK state tourism companies. Going with an established tour organiser is by far the easier way to do it. I went with Koryo Tours in 2012 and it couldn't have been easier; filled in the form, emailed my details, paid a deposit and the rest at the start of the tour. But to reiterate, you can just book on a tour. There's no problem or difficulty doing it.

voltagex_ 11y ago

The CCC talk included a link to https://github.com/takeshixx/redstar-tools https://github.com/takeshixx/redstar-tools, asking for people to help "lift the fog" even further.

ars 11y ago

Seems like an extreme form of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_law

joenathan 11y ago

The article has zero technical content, it's like a sandwich that's all bread and no meat. It's a shame too because it is a very interesting topic.

Eyas 11y ago
Not technical, but I thought it was interesting that it tags files with a record of every computer they have been on, even if it was not accessed. Or that privileged access is only really available to the government, and the operating system guards against many kinds of customizations that we think of as legitimate user actions.
willscott 11y ago
The researchers put the tools they used and decompiled code on-line: https://github.com/takeshixx/redstar-tools https://github.com/takeshixx/redstar-tools

nickodell 11y ago

>There's no sign in the operating system, the researchers say, of the kinds of cyber attack capability North Korea has been accused of. What were you expecting to find? A text file named sonyhack.txt?

garrettgrimsley 11y ago
It means that they didn't find the technological prowess exhibited in the various cyber attacks that the DPRK has been accused of reflected in the OS. The key word in the sentence quoted is "capability."

hellbanner 11y ago

DRPRK used to have dozens of <strong> tags in their HTML.. to show how strong they were, I guess.