7 ms·

North Korea: On the net in world's most secretive nation

83 points by mih 14y ago

paullth 14y ago
I wonder if they have a module BigKimJongUn.js or just cnp that function about the place. And what browser do they have? So many questions...
- eloisius 14y ago
 In the article it says they have a rebranded version of Firefox called Naenara.
 - w1ntermute 14y ago
 And Naenara, or 내나라, means "my country". It's also the name of the official web portal of the DPRK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naenara http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naenara
- laumars 14y ago
 Red Star (the OS used on many North Koran PCs) is a Linux distro running KDE3.x and skinned to look like Windows XP. It's been a while since I've seen any leaked demos of it, but I seem to recall it supporting / running MS Office via WINE. But I might be wrong on that. [edit] I think I'm mistaken about MS Office. Glancing through some Russian blogs, it looks like it's Open Office. But due to the XP skinning efforts, it looks very much like MS Office: http://ashen-rus.livejournal.com/4300.html http://ashen-rus.livejournal.com/4300.html
 - fla 14y ago
 This article seems to provide Red Star donwload links (untested) http://www.openingupnorthkorea.com/archives/325 http://www.openingupnorthkorea.com/archives/325
- IsaacL 14y ago
 Looking at, http://www.naenara.com.kp/en/periodic/times/index.php?contents+14914+2012-01-01+566+1 http://www.naenara.com.kp/en/periodic/times/index.php?conten..., it's actually just a "The readers will be aware of the might of the DPRK that is advancing bravely towards world standard, united single-mindedly around Kim Jong Un, supreme leader of the WPK" Looking at the rest of the code, it seems North Korea has no need for our inferior capitalist stylesheets and favours inline styles. Who knew?!
- mokash 14y ago
 I quickly put one together. http://mgakashim.com/405/kim-jong-un http://mgakashim.com/405/kim-jong-un
 - demetrius 14y ago
 I’ve tried to adapt your code snippet into an UserScript: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/154080 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/154080 It works OK, but I’ve run into a problem with textareas: if a textarea contains the name of the Great Leader, after script executes, the name in textarea is simply deleted. Maybe you have an idea how this can be fixed? P.S. By the way, you should consider installing the snippet yourself on your site: unfortunately, your page doesn’t follow the proper typographic rules! :(
 - mokash 14y ago
 Check out the jQuery Highlight Plugin. It does the job in a neater fashion and should be easier to implement. http://bartaz.github.com/sandbox.js/jquery.highlight.html http://bartaz.github.com/sandbox.js/jquery.highlight.html
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
taligent 14y ago
I actually briefly saw someone using this when I was in Pyongyang recently. They have mostly older PCs (with CRTs) and the forums are reminiscent of the internet back in the Netscape 4 days. But from what I saw it is very much an intranet that even had a dating forum. But really it is just a toy for the sons/daughters of the elite. See they very much know about the outside world and so this helps them feel like they aren't missing out on something. Apparently though Indian workers who have been brought in to work on government construction projects e.g. the pyramid hotel can access the 'proper' internet. But I believe the governments sets up a custom WiFi network. Also since there were no mobile phone towers around I suspect they may have an underground fibre optic network with lots of microcells around.
- mtgx 14y ago
 This is why we need to keep the Internet as free and open as we can. Progress and innovation happens on the Internet because of that reason. Imagine if the whole Internet was as restricted as the one in North Korea. It makes me very angry that UN is trying to restrict it even a little bit (or maybe a lot) right now. And ironically they say they want to do it to "accelerate" Internet's growth, which sounds very unlikely, and the opposite seems more likely.
 - taligent 14y ago
 I wish people would stop talking about the UN as though it is some third party government. It is a democratic organisation that is merely a reflection of the agendas of the 193 member countries. So rather than blaming the UN instead blame the specific countries who are pushing for changes that you don't agree with.
 - laumars 14y ago
 I think you're nitpicking somewhat: 1/ You could equally argue that we shouldn't blame the respective countries when it's actually just a small number of political leaders rather than the consensus of the populous itself. 2/ And being a "democratic organisation" means that the UN's policies are agreed by the majority. Which also means that it's not just the reflections of a small number of member countries but actually the organisation's (the UN's) wider belief. <devils advocate> In fact given the UN is democratic and that most national-level decisions are not (even in democratic countries, we vote in our leaders, they choose the policies. So while we arguably have influence over the policies, those policies are not typically democratically chosen; baring a small number of fringe examples where referendums do happen). Thus you could argue that it's more fair to blame a democratic organisation for voting in policies than the independent nations who's population didn't. </devils advocate> However being more pragmatic: it makes greater sense to blame everyone under their organisations umbrella rather than blaming each and every nation individually; for such a list would be lengthy and counter productive.
meaty 14y ago
Very interesting article. I'm quite surprised that they appear to use a customised Linux distribution rather than build their own from scratch properly. If you look at the East Germany in the 1980s, the various "VEB" state industries were even chucking out 8086 and VAX clones with every component built in the Eastern Block and even cloned UNIX operating systems! Couple of links to show the scale of their industry back then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VEB_Robotron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VEB_Robotron http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.robotrontechnik.de&langpair=de|en&hl=de&ie=UTF8 http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rob...
- Luyt 14y ago
  I always found it surprising that certain people and governments from the East condemn the West for everything and anything, while embracing the technologies which were invented and developed in that same West.
  - meaty 14y ago
    Well in the case of East Germany at least, most engineering standards were already established so it made no sense to change them. The problem that they had was ultimately the political and social system that produced the manifestation of the designs. The underlying designs were sound. I'm slightly inclined to agree with the principles of Marxism-Leninism but it suffered from one of the many things that the human race is good at doing: Good specification, bad implementation.
  - devcpp 14y ago
    I doubt that these people know anything about technology. The governments generally hire some companies to do the obscure technology "magic" thing. As for people, most of them have probably never learned a thing about the technologies they use.
  - jbooth 14y ago
    The Nazis invented rocketry. Are you saying that the moon missions were a hypocritical endorsement of the values of national socialism? Mechanical tools and politics are generally orthogonal.
BasDirks 14y ago
I'd love to get my hands on that Red Star OS. edit: http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/5803379/ http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/5803379/
- vmialik 14y ago
  hacker at heart. For those that do not want to bother with downloading installing and possibly being watched by the En Kay via their new installation: found a review on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUnYQyxjv4s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUnYQyxjv4s in case you want to consider the pro's and con's of this operation system to win8 or osx before you make your switch
mokash 14y ago
"There's a curious quirk on every official North Korean website. A piece of programming that must be included in each page's code. Its function is straightforward but important. Whenever leader Kim Jong-un is mentioned, his name is automatically displayed ever so slightly bigger than the text around it. Not by much, but just enough to make it stand out." http://mgakashim.com/405/kim-jong-un http://mgakashim.com/405/kim-jong-un
- suhastech 14y ago
 Are you from NK or an admirer from the outside?
 - mokash 14y ago
 Just a bored student from the United Kingdom.
 - suhastech 14y ago
 I was honestly curious as I didn't catch the sarcasm :/ And,.. I'm getting down-voted.
- laumars 14y ago
 That part of the article is misleading. It's not Javascript that does it, it's just CSS. North Korea do have a small few websites available to the outside world, so I've taken my example from one of them: http://www.kcna.kp http://www.kcna.kp goHome.do (HTML) Kim Jong Il′s Whole Life Devoted... kcna.css (CSS) .spanT { font-size: 120%;}
 - mokash 14y ago
 The script automatically adds the span around the name saving you from manually adding it every time.
 - laumars 14y ago
 Yours might, but I couldn't find any such script on North Korean sites I sampled. The spans were hardcoded. Don't believe me, run the following from any Linux command line: curl http://www.kcna.kp/goHome.do?lang=eng | grep --colour 'Kim Jong Il' So unless they have some server side parsing, this is not done in any programming language and most certainly not in Javascript on the client side. Though lets be honest, if reporters get sent to special "revolutionisation" camps for so much as a typo (assuming that part of the article can be trusted), then you're damn well going to remember putting a span around ever instance of North Korea's leadership line. Plus (again assuming the CMS's doesn't handle this) reporters can just find/replace before uploading. I bet it becomes as much a habit as spell checking is for me.
pzaich 14y ago
I currently live in South Korea. It's interesting to note that I cannot visit any of the DPR government-sponsored North Korean sites. The only way to view content was using Google's cache. Periodic restrictions like this make me appreciate how truly 'open' the internet still is in the United States. www.korea-dpr.com/ http://i47.tinypic.com/4zw11v.png http://i47.tinypic.com/4zw11v.png
- jnsaff2 14y ago
  I'm surprised that posting korea-dpr.com link here has not had the HN effect and crashed it.
aj700 14y ago
They have a facebook that the secret police adore and that is controlled by a corporatist elite. We have an actual facebook that various security agencies adore and that is owned by Goldman. One can make the argument... but I'm not making it. I'm just pointing out a similarity.

83 points by mih 14y ago

I wonder if they have a module BigKimJongUn.js or just cnp that function about the place. And what browser do they have? So many questions...

eloisius 14y ago
In the article it says they have a rebranded version of Firefox called Naenara.
- w1ntermute 14y ago
  And Naenara, or 내나라, means "my country". It's also the name of the official web portal of the DPRK: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naenara http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naenara
laumars 14y ago
Red Star (the OS used on many North Koran PCs) is a Linux distro running KDE3.x and skinned to look like Windows XP. It's been a while since I've seen any leaked demos of it, but I seem to recall it supporting / running MS Office via WINE. But I might be wrong on that. [edit] I think I'm mistaken about MS Office. Glancing through some Russian blogs, it looks like it's Open Office. But due to the XP skinning efforts, it looks very much like MS Office: http://ashen-rus.livejournal.com/4300.html http://ashen-rus.livejournal.com/4300.html
- fla 14y ago
  This article seems to provide Red Star donwload links (untested) http://www.openingupnorthkorea.com/archives/325 http://www.openingupnorthkorea.com/archives/325
IsaacL 14y ago
Looking at, http://www.naenara.com.kp/en/periodic/times/index.php?contents+14914+2012-01-01+566+1 http://www.naenara.com.kp/en/periodic/times/index.php?conten..., it's actually just a "The readers will be aware of the might of the DPRK that is advancing bravely towards world standard, united single-mindedly around Kim Jong Un, supreme leader of the WPK" Looking at the rest of the code, it seems North Korea has no need for our inferior capitalist stylesheets and favours inline styles. Who knew?!
mokash 14y ago
I quickly put one together. http://mgakashim.com/405/kim-jong-un http://mgakashim.com/405/kim-jong-un
- demetrius 14y ago
  I’ve tried to adapt your code snippet into an UserScript: http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/154080 http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/154080 It works OK, but I’ve run into a problem with textareas: if a textarea contains the name of the Great Leader, after script executes, the name in textarea is simply deleted. Maybe you have an idea how this can be fixed? P.S. By the way, you should consider installing the snippet yourself on your site: unfortunately, your page doesn’t follow the proper typographic rules! :(
  - mokash 14y ago
    Check out the jQuery Highlight Plugin. It does the job in a neater fashion and should be easier to implement. http://bartaz.github.com/sandbox.js/jquery.highlight.html http://bartaz.github.com/sandbox.js/jquery.highlight.html

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

taligent 14y ago

I actually briefly saw someone using this when I was in Pyongyang recently. They have mostly older PCs (with CRTs) and the forums are reminiscent of the internet back in the Netscape 4 days. But from what I saw it is very much an intranet that even had a dating forum. But really it is just a toy for the sons/daughters of the elite. See they very much know about the outside world and so this helps them feel like they aren't missing out on something. Apparently though Indian workers who have been brought in to work on government construction projects e.g. the pyramid hotel can access the 'proper' internet. But I believe the governments sets up a custom WiFi network. Also since there were no mobile phone towers around I suspect they may have an underground fibre optic network with lots of microcells around.

mtgx 14y ago
This is why we need to keep the Internet as free and open as we can. Progress and innovation happens on the Internet because of that reason. Imagine if the whole Internet was as restricted as the one in North Korea. It makes me very angry that UN is trying to restrict it even a little bit (or maybe a lot) right now. And ironically they say they want to do it to "accelerate" Internet's growth, which sounds very unlikely, and the opposite seems more likely.
- taligent 14y ago
 I wish people would stop talking about the UN as though it is some third party government. It is a democratic organisation that is merely a reflection of the agendas of the 193 member countries. So rather than blaming the UN instead blame the specific countries who are pushing for changes that you don't agree with.
 - laumars 14y ago
 I think you're nitpicking somewhat: 1/ You could equally argue that we shouldn't blame the respective countries when it's actually just a small number of political leaders rather than the consensus of the populous itself. 2/ And being a "democratic organisation" means that the UN's policies are agreed by the majority. Which also means that it's not just the reflections of a small number of member countries but actually the organisation's (the UN's) wider belief. <devils advocate> In fact given the UN is democratic and that most national-level decisions are not (even in democratic countries, we vote in our leaders, they choose the policies. So while we arguably have influence over the policies, those policies are not typically democratically chosen; baring a small number of fringe examples where referendums do happen). Thus you could argue that it's more fair to blame a democratic organisation for voting in policies than the independent nations who's population didn't. </devils advocate> However being more pragmatic: it makes greater sense to blame everyone under their organisations umbrella rather than blaming each and every nation individually; for such a list would be lengthy and counter productive.

meaty 14y ago

Very interesting article. I'm quite surprised that they appear to use a customised Linux distribution rather than build their own from scratch properly. If you look at the East Germany in the 1980s, the various "VEB" state industries were even chucking out 8086 and VAX clones with every component built in the Eastern Block and even cloned UNIX operating systems! Couple of links to show the scale of their industry back then: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VEB_Robotron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VEB_Robotron http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.robotrontechnik.de&langpair=de|en&hl=de&ie=UTF8 http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rob...

Luyt 14y ago
I always found it surprising that certain people and governments from the East condemn the West for everything and anything, while embracing the technologies which were invented and developed in that same West.
- meaty 14y ago
  Well in the case of East Germany at least, most engineering standards were already established so it made no sense to change them. The problem that they had was ultimately the political and social system that produced the manifestation of the designs. The underlying designs were sound. I'm slightly inclined to agree with the principles of Marxism-Leninism but it suffered from one of the many things that the human race is good at doing: Good specification, bad implementation.
- devcpp 14y ago
  I doubt that these people know anything about technology. The governments generally hire some companies to do the obscure technology "magic" thing. As for people, most of them have probably never learned a thing about the technologies they use.
- jbooth 14y ago
  The Nazis invented rocketry. Are you saying that the moon missions were a hypocritical endorsement of the values of national socialism? Mechanical tools and politics are generally orthogonal.

BasDirks 14y ago

I'd love to get my hands on that Red Star OS. edit: http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/5803379/ http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/5803379/

vmialik 14y ago
hacker at heart. For those that do not want to bother with downloading installing and possibly being watched by the En Kay via their new installation: found a review on youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUnYQyxjv4s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUnYQyxjv4s in case you want to consider the pro's and con's of this operation system to win8 or osx before you make your switch

mokash 14y ago

"There's a curious quirk on every official North Korean website. A piece of programming that must be included in each page's code. Its function is straightforward but important. Whenever leader Kim Jong-un is mentioned, his name is automatically displayed ever so slightly bigger than the text around it. Not by much, but just enough to make it stand out." http://mgakashim.com/405/kim-jong-un http://mgakashim.com/405/kim-jong-un

suhastech 14y ago
Are you from NK or an admirer from the outside?
- mokash 14y ago
  Just a bored student from the United Kingdom.
- suhastech 14y ago
  I was honestly curious as I didn't catch the sarcasm :/ And,.. I'm getting down-voted.
laumars 14y ago
That part of the article is misleading. It's not Javascript that does it, it's just CSS. North Korea do have a small few websites available to the outside world, so I've taken my example from one of them: http://www.kcna.kp http://www.kcna.kp goHome.do (HTML) Kim Jong Il′s Whole Life Devoted... kcna.css (CSS) .spanT { font-size: 120%;}
- mokash 14y ago
 The script automatically adds the span around the name saving you from manually adding it every time.
 - laumars 14y ago
 Yours might, but I couldn't find any such script on North Korean sites I sampled. The spans were hardcoded. Don't believe me, run the following from any Linux command line: curl http://www.kcna.kp/goHome.do?lang=eng | grep --colour 'Kim Jong Il' So unless they have some server side parsing, this is not done in any programming language and most certainly not in Javascript on the client side. Though lets be honest, if reporters get sent to special "revolutionisation" camps for so much as a typo (assuming that part of the article can be trusted), then you're damn well going to remember putting a span around ever instance of North Korea's leadership line. Plus (again assuming the CMS's doesn't handle this) reporters can just find/replace before uploading. I bet it becomes as much a habit as spell checking is for me.

pzaich 14y ago

I currently live in South Korea. It's interesting to note that I cannot visit any of the DPR government-sponsored North Korean sites. The only way to view content was using Google's cache. Periodic restrictions like this make me appreciate how truly 'open' the internet still is in the United States. www.korea-dpr.com/ http://i47.tinypic.com/4zw11v.png http://i47.tinypic.com/4zw11v.png

jnsaff2 14y ago
I'm surprised that posting korea-dpr.com link here has not had the HN effect and crashed it.

aj700 14y ago

They have a facebook that the secret police adore and that is controlled by a corporatist elite. We have an actual facebook that various security agencies adore and that is owned by Goldman. One can make the argument... but I'm not making it. I'm just pointing out a similarity.