

North Korea: On the net in world's most secretive nation - mih
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20445632

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meaty
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://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rob...](http://translate.google.com/translate?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.robotrontechnik.de&langpair=de|en&hl=de&ie=UTF8)

~~~
Luyt
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.

~~~
jbooth
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.

~~~
dmm
The Saturn V rockets used in the moon missions were largely designed by von
Braun and Arthur Rudolph, who were both Nazis to some degree or another.

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pzaich
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>

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

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BasDirks
I'd love to get my hands on that Red Star OS.

edit: <http://thepiratebay.se/torrent/5803379/>

~~~
vmialik
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> 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

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mokash
"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>

~~~
suhastech
Are you from NK or an admirer from the outside?

~~~
mokash
Just a bored student from the United Kingdom.

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aj700
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.

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paullth
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...

~~~
laumars
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>

~~~
fla
This article seems to provide Red Star donwload links (untested)
<http://www.openingupnorthkorea.com/archives/325>

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taligent
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.

~~~
yequalsx
Why were you in North Korea? As a tourist?

North Korea is probably the most evil regime in the world. Going there as a
tourist supports this regime and as such is profoundly immoral.

~~~
jmsduran
I wouldn't go as far as saying visiting North Korea is "profoundly immoral".
Would I consider North Korea dangerous to visit though? Yes. The country is
still technically at war with South Korea, meaning at any given moment the two
nations can dive right back into active combat, which has the potential to
become an instant hostage situation for any traveler unlucky enough to be
visiting North Korea at that time.

~~~
radicaldreamer
It's really not that dangerous considering the technicality of being at war
has existed for decades. Nobody wants a war on the Korean peninsula (to the
perennial disappointment of human rights activists):

1\. China- prefers the buffer state between itself and US-aligned South Korea
2\. South Korea- has seen what happened with Germany's economy after re-
unification, fears that times 100 with the state of North Korea's population
3\. North Korea- has absolutely no chance of defeating the South without
Chinese intervention, which is unlikely to happen.

That combined with the mass destruction and slaughter on both sides of the DMZ
which would occur makes all out war unlikely.

