

North Korea's Digital Underground - philk
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/print/1969/12/north-korea-8217-s-digital-underground/8414/

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jonny_eh
Just last night I watch "The Vice Guide to North Korea". If you want to see
video of NK from the inside I highly recommend it, really creepy.

[http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-
guide-...](http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-
north-korea-1-of-3)

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dacort
And if you ever want to see NK yourself from the inside, check out
<http://www.koryogroup.com> \- took a tour with them a couple years ago and
was an interesting experience.

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chr15
This is really interesting. How much did it cost? What was the experience
like?

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rdl
Once you get to Beijing ($600-1400 from SFO), a 3-6 day trip costs $1-3k
depending on EUR/USD, exact itinerary, and when in the year you go (winter
trips are cheap). I know a few people who have gone and loved it, although I'd
prefer an Antarctic cruise.

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arepb
_Most computers, which generally run on pirated Microsoft software, come from
China. The country’s only computer-manufacturing company, Morning Panda,
produces barely 10,000 a year. If computers are rare, printers are even more
so. They are closely monitored because of their potential for spreading anti-
regime documents._

I'd love to see a Morning Panda computer in action. Anyone have a picture?

~~~
dpapathanasiou
A Russian blogger who visited NK last year bought a copy of the NK-produced
"Red Star" operating system (in reality, a flavor of Linux), but he doesn't
show the hardware: <http://ashen-rus.livejournal.com/4300.html>

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gacek
I was surprised by the last scene in the video. In most countries no police
officer on duty would tolerate being verbally and physically assaulted. Is he
afraid (the woman being a party official), or is there another reason (e.g.
cultural differences - with angry woman hitting man during conversation).

I'd love to see a documentary based on this underground material.

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kulpreet
North Korea seems to be among the trending, non-tech-related topics on HN.
Really interesting stuff.

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wisty
I think China's attitude has changed, so they are letting reports come out
through the border.

Or the article could be right - the flood of second-hand electronics has
changed some North Korean citizens' attitudes.

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jhamburger
If you want to put a face to the suffering of north koreans, check out the
young man in the middle of the embedded video. Quite unlike anything I've ever
seen.

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philthy
those pirated copies of windows are probably so dangerous, who knows what kind
of malware comes along for the ride, it would be like passing the same women
around to millions of men...

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pmjordan
Without internet access, does it really matter?

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philthy
I pray you don't work in IT...

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pmjordan
I get the impression there aren't many corporate IT departments in NK. Not
sure what your point is.

In any case, most malware these days is designed to either steal information
and phone home or make the infected computer part of a botnet or both. Without
an internet connection (whether the PC is in a LAN or not), the practical risk
is pretty minimal.

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nitrogen
NK would still be vulnerable to something similar to Stuxnet. A highly-
targeted sneakernet-based attack could be used to very, very slowly migrate
information from flash drive to flash drive into and out of NK, or for
sabotage.

~~~
pmjordan
Oh, absolutely. But a targeted attack with that level of sophistication is
hardly going to let a few Windows updates get in its way.

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haploid
Is this the North Korean people's chance to do the hump?

