Imagine a life without the Internet, North Korea doesn’t have to

By Mahasweta Muthusubbarayan

In 2007, when former Supreme Leader Kim Jong-Il attended a summit in South Korea, President Roh Moo-hyun requested him to provide internet access to South Korean companies that were operating in Kaesong in North Korea. The North Korean Supreme Leader apparently replied, “I’m an internet expert too. It’s all right to wire the industrial zone only, but there are many problems if other regions of the North are wired.” 

Birth of the internet age in North Korea

North Korea has always been reclusive compared to most nations, especially in terms of globalisation during the internet age. Internet access in North Korea is available only to a select, elite few and as for the others, they are dependent on the country’s government-sanctioned domestic intranet known as the Kwangmyong (meaning ‘bright star’).

The first satellite connection to provide internet access to the country was established only in 2003, in collaboration with KCC Europe, a German company. Star Joint Venture Co., the country’s indigenous Internet Service Provider, was established in 2009. North Korea also employs the services of China’s state-owned telecom company, Unicom, and the Russian Satellite Company SatGate, to access the internet. The country’s first cyber-cafe opened its doors in 2002 and its first e-shopping website, Chollima, went online in 2007. 

The North Korean intranet

Kwangmyong is fundamentally the national intranet of North Korea. A national intranet is a domestic, intra-nation substitute version of the regular, global internet. Generally, it has servers within the country. 

Kwangmyong is a shadow of the internet of the 90s, built on a fibre-optic cable network, with its own DNS system. It consists of a basic browser, e-mail system, a social networking site, domestic newsgroups and a search engine. It hosts websites providing political, economic, scientific, and cultural information, along with websites dedicated to research and websites of government agencies. The content on Kwangmyong is something of a rip-off from the real internet. It is mostly academic, aimed at benefitting schools, universities, factories, and research scholars. Kwangmyong also hosts some e-commerce activities like online shopping.

Significance of Kwangmyong

Kwangmyong is not connected to the global web. The State-owned Korea Computer Centre operates a firewall which serves two purposes. It ensures that Korean citizens cannot access the global internet through Kwangmyong and that Kwangmyong cannot be accessed from outside the country. The primary purposes of Kwangmyong are clear: Censorship and propaganda.

North Korea, being a dictatorial state, is highly conscious of what information is accessed by its citizens. It requires its citizens to have a glorified view of the governmental regime, while being sheltered and secluded from any possible foreign influence, be it cultural, political or economic. For example, the regime regularly feeds its citizens with a series of videos extolling the virtues of Kim Jong-un and trashing America. Facebook, Twitter and South Korean websites are banned, simply.

The North Korean internet regime

Merely owning a computer requires the consent of the local government, coupled with police registration. Citizens can only buy computers produced by local, government-run companies, like ‘Morning Panda’. The privilege of access to the global internet is provided only to the Supreme Leader himself, his close aides, elite officials and ministers, foreigners (at airports and hotels only), some university professors, NGOs and ambassadors. The common-folk of North Korea can only use Kwangmyong. There are also mechanisms in place to ensure that locals do not piggy-back on the WiFi networks of foreigners. Internet cafes are also monitored. Ullim, an indigenously-built Android tablet, has an inbuilt surveillance system. There is a special government department to track compliance with the internet laws, known as Bureau 27. 

Comparison with other countries

North Korea’s style of censoring the internet is almost fanatical, considering that there are numerous other ways of censorship which other nations have frequently employed. In 2015, Brazil shut down Whatsapp for 48 hours on the order of a judge, by blocking IP addresses. China has built a great firewall which can block entire sites, individual pages, and even specific search results; however, it does not completely prohibit internet access. When Turkey banned Twitter for a couple of weeks in 2014, it employed DNS hijacking. All these methods can only be employed after people have already had access to the undesirable content. Therefore, they may not be very effective in the eyes of the North Korean Government and can use keyword filtering and web filter programs to censor search engine results.

Similarity with Cuba

The Cuban internet regime is somewhat similar to North Korea. However, unlike North Korea, Cuba does not particularly forbid access of the global internet. The main problem is that the Cuban government has not built upon the connectivity in the country and charges exorbitant tariffs to provide access to the global network. The government has opened numerous cyber-cafes across the country, along with public hotspots. However, there is a surveillance system which tracks and monitors the content being accessed from the regular internet. Cubans can use the WiFi networks of foreigners, but they cannot access the internet on their phones. Only those licensed as online service providers can provide internet access. Thus, the system in Cuba is not particularly conducive to every citizen accessing it.

Opportunities provided by Internet

North Korea is not oblivious to the fact that the internet is a potential goldmine. Kim Jong-un is a leader who assumed command in the internet age and he is well aware of the fact that being well-versed with the internet is a necessity. Computer courses are compulsory in most schools. Indigenous capacity-building is encouraged and thus, universities and industries are provided internet access so that they have all the academic resources they need and can stay abreast of the latest technological developments. Government departments are provided internet access so that they can watch and analyse international developments and also run tailor-made video campaigns on social networks and showcase North Korea’s achievements to the world. Kim Jong-un’s recent response to Trump’s tirade against him during his Asia tour proves the fact that he watches whatever the world might say about him. 

Attraction for North Korea

The most potent attraction for North Korea remains military applications and cyber-warfare. Applications such as intelligence-gathering and weapon systems are important. Cyber-warfare has been given priority and the State has been aggressively expanding the military’s cyber-warfare division. It has also been training and recruiting highly-skilled hackers. There is apparently a special military cell, called Unit 180, which has been assembled for the purpose of cyber-warfare. In recent years, North Korea has been linked with the hack on Sony Pictures, the cyber theft at Bangladesh Central Bank, and the WannaCry Ransomware. No concrete evidence of North Korean involvement was provided in any of these cases, however.

Overcoming obstacles

In his view, Kwangmyong will probably be sufficient for his people for the time to come. The only potential problem areas for him would be to improve connectivity for those who need access to the real internet to do their jobs under the current system. North Korea has a very small bandwidth and so the real internet is probably very slow. The reliance on countries like China and Russia to support its domestic fibre-optic cable network can also be detrimental. Thus, once these little snags are knocked out, North Korea will be secure in its little bubble in the internet world.

Photo Credit: anna carol on Visualhunt / CC BY