North Korea and the Internet  

HOW ELECTRONICS ARE PENETRATING DPRK ISOLATION

by James Brooke, New York Times, 14 March 2005

Halfway through a video from North Korea, the camera pans on a propaganda portrait of Kim Jong Il, North Korea's leader, magnificent in his general's
dress uniform with gold epaulets. Scribbled in black ink across his smooth face is a demand for "freedom and democracy."

If genuine, the graffiti speaks of political opponents willing to risk execution to get their message out. If staged, the video means that a North Korean hustler was willing to deface a picture of the "Dear Leader" to earn a quick profit by selling it to a South Korean human rights group. Either way, the 35-minute video is the latest evidence that new ways of thinking are stealing into North Korea, perhaps corroding the steely controls on ideology and information that have kept the Kim family in power for almost 60 years.

The construction of cellular relay stations last fall along the Chinese side of the border has allowed some North Koreans in border towns to use prepaid Chinese cell phones to call relatives and reporters in South Korea, defectors from North Korea say. And after DVD players swept northern China two years ago, entrepreneurs collected cast-off videocassette recorders and peddled them in North Korea. Now tapes of South Korean soap operas are so popular that state television in Pyongyang, North Korea's capital, is campaigning against South Korean hairstyles, clothing and slang, visitors and defectors have said.

"In the 1960's in the Soviet Union, it was cool to wear blue jeans and listen to rock and roll," said Andrei Lankov, a Russian exchange student in the North at Kim Il Sung University in 1985, who now teaches about North Korea at Kookmin University here in the South. "Today, it is cool for North Koreans to look and behave South Korean, as they do in the television serials. That does not bode well for the long-term survival of the regime."

Interest in the political hold of the Kim family has spiked since the North's claim that it has nuclear bombs and will continue to boycott disarmament talks. Analysts of the North usually focus on the governing elite, and some cracks have appeared there in the past year: the demotion of Kim Jong Il's brother-in-law, the defection of a few high-ranking military officers, the huge explosion that destroyed a rail station a few hours after Mr. Kim's train had passed through, and what appears to be the start of a succession battle among his three sons.

Analysts are debating the importance of Mr. Kim's visits to military bases, which accounted for almost two-thirds of his 92 publicly divulged appearances last year, compared with one-third in 2003. With North Korea closed to American journalists, it is hard to decipher whether Mr. Kim is shoring up his power base in the army out of fear of a foreign attack or of an internal coup. Past predictions that Mr. Kim's power was ebbing have not been borne out.

"We have very meagre intelligence resources, and we're sort of flying blind," Howard H. Baker Jr. said on Feb. 16 in Tokyo, in his final news briefing as American ambassador to Japan. "My country has no alternative but to assume that Kim Jong Il will continue in power. There won't be any significant change in the governance of that country."

Reviewing North Korea's political elite, "we see no big change," said Noriyuki Suzuki, director of Radio Press, a Japanese government monitoring service that focuses on the North Korean media. "But the bigger worry for him should be not in the core part of his power structure, but any move of distrust or dissatisfaction with the regime among the general public," Mr. Suzuki said, referring to Mr. Kim. He cited a recent joint editorial published in North Korea's three most important newspapers "strongly warning against the flow of information from outside the country, warning against the inflow of capitalist elements through travel outside."

In the recording studio of a radio station here, Seong Min Kim, a former North Korean Army captain who is now the director for the South Korean radio station Free NK, explained how Chinese cell phones in North Korea have enabled him to nurture sources there.

"He just dials 0082 to get the Korean-speaking Chinese operator, then makes a collect call to here," Mr. Kim said of one source. The prepaid cell phones are usually paid for by journalists in South Korea, he said, and the North Koreans go along largely out of curiosity or to try to make business deals. He added: "They are getting more and more tech savvy. Now they are asking for cell phones with cameras attached."

At a human rights conference here on Feb. 15, defectors estimated in interviews that about one-third of the defectors in South Korea regularly talk to family members back in North Korea, calling owners of prepaid Chinese cell phones at a prearranged time. To counter this, North Korea has reportedly started border patrols using Japanese equipment that can track cell phone calls. Reporters tell stories of their contacts that only make calls from their private garden plots in the hills, burying the cell phone in the ground after each call. While Chinese cell phones only work a few miles inside North Korea, the videocassette phenomenon has reportedly spread throughout the nation, reaching into every area where there is electricity.

"They are within the reach of the average family," said Dr. Lankov, who regularly interviews recent defectors. "They watch, almost exclusively, smuggled and copied South Korean movies and drama. Only a few weeks after airing here, they will go throughout North Korea."

More than showing middle-class family lifestyles, which can be staged in a studio, the soap operas also provide images of a modern Seoul - the forest of high-rise buildings, the huge traffic jams, the late-model cars. With such images showing a stark contrast with primitive conditions in North Korea, Mr. Kim ordered the formation of a special prosecutor's office last November to arrest people who deal in South Korean goods, largely videotapes, or who use South Korean expressions or slang, analysts in South Korea say.

To crack down on home viewing of imported videotapes, the North Korean police developed the strategy of encircling a neighbourhood in the evening, cutting off electricity, then inspecting players to find videotapes stuck inside, according to Young Howard, international coordinator of the Network for North Korean Democracy and Human Rights, a Seoul-based group. Recent defectors have also told Mr. Howard that police cars with loudspeakers have patrolled neighbourhoods, warning residents to maintain their "socialist lifestyle" and to shun South Korean speech and clothing and hairstyles, he said.

Aggressive moves by the United States have added to the information leaking into North Korea. Last fall, Congress unanimously approved the North Korea Human Rights Act, which provides for increased Korean-language radio broadcasting to North Korea and for helping North Korean refugees in China.

The law has been a favourite target of harsh denunciations from North Korea. In January, the official radio network blamed the United States for societal
decay, accusing Washington of increasing the broadcasting hours of Radio Free Asia toward North Korea and "massively infiltrating" into North Korea "portable transistor radios and impure publications and video materials." Inside North Korea, social, political and economic controls have been eroded by two other changes over the past decade: private markets and a breakdown in travel restrictions, Dr. Lankov said. "You have private money lenders, you have inns, you have brothels, you have canteens," he said, adding that most North Koreans survive through a combination of foreign aid and a fledgling private economy.

Draconian controls on internal travel and on travel to China have been breaking down, he said, and hundreds of thousands of North Koreans have traveled to and from Korean-speaking areas of China, exposing them to a thriving market economy and more South Korean television broadcasts.

"They are gradually learning about South Korean prosperity," Dr. Lankov said. "This is a death sentence to the regime. North Korea's claim to legitimacy is based on its ability to deliver the worker's paradise now. What if everyone sees that it is not delivering?"

Cell Phones Spark 'Communication Revolution' in N.K.

Digital Choson Ilbo, 2 Dec. 2004

A man talks on his cell phone as he strolls down Younggwang Street in Pyongyang in late spring. The use of handsets was later banned by the Northern leadership.

When North Korean defector Lee received a call from his dead brother, he assumed he was being visited by a ghost, or some kind of prank caller.  In reality, the introduction of Chinese mobile communication technology to the reclusive state has helped pierce through its Iron Curtain and break down a regime that insulates itself through isolating citizens, renting families apart and curbing the spread of information.  As Lee talked to his brother for the first time in 50 years over a crackling line, he couldn't stem the flood of tears. Inter-Korean projects to reunite families may work for the 50 or 100 lucky few each year, but two mobile phones managed to connect a man in Seoul to his kin in the near-impenetrable North Korean province of North Hamgyeong in seconds.

In North Korea, mobile phones are serving as conveyer belts of information from the outside world to help combat decades of state-sponsored propaganda and misinformation, opening up a new channel of comminication between the two sides. Since fleeing to the South, Lee is constantly harassed by friends and officials across the border hoping to trade useless documents or information for money. 

The fact that the two sides are now connected in this way is entirely thanks to Chinese cell phones. As Chinese communication firms expand their cell phone services, they have begun installing relay stations along the Sino-North Korean border, which has kindled a cell phone boom in North Korea. 

In summer 2003, mobile phone signals could only be accessed on high-altitude slopes astride the Sino-North Korean border. Last Fall, however, a relay station was build along the frontier that extended the service to people's homes in border areas and large swathes of China and South Korea. The devices are charged using pre-paid phone cards, and cost roughly 400 Chinese yuan (W50,000-60,000) for three month's use. 

With the recent strengthening of border controls, cell phones have become essential to officials and merchants conducting business along the border. The first thing North Koreans request before doing business with Chinese is a cell phone, and demand for South Korean handsets is high. 

When the North Korean authorities expanded cell phone service to major cities across the country, service was linked to Chinese-made cell phones in the border area, immediately giving rise to a "Communication Revolution" in which news from the outside world could be transmitted to places like Pyongyang and even deep mountain districts. Outside news, which used to take days and even weeks to reach remote inland areas, could now be transmitted instantaneously. 

This development has led to friction within the North's leadership. Following the Ryonchon Train Station disaster this spring, North Korea imposed a blanket suspension on mobile phone service after initially just banning the use of handsets in Pyongyang. 

This was ostensibly motivated by a State Safety and Security Agency report that said cell phones could be maliciously used to harm North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, for example by being used to trigger terrorist-engineered bombs. A former North Korean intelligence official who defected to the South, however, said the measure was handed down out of concern over the unwanted "Communication Revolution" that was taking place in the country. 

Along with the suspension of service, the North Korean authorities are also strictly controlling the use of cell phones. One North Korean trader who goes back and forth from China said, "In Musan, North Hamgyeong province alone, the authorities have confiscated 300 cell phones as part of a recent concentrated crackdown in the border area. They've purchased a large number of the newest radar units from Japan and have begun to monitor radio waves 24 hours a day." 

He added that if authorities discover signals indicating someone has made a cell phone call to South Korea, that person is unconditionally sent to a political camp for reform. However, the game of hide and seek between cell phone users and the state security apparatus continues.   

15th National Computer Program Contest and Exhibition Held  

16 October 2004, The people's Korea

The 15th national computer program contest and exhibition was held at the Three-Revolution Exhibition from October 1 to 14. Displayed there were at least 640 excellent programs developed by scientists, researchers and students in the ministries, central organizations, research institutes and universities in the DPRK. From the programs, participants could obtain information on the current development of the DPRK’s economy in which foundations for information industry have already been laid. It could be seen that the desire to seek utility was reflected in the field of program development.

Many Programs Related to Economic Development Exhibited

Various age groups from schoolchildren to old people visited the exhibition day after day.

A poster of "kangsong 1.0," a program for the achievement of an economic balance

Exhibited there were programs for economic activities, development of energy including hydraulic power and wind power, development of education and so on.

“Kangsong 1.0” was developed by the Development Affairs Institute of the National Academy of Sciences. This was developed for the achievement of an economic balance and help to predict trends in the economy. This program is already introduced to the State Price Assessment Bureau and other organizations.

Exhibited there were also a program “Silri” to calculate an economic effect of standardization, comprehensive programs for financial planning and calculation; systems to support information services by the Thongil Street market, “Tosong 1.0,” and other programs.

Two years have passed since the DPRK government took economic measures to improve its economic management in July 2002, and in the exhibition there were shown useful programs to promote the measures scientifically.

Programs for Network Security Increased in Contest   

A poster of "Tosong 1.0," a program for support information services of Thongil street market.

The program contest was divided into four departments— “machine translation program” in which competition centered on the speed and precision of translation between Korean and foreign languages, a “contest in network security programs,” a “contest in virus vaccine programs” and a “contest in network management program for the ministries and central organizations.”

Contests in Korean chess programs and character recognition programs had been held many times before. This time, a lot of competitions related to network security were held, showing the present situation in which computer networks were broadly expanded in the DPRK. As networks expanded, programs for network security were exhibited in the exhibition.

Meanwhile, during the exhibition, various lectures on IT such as “The current trend in Information Business” and “About Technology for the Security of Computer Networks” were given by researchers at Kim Il Sung University, the Pyongyang Information Center, Kim Chek University of Technology and Kim Hyong Jik University of Education. In their lectures, the researchers provided information on the world trends in the development of computer technology. 

Programs for Actual Application to Economic Activity

This time, most programs were developed in anticipation of their actual application to economic activities and the spirit of actual merit was stressed in the programs. According to a person concerned with the exhibition, commercial talks were held on various programs actively between various research organizations and corporations during the exhibition.

Another person concerned with the exhibition said, “Specialization in the field of program development is a tendency and a feature of the current program contest. Scientists in the DPRK are making great effort to develop such programs which will contribute to the development of our country.”

Hermit Surfers of P'yongyang

by Stephen C. Mercado

The Internet, touted in much of the world as a vehicle for personal liberation, serves in North Korea as a pillar supporting Asia's most authoritarian government. The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) has embraced the World Wide Web as the latest means of acquiring, processing, and disseminating the foreign technical information required for domestic research and development, while at the same time barring the door against information contrary to its ideology. From P'yongyang and sites outside the capital, researchers surf the Web to acquire the latest technical data.

Meanwhile, overseas Koreans, particularly those residing in Japan, gather for their "fatherland" vast amounts of information with an ease unimaginable ten years ago. Inside North Korea, an "Intranet" serves as a means to disseminate technical information to research institutes, factories, and schools throughout the country. Accessing the latest foreign data on line from their place of work, North Korean researchers remain under the control of the authorities. The Internet thus limits the risks of foreign defection or ideological infection inherent in sending scientists abroad to study or attend international conferences.

In effect, a regime with a reputation for covert operations is also using open-source intelligence (OSINT) to pursue its interests. North Korea's military and intelligence units, given the history of the Korean War and postwar paramilitary and covert intelligence operations in South Korea and elsewhere, have made a deep impression on popular culture and specialists alike, from the South Korean spy movie Shiri (Swiri) to Joseph Bermudez's books on special forces. This article elaborates on the less-well-known fact that North Korea also places great store in OSINT, searching the globe for technical information that can advance its domestic objectives.

Separating Technology from Ideology

Exploiting the Internet is the latest development in a long global tradition of acquiring foreign technology while rejecting the ideology of its source. European scholars of the Middle Ages translated into Latin the works of Averroes (Ibn Rushd), Arzachel (Al-Zarqali), and other luminaries of the Arab world, whose knowledge of astronomy, medicine, and other sciences surpassed that of medieval Christendom. While embracing the scientific revelations of Arab civilization, Europe rejected the Islamic religion that constituted its foundation.

Asian rulers also have long accepted technical innovations from abroad while keeping out ideas inimical to their political order. Particularly adept at this practice, the Japanese acquired the fruits of Chinese technology over the centuries, while still developing their own distinct civilization. The Japanese slogan "wakon kansai" (Japanese spirit, Chinese learning) expressed the path taken.

Even the arrival of the first Europeans in the 16th century failed to turn Japan from its course. From early in the 17th century to the latter half of the 19th century, Japan's rulers severely restricted contacts with non-Asians as a means of maintaining the political order. The Japanese banned Christianity, forbade Japanese to travel abroad, expelled all Europeans, save the Dutch, and confined those last Westerners to a remote trading settlement in Nagasaki. Echoing North Korea today, the Japanese learned of Western developments in science through foreign publications brought by the Dutch--in 1856, the government established an institute in Tokyo for the extraction of information from Western publications. The penchant for OSINT continued after Japan's emergence from isolation, with translations of Western works flooding the empire while the authorities kept the population within narrow political bounds. Having turned from China to the West, the empire of Japan now operated on the basis of "wakon yosai" (Japanese spirit, Western learning).

Korea also displayed a talent early on for acquiring foreign knowledge while maintaining its own culture. The Korean elite, literate in Chinese, kept current with developments in the Middle Kingdom through the ages. In the 17th century, Matteo Ricci, J. Adam Schall von Bell, and other learned Jesuit missionaries introduced European science to China. Korea's Prince Sohyon, who came into contact with Fr. Schall during a period of Chinese captivity, returned to Korea with numerous Chinese translations of Western writings as well as terrestrial globes and astronomical charts. Under Western military pressure to end its isolation in the last half of the 19th century, Korea turned to OSINT for defense. The country built a modern warship armed with cannon based on descriptions in Haiguo Tuzhi (Illustrated Gazette of the Maritime Countries), a detailed account written by a Chinese official concerned with learning from the West. When American warships carrying over 600 men steamed into waters near Seoul in 1871 to force open the Hermit Kingdom, the Koreans fired the new cannon against the invaders.1

When Japan formally colonized Korea in 1910, the Korean elite turned from West to East to learn the latest in technology. Top Korean students attended university in Japan or received instruction in Japanese at academic institutions in Korea. They were the elite who led the industrial development of the peninsula following Japan's loss of empire in 1945. Kim Tong-il, for example, who made his mark in artificial textiles, spent the 1930s as a student of applied chemistry in the engineering faculty of Tokyo Imperial University before conducting research at a Japanese corporation. In the final years of World War II, he managed a factory of the Kyongsong Spinning and Weaving Company. After the war, he received a doctorate at Seoul National University and played a major role in the development of synthetic textiles in South Korea. North Korea's early scientific elite also included Dr. Ch'oe Sam-yol (a researcher at Japan's prestigious Institute of Physical and Chemical Research before becoming the first vice president of the DPRK Academy of Sciences) and Dr. Yi Sung-gi (a student and researcher of industrial chemistry at Kyoto Imperial University before leading the development of artificial textiles in North Korea).2

Developing the Information Infrastructure

Tensions from the postwar partition of the Korean peninsula into Russian and American zones of occupation led to a devastating war five years later and the division of the peninsula to this day into two hostile governments. Science and technology in the two Koreas developed along different paths. South Korea, for the most part, followed the United States and Japan in building its science establishment. North Korea, influenced from the start by the Soviet occupation and the country's subsequent ties to the Soviet bloc and Communist China, built its S&T structure along Moscow's lines.

In 1948, the year North Korea was formally established, P'yongyang sent more than 60 students to study in the Soviet Union. The following year, the two countries concluded their first aid agreement. In 1953, on the heels of the armistice ending the Korean War, North Korea signed another accord with the Soviet Union and concluded successive agreements that year with Hungary, East Germany, Romania, Bulgaria, Poland, and China. Nearly 1,000 Chinese technicians arrived that same year to help rebuild the country. North Korea established a science academy, with subordinate branches and research institutes, along Soviet lines to direct civilian R&D projects. At the end of 1953, a delegation from the DPRK Academy of Sciences left to visit counterparts in the Soviet Union.3

North Korea's exploitation of foreign technical information took a major step forward in 1963 with the establishment of the Central Scientific and Technological Information Agency (CSTIA) under the Academy of Sciences. The agency's mission, according to a monthly magazine, is "to collect, analyze, and process various data on advanced science and technology before sending them to every relevant field of the national economy." A listing of services in Kisul Hyoksin, the agency's monthly journal of technical innovation, included the searching, copying, and translating of information at customer request.4

According to The People's Korea, a newspaper published in Tokyo by an affiliate of the pro-DPRK General Association of Korean Residents in Japan (GAKRJ), the size of CSTIA's technical database makes it North Korea's "largest scientific facility."5 While figures on budgets and personnel are lacking as yardsticks by which to validate that claim, CSTIA leads the pack in publishing technical information. In recent years, the agency has accounted for 30 of 48 S&T periodicals put out by the six main scientific publishers. The Science and Technology Publishing House came in second place with 13 periodicals.6 An advertisement for CSTIA services in Kisul Hyoksin listed 15 technical bulletins dedicated to coverage of foreign S&T developments and a dozen others covering various aspects of science and technology.

Science and Foreign Languages

A review of CSTIA publications, particularly the foreign S&T bulletin series, reveals the importance of China, Japan, and Russia as sources of technical data, reflecting Korea's historical connections with these countries. Dictionaries also show P'yongyang's particular path to science. In the 1960s, the Academy of Sciences produced a monumental S&T dictionary in nine volumes. Its defining feature, reflected in the title, was a compilation of terms in seven languages: Korean, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, English, French, and German. The dictionary was updated and expanded in 1996. Grown to 18 volumes, it still maintained information in seven languages.7 In contrast, South Korean technical dictionaries in general are bilingual works in Korean and English, a reflection of the dominant role that the United States has played in the development of South Korean science and technology.

The North Korean Academy's monumental dictionaries bear witness to the foreign language hurdles that the country's scientists and technicians must overcome. North Korean leader Kim Il-song, while conducting an on-site inspection of the Academy of Sciences in March 1983, tasked the institution with seeing that all scientists put more effort into studying foreign languages. In response, the academy began competitions for scientists to demonstrate the ability "to translate and comprehend completely the latest global trends in scientific development and the data of scientific research results."8 Kim Il-song's instructions also reportedly account for the many translations and abstracts of overseas technical literature published by the academy.9 Yi Ch'ung-guk, who defected in 1993 from the Nuclear and Chemical Defense Bureau of the Korean People's Army, recalls that he and other students at the elite University of Science in the late 1980s had free access to many foreign science journals and books, even those from Japan and the United States. He says the students tended to push themselves to learn several foreign languages. According to Yi, "In particular, Japanese was so popular that the thinking was that if you could not master Japanese, you would not be able to become a scientist."10

Going Electronic

In recent years, North Korea has expanded its exploitation of foreign technical information by embracing information technology (IT). In 1999, CSTIA began selling in CD-ROM format an electronic multilingual S&T dictionary based on the 18-volume reference work published in 1996. A new version, Kwangmyong 2001, appeared two years later. The agency also offers encyclopedias, databases, journals, theses, and other products on CD-ROM.11 At the Grand People's Study House (GPSH), P'yongyang's equivalent to the Library of Congress, visitors can view CD-ROMs in an "electronic reading room." Reportedly, the GPSH has a computer catalogue room with "dozens" of terminals.12

The Internet has greatly enhanced the ease with which North Korea can acquire foreign data. Researchers can surf the Internet via a connection routed through the Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications.13 The accomplishments of Dr. Hwang Tok-man, a researcher on the biology faculty of Kim Il-song University, illustrate P'yongyang's embrace of IT. Her research focus has been the structural and functional analysis of proteins, or proteomics. She also has explored the intersection of biology and information technology, compiling a "huge" structural database.14 Using an IBM Aptiva S-series computer and data from the Protein Database of the US Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, she and a colleague examined the structure-function relationships of cellulases, enzymes that break down cellulose. They used the Align, Clustal V, and FASTA programs to compare the amino acid sequences and exploited overseas protein sequence databases to study the molecular evolution of a nuclease, an enzyme that splits nucleic acids.15

The Internet has also eased the collection burden born by pro-DPRK Koreans living overseas. An article on the Web site of the Korean Association of Science and Technology in Japan (KAST), part of the GAKRJ, describes the benefits of the Internet for KAST members who gather information in Japan for North Korea:

In Japan and other advanced countries of the world, the search for S&T literature has become extraordinarily convenient on account of the spread of the Internet. The memory is still recent of having had to go in the past to the National Diet Library, Patent Office, or a university library, searching for material and photocopying it. In order to obtain some items, one spent money on transportation, paid high copy fees, and used up a day. If it were a case of materials necessary for one's own research, then one would be accustomed to searching for it. But there were probably more than a few KAST members who toiled to find items requested by the Republic. That has given way to an era, in recent years, in which the necessary information can be had in abundance via one's own computer and stored without printing. For those who have toiled until now in gathering materials, the ease of collection is simply surprising.16

It is impossible to determine the volume of foreign technical literature that KAST has acquired for North Korea, but the Grand People's Study House offers some idea of the organization's importance. In 1988, the GPSH opened the Aeguk Reading Room to showcase over 500,000 published materials donated from overseas Koreans, primarily KAST members.17

In addition to enhancing foreign collection capabilities, the Internet has made dissemination of data within North Korea easier. Researchers based outside the capital no longer need to travel to P'yongyang for necessary information. For example, members of the Academy of Sciences, located on the outskirts of the capital, have for years commuted into the city on a particular train that "serves the convenience of the scientists to frequent the Grand People's Study House and other organs."18 Scientists now can access data of the GPSH, CSTIA, Kim Il-song University, and other data repositories via "Kwangmyong," the DPRK S&T Intranet developed in 1997. Kwangmyong consists of a browser, an e-mail program, news groups, a search engine, and a file transfer system, programs developed by CSTIA. The online version of CSTIA's Kwangmyong 2001 dictionary allows on-screen translation.19

The Internet and the Hermit Kingdom

While allowing researchers to use the Internet to keep current with global trends in science and technology, P'yongyang has been able to retain control over unwelcome political information. The government can promote scientific exploration while keeping researchers in country and under surveillance. Computers conducting Internet searches are more readily monitored than the photocopying machines that served to spread forbidden political tracts in the former Soviet Union. With Internet searches easily tracked and the penalties for political dissent grave, it is difficult to imagine scientists straying from technology sites. The same applies to the domestic Intranet, where technicians exchanging e-mail messages on political issues would run a serious risk of late-night knocks on the door by members of the security forces.

Information technology alone cannot guarantee the rule of Kim Chong-il or of his party. Yet, the ability to gather the latest technical information without sending people abroad or bringing Westerners in could help keep the political structure intact against a host of pressures. Much as Japan kept out foreign religious and ideological currents while importing Western technology, so P'yongyang's authorities could use the Internet for their own policy of "chohon yangjae" (Korean spirit, Western learning).

It is a significant irony of our information age that open-source intelligence is contributing to the survival and development of one of the world's most secretive regimes.

2. Modern Biographical Dictionary, p. 89; and Pak Ch'an-mo, "Pinallon Palmyong han 'Yi Sung-gi' Paksa Segyejok Myongsong [Global Renown of Dr. 'Yi Sung-ki,' Who Invented Vinalon]," Kwahak-kwa Kisul, March 2002, pp. 26-27.

3. Yi Chae-sung, Pukhan-ul Umjiginun T'ek'unok'urat'u [Technocrats Who Move North Korea] (Seoul: Ilbit, 1998), pp. 428, 454-56.

4. Kisul Hyoksin, 5 January 1999. It is worth noting here that government organs involved in searching the world for technical literature, then providing copies and translations to national research institutes and enterprises to help resolve technical problems or enhance commercial competitiveness are found around the world. CSTIA's equivalents in neighboring countries, for example, include the Japan Science and Technology Agency (http://www.jst.go.jp), the Institute of Scientific and Technical Information of China (http://www.istic.ac.cn/Eng/index_en.html), and the Korea Institute of Science and Technology Information (http://www.kisti.re.kr).

5. The agency is also known as the Central Information Agency of Science and Technology (CIAST). See Korea Today (February 20001) and "Strategic Plan for IT Revolution in DPRK," The People's Korea (25 August 2001), accessed at: http://www.korea-np.co.jp/pk. GAKRJ, for its part, is also known by its Japanese name, Chosen Soren.

6. Yi Chae-sung, pp. 64-66. The other four publishers of S&T periodicals listed were the Agricultural Publishing House, Kim Il-song University, the Industrial Publishing House, and the Medical Science Publishing House.

7. Academy of Sciences, ed., Ilgop-kae Kugo Kwahak Kisul Yongo Sajon [Dictionary of Science and Technology in Seven Languages] (P'yongyang: Academy of Sciences Publishing House, 1968), and Academy of Sciences, ed., Yoro Naramal Kwahak Kisul Yongo Sajon [Multilingual Dictionary of Scientific and Technical Terms] (P'yongyang: Academy of Sciences Publishing House, 1996).

8. Nodong Sinmun, 9 June 1998.

9. Yi Chae-sung, p. 64.

10. Yi Ch'ung-guk, Kin Seinichi no Kaku to Guntai [Kim Chong-il's Nuclear Weapons and Army] (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1994), p. 70.

11. KAST, accessed at: http:// www.19.xdsl.ne.jp/ ~kwahyop/DPRK/NEWS.HTM.

12. Nodong Sinmun, 21 February 2002.

13. KAST Web site. According to media reports published in late 2003 and early 2004, a German businessman is to connect North Korea to the World Wide Web, using filtering software similar to that reportedly used by Beijing and Havana to control Internet use. See, for example, a report of 29 December 2003, "North Korea Discovers the Internet," accessed at: http://australianit.news.au.com.

14. Minju Choson, 21 July 2001.

15. Hwang Tok-man and Kim Kwang-won, "Tanbaekchil Charyo Kiji Haesok e wihan Somyuso Punhae Hyosoui Kujo Kinung Yongwansong-ui Yongu (Che-il Po) [Structure-Function Relationships of Cellulases by Protein Database Analysis (Part 1)]," Saengmurhak, 14 April 1999, pp. 21-27; Hwang Tok-man and Kim Kwang-won, "Tanbaekchil Charyo Kiji Haesok e wihan Somyuso Punhae Hyosoui Kujo Kinung Yongwansong-ui Yongu (Che-i Po) [Structure-Function Relationships of Cellulases by Protein Database Analysis (Part 2)]," Saengmurhak, 14 July 1999, pp. 30-34; and Hwang Tok-man, Chong Sun-hwan, and Kim Kwang-won, "Nuk'ureaje P1-ui Punja Chinhwa e taehan Yongu [Research on Molecular Evolution of Nuclease P1]," Saengmurhak, 15 July 2000, pp. 8-13.

16. KAST Web site. KAST has been known in the past in Japan as the Association of Korean Scientists and Technicians (AKSTJ). It has also been called by its Korean abbreviation, "Kwahyop."

17. National Counterintelligence Executive, "Overseas Koreans Contributing Technical Literature to DPRK," News & Developments (September 2001), accessed at: http://www.ncix.gov/news/2001/sep01/html#article2.

18. "In Brief," Democratic People's Republic of Korea, September 1998, p. 32.

19. The Pyongyang Times, 31 March 2001 and 10 February 2001.

North Korea opens pilot Web portal

Friday, July 16, 2004 Posted: 0253 GMT (1053 HKT). 

SEOUL, South Korea (Reuters) -- Reclusive North Korea has been testing its first Web portal for the past month, but so far visitors have not been able to access the entertainment, shopping and free e-mail facilities it promises. The Naenara ("My Country") site at www.kcckp.net is based in Germany, and links to information on North Korean politics, tourism and trade, along with its official media and "real time" music and movies decorate the home page. The Web site, available in English and Korean, says it received more than 14,000 visitors on Wednesday. But visitors seeking the kind of content usually expected of commercial Web portals would have come up empty-handed. While the ubiquitous martial music of the world's most militarised state emanated from the page, links to e-mail service and multimedia content were not functioning. But visitors who registered could browse the latest news -- from June -- published by the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA), a mouthpiece of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il and his communist government.

KCNA has been available on the Internet for about five years on the Japan-based site www.kcna.co.jp . Another North Korean site, www.uriminzokkiri.com , publishes Pyongyang views from China. The new portal provides the North Korean telephone numbers of state trading companies that offer products ranging from "stylish dresses of fine workmanship" to ferrous and nonferrous metals. The launch follows the start of online gambling run by the North two years ago and an online shopping mall in the South that sells goods imported from the North. Naenara is located on a server based in Germany and was registered at the end of May, domain research service Whois.net says. Contact telephone numbers provided for the site's Web master are based in North Korea, whose leader Kim is believed to be an avid Web surfer himself. 

Full Internet Service in the DPRK to be Provided Soon

According to a recent report by Itar-Tass in Russia, in North Korea, only a minimum number of specific social-class people, such as staff members of international humanitarian support organs, including WFP, WHO and UNICEF,  have Internet access. These international bodies are occupants of buildings installed with  satellite parabolic antennas, hence, their staff members can enjoy a steady  and fast access to the Internet. So, foreigners residing in the NK who found  it next to impossible to gain access to the Internet, asked the UN to hire  some of its channels, only to be rejected on the pretext of security, according to the Itar-Tass. 

Moreover, a foreign investor who has tested Internet service in Pyongyang in  January of this year, 2004, announced that he would provide a full-fledged  Internet service until the middle of February. However, opening of the  service has been postponed several times, casting doubts on the forecast of  a successful service business, Itra-tass appraised. 

Currently, the only way to gain access to the Internet in North Korea is to  utilize the phone lines of Internet providers based in China. While this  service costs two euro per minute, it has the shortcoming of instability  that results from frequent cut-offs due to excessive use and over capacity,  the Russian news agency added.   Meanwhile, Itar-Tass revealed that high-ranking officials of the NK can  access the computer network of any country on the globe and they were  enjoying high-speed internet thanks to the optical fiber cables North Korea  purchased from China several years ago. Source: Itar-Tass, April, 13, 2004

North Korea promises 'secure' email service

AP, November 29, 2003. North Korea, an isolated country known for its totalitarian control on information, has begun an international email service that "guarantees the privacy of correspondence," an official news report said. 

North Korea, which had virtually shut out the world of the Internet, has begun opening its electronic borders in recent years. In 2001, a China-based Web site opened the first commercial email link to the communist country.

The new email service is provided by Pyongyang's International Communications Centre, according to its official Korean Central News Agency. "The email service guarantees the privacy of correspondence as it has a network security system," KCNA said. The brief dispatch provided few details on how to subscribe to the service.

North Korea keeps a tight lid on its hunger-stricken 22 million people to shield them from outside influence. Few ordinary North Koreans are believed to have computer and email access. TV sets and radios come with fixed channels so that people can only watch or listen to government-controlled media.

But leader Kim Jong Il is known as an Internet surfer. When then US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Pyongyang in 2000, Kim asked for her email address.

Kim has often emphasised the importance of computer technology. Foreign visitors can link their computers to the Internet through international phone lines available in a few hotels in Pyongyang. An Internet cafe has also opened in the North Korean capital, according to recent visitors.

North Korea's debut on the Internet poses a new security threat to South Korea. In 2001, prosecutors arrested six South Korean activists for exchanging unauthorised emails with North Korean officials.

South Korea encourages economic and cultural exchanges with North Korea. But it remains illegal for South Koreans to exchange emails and letters with North Koreans without government permission.

The border between the two Koreas remains sealed and heavily fortified after their division in 1945 and the 1950-53 Korean War, which ended in an armistice.

NK-Foreign Country All Day Long E-Mail Exchange Possible

[Beijing, KOTRA] Sili Bank (www.silibank.com), a North Korea-based internet website involved in the e-mail service business between Pyongyang and foreign countries, launched a 24-hour e-mail service via its newly-established “dedicated line.” 

The bank posted the following message on the bulletin board of its website, “To reduce the communication service fee, as well as to enhance speed and accuracy, Sili Bank has established a dedicated line between the servers in Pyongyang and Shenyang and kick-started an e-mail relay service through the line. We are confident that the establishment of the dedicated line will contribute to a speedy and accurate 24-hour e-mail service.” Prior to the establishment of the dedicated line, the bank has reportedly relayed e-mails once an hour. 

The bank disclosed in its Nov. 24 notice that as part of its ongoing investments to build a more convenient and fast communication environment for customers, it has replaced the conventional internet-access lines in Shenyang with 10Mbps fiber-optic cables. To exchange e-mails with North Korea via the bank’s charged service, users should subscribe to the site first, which requires a guarantee of an existing user. Since May 10, 2003, the service fee has been calculated according to the size of e-mail messages. Details of the charges are as follows: 

(*Source: Heilongjiang Newspaper, Nov. 15) 

North Korean Software on Internet Sale

[Los Angeles, KOTRA] Pyongyang Informatics Centre (PIC), a North Korean computer program developer, opened its website (www.pic-international.com) in Singapore to sell its electronic publication programs such as 'Dangun', 'Changdeok' and 'Seochejib', and design programs such as 'Sanak' and 'Mujigae'. Also, multimedia programs, such as 'Chosun's History and Nation', 'Korea - a Country of Morning Calm', and 'Samcheolli', are available on order. 

A PIC official said, “PIC has clinched a flurry of program orders from overseas and successfully satisfied the demand of our customers. We expect active cooperation and interest from foreign IT businesses and research institutes.” Founded on July 15, 1986, PIC has been engrossed in developing computer programs and devices with some 200 specialists who studied at the country’s renowned universities such as Kim Ilsung University, Kim Chaek College of Science and Technology, College of Science and Pyongyang College of Computer Technology. It has created presence in China, Japan and Singapore. 

In-house technology includes: Linux-interface programs, network development and service, karaoke editing system, Korean publication program, document editing program, fonts, character recognition, translation of machine language, 3-D CAD, web programs, development of multimedia contents, set-up of business database and accounting projects. Meanwhile, the PIC website specifies that its service is provided in both Korean and English. (Source: PIC website and reports of the local press (Nov. 21, 2003)) 

NORTH CLAIMS RISE IN EXPORTS OF COMPUTER SOFTWARE

JoongAng Ilbo 7 November 2002.

North Korea proudly disclosed its 2002 exports of computer software doubled year-on-year since 2001. The official Korean Central Broadcasting said Mansong Technical Development Company, one of the country's software producers and exporters, has been quite successful in developing various Internet applications, including an online conference system, reservation system, a system for compatibility of various bookkeeping programs, certification system and more. ..//.. A South Korean businessman, Kim Bom-hoon, who recently returned from a lengthy stay in the North, testified recently that the country's schools currently produce over 2,000 computer programmers a year.

Program training at Pyongyang Information Centre

Pyongyang, November 7 (KCNA) -- A short course of program is going on at the program development institute and training school which was opened at the Pyongyang Information Centre on September 27. The short course, which started on November 1, deals with technologies of multi-media programs, computer networks, management and database programs, architectural designing programs and other programs which are popular at home and abroad. Participating in the short course, divided into two groups of experts and amateurs, are officials, researchers, technicians and workers in different sectors and peasants. The short course lasts one or two months. 2,000 people will take part in short-term courses on an yearly average to learn how to develop effective software needed in different domains of national economy. The training school is equipped with more than 300 up-to-date computers and modern facilities. Lecturers are researchers and technicians who have contributed to the country's it development by making world-famous programs.

New electronic dictionary

Pyongyang, November 1 (KCNA) -- The Central Scientific and Technological Information Agency of the DPRK has made a new multilingual dictionary of science and technology. The computer dictionary helps one read scientific and technical information in Korean, English, German, French, Russian, Chinese and Japanese. It contains more than three million vocabularies of 18 scientific and technical sectors ranging from such fundamental science as mathematics, physics and chemistry to such applied science as electronics, electric engineering, information and mechanical engineering. It also includes a large number of modern scientific and technical vocabularies. The dictionary is popular among scientists as it is very convenient for use.

Chongbong Information Center

Pyongyang, October 28 (KCNA) -- The English-Korean translation system "Chongbong 1.0" came first in a national program competition and exhibition. It was developed recently by the Chongbong Information Center, one of the leading software bases of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The Chongbong Information Center has greatly contributed to the development of the country's program technique by developing a lot of effective programs. Typical of them are the Korean input system, Korean OCR Program and Korean-Japanese translation program. The programs developed by the center are exported to other countries including Russia, China and India. The center also offers the program order service in the way of dealing the language information with computer. Most of the centre's computer experts are young people in their 20s. The center is now concentrating on developing an automatic interpreting program.

Сотовая связь в Пхеньяне

Северная Корея, долгое время остававшаяся самой закрытой страной на Азиатском континенте, постепенно приподнимает завесу таинственности, ограждавшую ее от всего остального мира.

Недавно страну посетило беспрецедентно большое число иностранных туристов и журналистов, приехавших на грандиозный фестиваль «Ариранг», где 100 тыс. человек одновременно исполняли танец, двигаясь почти со сверхъестественной синхронностью. В Пхеньяне, столице Северной Кореи, можно было принять достаточно стабильный сигнал от сети мобильной связи. В этом мы смогли убедиться лично, воспользовавшись сотовыми телефонами, которые мне и коллегам-журналистам разрешили ввезти в страну. Видимо, можно доверять заявлениям руководства страны об официальном открытии сети сотовой связи в ближайшие месяцы.

Источник сигналов GSM-сети идентифицировать не получилось, да и сигнал CDMA, соответствующий китайским стандартам, остался неопознанным, но само расположение Пхеньяна (около 200 км от границ Китая и Южной Кореи) заставляет предположить, что сигналы эти были все же локальными.

Сейчас единственная деятельность, связанная с развертыванием мобильной связи, о которой официально сообщают государственные средства массовой информации, — это создание сети в особой экономической зоне Рейджин-Санбонг, зоне свободной торговли, где сходятся границы Северной Кореи, России и Китая.

Контракт сроком на 30 лет на поддержку служб связи в 1995 году получила компания Northeast Asia Telephone and Telecommunications. Основные же активы принадлежат государственной телекоммуникационной корпорации Korea Posts and Telecommunication. Сеть GSM этой компании пока еще не функционирует, но коммерческая служба будет открыта уже в этом году.

Аналогичный контракт сроком на 30 лет, предусматривающий создание международного телефонного шлюза и мобильной сети, был подписан с зарегистрированной на Бермудах компанией Lancelot Holdings, в этом году выкупленной у гонконгской Sun’s Group.

Открытие сети сотовой сети станет серьезным шагом в развитии телекоммуникаций в этой стране. Достаточно сказать, что согласно отчету, подготовленному компанией Paul Budde Communication, доля цифровых линий связи составляет менее 5%.

Этой сетью, скорее всего, сначала будут пользоваться члены правительства и деятели Корейской трудовой партии. Будут ли услуги данной сети доступны для простых граждан, пока неизвестно; полному открытию коммерческой службы препятствуют два серьезных момента. Во-первых, уровень средней заработной платы жителей Пхеньяна очень низок. Помимо стоимости услуг сотовой связи есть еще одна серьезная для здешних властей проблема. По мнению аналитика Пола Бадди, мешает отсутствие средств эффективно вести мониторинг сети: «Самое серьезное препятствие на пути быстрого развертывания этой системы связано с тем, что устройства, выполняющие мониторинг переговоров по сотовым телефонам, пока недостаточно надежны, а правительство считает, что нельзя открыть систему мобильной связи, не имея возможности ее контролировать». (Источник: Computerworld, #32/2002 , 03.09.2002, Мартин Уильямс in Russian)

NORTH ON THE NET? THIS MAN SAYS YES

Joongang Ilbo reported that an ROK businessman now in Pyongyang says he and a DPRK company have opened a joint-venture Internet room in Pyongyang. The announcement was posted on the Hoonnet Co. Web site in the form of a letter from the firm's CEO, Kim Beom-hun, which he reportedly sent from the Pyongyang. Kim said the new facility would charge $50 for 30 minutes of access and $10 per 10 minutes thereafter. ROK is apparently unhappy about the venture and Kim has been ordered home by the Unification Ministry, a company source said, but is unlikely to return immediately. Kim's letter said the PC room would serve DPRK citizens as well as foreign clients; that is unlikely because of both censorship and the daunting price. ("NORTH ON THE NET? THIS MAN SAYS YES," Seoul, 05/28/02)

NKorea Unveils Software Industry

There's an unlikely new competitor in the computer software market — North Korean leader Kim Jong Il. Kim's government opened a trade show Saturday at a Beijing hotel to promote the work of its software developers, a previously unknown industry that the secretive communist regime hopes will help to revive a famine-wracked economy. The force behind it all, North Korean officials said, is Kim himself, the reclusive and authoritarian leader whose face appeared on portraits throughout the show. ``The great general Kim Jong Il is devoted constantly'' to information technology, Kim Ho, an official of North Korea's Academy of Sciences, said at a news conference.

On Sunday and Monday, organizers say developers will display more than 100 products, from translation programs to video games. ``We'll see whether they have any depth of skills,'' said Eric Sheridan, an American software executive who is based in Hong Kong and attended the presentation. U.S. law bars trade with North Korea — which President Bush has called part of an ``axis of evil'' — but Sheridan said he wanted to know about possible future suppliers for his California firm if that rule changes. Software adds to a jumble of ventures launched by North Korea for an economy that lies in ruins after decades of communist mismanagement. Flood and drought since the mid-1990s have left the government in Pyongyang dependent on foreign aid to feed its 22 million people.

The North farms ostriches, runs a casino for foreigners and rents out laborers to Russia. South Korean factories in the North make textiles and assemble cars and electronics. The United States and other governments say North Korea also trades in missiles, drugs and counterfeit $100 bills. The isolated North makes an unusual player in the freewheeling world of software and the borderless Internet.

But Kim Jong Il has been said for years to be encouraging high technology. He has visited China at least twice to study its reforms and last year toured a Shanghai software laboratory. This year, North Korea has a booth for the first time at Comdex, China's annual computer trade show, under way in Beijing this month separately from the North Korean exhibition. The North Korean booth at Comdex had no software on display Saturday, but computer terminals were hooked up to a North Korean Web site. Some showed a picture of the smiling face of Kim's father, the late ``Great Leader'' Kim Il Sung, whose personality cult was inherited by his son.

The U.S. trade ban shuts North Korea out of the biggest software market. The ban dates to the 1950-53 Korean War, when American troops fought alongside the forces of rival South Korea. Yet the North Koreans at the presentation Saturday seemed well-versed in Western standards. They said their programs run on both major American operating systems — Microsoft Corp.'s Windows and Apple Corp.'s Macintosh. ``It could be all just bunk. It's hard to say,'' said Sheridan. Or, he said, ``behind their curtain, they could have people who are really knowledgeable and plugged into the industry abroad.''

There were plenty of reminders of North Korea's intensely isolated culture of propaganda, based on an almost religious adulation of Kim and his father. Their portraits looked down from above the speakers, who wore badges with the elder Kim's portrait and peppered their comments with references to ``demolishing imperialism'' and other communist slogans. The officials said the North hopes to branch out into software for e-commerce, biotechnology and artificial intelligence. ``The government gives us a lot of assistance. Our information technology industry will surely develop very quickly,'' said Li Chen Jin, director of the North's Academy of Sciences. Source: The Associated Press, 20 Apr 2002

Ethnic Koreans in US Join NGO's PC Drive for NK

Korea Times, 14 April 2002. Korean-Americans are joining a campaign led by the Institute for Strategic Reconciliation (ISR) to send personal computers to North Korea, the Washington-based non-governmental organization said Friday. Korean-Americans contributed heavily to the ISR's purchase of 100 Pentium PCs, which are ready for donation," said Jeon Yeong-il, chief of the organization dedicated to helping North Korea. He said Korean-American professionals in the computer sector will lead the PC-donation campaign for North Korean students in the future. Launched in 1998, ISR has sent medical supplies seven times to North Korea under the approval of the U.S. Department of Treasury. It plans to provide 1,000 PCs to middle and high schools in North Korea and build a computer-related research institute there sometime between 2003 and 2004. 

Pyongyang Computer Program Expo Shows Signs of Fast-Growing Software Industry of DPRK

Demonstrating about 270 kinds of creative computer programs developed by top-class universities and institutes, the annual software exhibition in Pyongyang impressed the visitors with rapidly developing software industry in the DPRK under the policy of “attaching great importance to science.” The 11th national computer program contest and exhibition was held between October 26 and November 11 in Pyongyang. Programs exhibited were developed each by 11 universities including Kim Il Sung University, Han Duk Su Light Industry University and seven organizations including the State Planning Commission, the Academy of Social Sciences, the Pyongyang Informatics Center and Kim Man Yu Hospital...

New computer library developed

Pyongyang, March 19 (KCNA) -- The Central Scientific and Technological Information Agency of Korea developed a computer library "Mt. Paektu, the holy mountain of revolution." This can serve as an encyclopedia for the education in the revolutionary traditions. It has 11 parts. In the part dealing with the three generals of Mt. Paektu the short biographies of President Kim Il Sung, leader Kim Jong Il and anti-Japanese war woman hero Kim Jong Suk are accompanied with photographs, fine art works and animation files. The part dealing with the revolutionary traditions has a computer dictionary with an entry of over 8,000 vocabularies related to the revolutionary traditions put in an alphabetical order and in the form of classified search. 

The part dealing with original materials on the revolutionary traditions and legend about Mt. Paektu has famous works of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il with at least 200,000 pages and main books on the revolutionary traditions including the president's reminiscences "with the century". It also deals with at least 600 revolutionary legends. The part on trees bearing slogans deals with original letters of at least 5,000 slogans and their photos with sub-titles and maps showing the places where they were discovered and their location. 

The library has a chronicle and diary on the revolutionary traditions and 300 stereoscopic maps and 600 plane maps helpful to the study tour of Mt. Paektu. Also contained in the library are main scenes of 100 feature films and documentary films processed as animation files, 3,500 photos and paintings and 100 revolutionary songs and a series of multimedia editions. The computer library is greatly instrumental in making a perfectly fruitful study tour of Mt. Paektu as it comprehensively deals with the revolutionary history of the three generals of Mt. Paektu. It is worth one more national treasure created in the era of the army-based revolution. 

Pyongyang University of Computer Technology

Pyongyang, January 25 (KCNA) -- Pyongyang University of Computer Technology located in the center of Pyongyang was founded in Juche 74 (1985). The university has the faculty of computer technology, the faculty of information technology, the faculty of preparatory education and the information study centre. The three-year university has produced more than 4,000 computer and it engineers. The graduates are now playing a great role in the introduction of new technology and production and management in different sectors of the national economy. An increasing state and public concern is shown for the university.

North Korea to Introduce Limited Mobile Phone System

Chosun Ilbo, January 24, 2002. North Korea is preparing to launch a mobile telephone system, with a communications switchboard and cellular phone terminals imported from China. The switchboard and terminals are produced by the telecommunications firm C, which supplies equipment to China's state-run mobile communications corporation, according to mobile communications experts in Seoul. "Since the Chinese-assembled switchboard has only several thousand circuits, the mobile phone system appears to be only for key party personnel, the administration and military stationed in Pyongyang," observed an expert. North Korean Communications Minister Ri Kum Bom's visit to China last September may have involved the introduction of the equipment, he added. 

The introduction of a mobile phone network was apparently ordered by National Defense Commission Chairman Kim Jong Il, who reportedly said it was needed by April 15, 2002 (the anniversary of the birth of the late President Kim Il Sung), upon his return home from a tour of Shanghai, China last January. It is uncertain, however, if the North will manage to launch a cellular phone system in Pyongyang by April 15. The biggest hurdle is the fact that devices monitoring cellular phone conversations have yet to be secured, said the experts. Even if the supply of portable telephones is limited to key party, administration and military officials, whose ideologies and loyalty to the state are verified, Pyongyang would find it hard to open a mobile phone system without it being monitored, reasoned the experts, since there is no guarantee that the system won't be abused by dissidents. 

The mobile communications switchboard the North has imported is said to be of code division multiple access (CDMA), in which letters and voice are coded and transmitted simultaneously. Commenting on if it is appropriate for North Korea to open a mobile phone system in the capital only, a communications expert said, "Countries like the Ukraine, whose communications networks are less developed, have launched mobile telephone systems in an area or city only, before expanding them nationwide." The introduction of a mobile phone system in Pyongyang is estimated to cost millions of US dollars, as a mobile communications switchboard alone costs nearly US$1 million, more expensive than a relay station, covering 10km in radius and for the system to operate, the network has to have a number of such stations.

IT School Set Up

Pyongyang, January 14 (KCNA) -- A new school of information technology (IT) was set up at the academy of sciences in the DPRK. The purpose of this school is to train it personnel. A program school and a school for training IC (Integrated Circuit) skilled workers run by institutes of information technology under the academy in the past will operate as its parent body. It has various faculties such as program, digital control and precision machine and admits graduates of senior middle schools who have a particular penchant for engineering. Its teaching staff will include prominent scientists and technicians at the institutes of mathematics, physics, etc. under the academy. Great importance will be attached to practice. Schoolers will undergo training at different institutes under the academy after classes. 

New Scientific and Technological Books Come off Press

Pyongyang, January 5 (KCNA) -- Many scientific and technological books are being published in the DPRK. The science and encyclopedia publishing house brought out over ten scientific and technological books such as "Program Language" (computer basics), "Actuality and Depiction of Photographic Art", "Plastic Surgery", "Digestive Surgery", and "Clinical Surgery of Hypertensive Cerebral Hyperemia". "Plastic Surgery" deals with theoretical and practical issues arising in putting congenital and postnatal disorder or morphological abnormal symptom to a normal condition or a condition close to normal. "Clinical surgery of hypertensive cerebral hyperemia" shows clinical experience and achievements gained in clinical surgery practice of hypertensive cerebral hyperemia for many years and information gathered from inside and outside the country. 

"Computer language" and "change of marine resource and its management", "questions and answers as to technology related to sea culture" and others were published by the industrial publishing house. "Computer language" contains at least 3,000 words of hardware and software which had been developed until Juche 89 (2000). These words are given in a Korean alphabetical order. Last year also witnessed the publication of many other scientific and technological books including "biosphere sanctuary of Mt. Paektu" and "Taking Care of Hen" by the Agricultural Publishing House, the Railway Publishing House and the Sports and Physical Culture Publishing House. 

North Korea to Expand Communication Network System 

International Herald Tribune, January 7, 2002. North Korea plans to expand its Kwangmyong computer network service to bring the information highway to the provinces, reported a North Korean magazine published monthly in Japan. Monthly Jogguk reported in its January edition that the whole country is rapidly developing a communication network that will link the country and informationalize all sectors of society. The article said North Korea is fast entering the information age with its computer usage having increased by over 4.6 times during the last two years. 

Jogguk also disclosed the North is in the process of computerizing power plants and factories under the ministry of Power and Coal Industries as well as additional automatic management systems in ranches and other production sites. Meanwhile the Kwangmyong network, administered and operated by the Central Scientific and Technological Information Agency, was developed in 1997 to offer services of technological data-search, e-mail, Web site search and file transmission services to the people. So far various state agencies and public facilities, including Kim Il Sung University, the Grand People's Study Hall, the Invention Bureau of the National Academy of Sciences, committees and ministries of the cabinet and the state agencies, and regional networks receive the benefit.

N. KOREA BEGINS E-MAIL SERVICE

The Korea Herald reported that the DPRK has launched an Internet e-mail service, allowing foreigners to exchange electronic messages with people in the DPRK, according to service providers. Silibank (www.silibank.com), an Internet service provider based in Shenyang, PRC, announced on its homepage that it has allowed foreign members to exchange e-mail with DPRK citizens since December 1. ("N. KOREA BEGINS E-MAIL SERVICE," Seoul, 12/04/01)

NORTH KOREA MEMBER TO GLOBAL NETWORK SWIFT

Joongang Ilbo reported that the DPRK became a new member of the global trade network called SWIFT, which establishes a system for settling transactions abroad. The DPRK's entrance into the SWIFT messaging service (which covers over 7,330 financial institutions in 194 countries) and its usage of SWIFT interface software indicates that the DPRK's major settlement dealings would be well exposed to the Western World. According to related institutions, DPRK authorities requested SWIFT's Hong Kong branch (SWIFT ASIA) this summer to aid its nation in establishing a settlement system, and an official from Hong Kong was dispatched to build a full system in Pyongyang. The DPRK is also expected to equip itself with a trade settlement system next year in accordance with the policy of SWIFT that calls for business-to-business settlement service via Internet. ("NORTH KOREA MEMBER TO GLOBAL NETWORK SWIFT," Seoul, 11/12/01)

E-Mail Your Friends in North, If You Have the Right Friends

Dong-a Ilbo, November 01, 2001. Beginning in December, people may exchange e-mail with North Koreans through a web site North Korea is test-operating. North Korea has installed two servers each in China and Pyeongyang and opened an Internet web site, Sillibank ( http://www.silibank.com ). North Korea also operates two other sites DPRKorea Infobank ( http://www.dprkorea.com ), to provide information on trade, cultural and athletic developments and to serve North Koreans living abroad; and through the Singapore branch of the Pyeongyang Information Center at http://www.pic-international.com . But only on Silibank may members exchange e-mail. People can register their names, country and the persons or institutions in the North that they wish to exchange e-mail with. The site manager checks out the proposed contacts before granting permission to use the web site for a membership fee of $100. Only approved members may exchange mail. Charges begin at $1.50 for e-mails amounting to less than 10 kilobytes and rise as volume increases. The services are limited but illustrate the possibility of North Korea lifting online barriers. Silibank was established by Chinese and ethnic Koreans living in China in partnership with a North Korea corporation. An associate of the company said that it cannot disclose the North Korean counterpart, but it is a smaller firm than the Pyeongyang Information Center and Korean Computer Centre that do business with South Korean firms.  

EMAIL TO NORTH KOREA?

Website Offers Email Links to N.Korea. The NYT-AP, November 1, 2001. 

SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- A website is offering the first commercial e-mail link to North Korea, which has virtually shut out the world of the Internet. Silibank.com -- a company based in Shenyang in northeast China, and supported by the North Korean government -- said it installed server computers in the city and in Pyongyang, the North Korean capital, in early October and is running an experimental e-mail service. The service is limited for now to only those who want to exchange e-mails with North Korean trade companies, government agencies or other official organizations. E-mail service for ordinary North Korean citizens is being discussed with authorities in Pyongyang, a Silibank.com official in Shenyang said in a telephone interview. He declined to be named. North Korea's Stalinist regime keeps a tight lid on its hunger-stricken 22 million people to shield them from outside influence.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has recently emphasized the importance of computer technology, however. The country has opened modern computer labs and distributed computers to schools. It also has its own domestic computer network called Kwang Myung, meaning ``light,'' but it is not linked to the Internet. Foreign visitors can link their computers to the Internet only through international phone lines available only in a few hotels in Pyongyang. Silibak.com said it has only 10 subscribers so far for its service, which is exorbitant by international standards. According to its price table, most text e-mails can be sent for $1.5-2. But sending a photograph of 8 megabits, for example, costs $300. The company is offering free service for the first 100 subscribers for the next six months.During the experimental phase, Silibank.com will transmit e-mails in and out of North Korea only once every hour.

South Korean officials said they were studying the new e-mail service. South Korea encourages economic and cultural exchanges with North Korea following their historic summit last year. But it remains illegal for South Koreans to exchange e-mails and letters with North Koreans without government permission. In August, prosecutors arrested six South Korean activists on charges of exchanging unauthorized e-mails with North Korean officials. 

Anniversary of Kim Jong Il's work observed

Pyongyang, October 28 (KCNA) -- Rodong Sinmun today dedicates an article to the 10th anniversary of leader Kim Jong Il's famous work "Let us effect a new turn in scientific and technological development". This work was published on Oct. 28, Juche 80 (1991). It elucidates the importance and significance of developing science and technology in defending and glorifying Korean socialism, the issue of establishing Juche in scientific researches and scientific and technological problems in putting the national economy on a Juche-oriented, modern and scientific basis. 

It says: The last decade is a proud period in which the Workers' Party of Korea's idea of attaching importance to science has been successfully embodied and great successes have been made in the field of science and technology under the wise leadership of Kim Jong Il. Kim Jong Il has wisely led the work for the scientific and technological development of the country. This is evidenced by the fact that he set forth the original idea of attaching importance to science, indicated a short cut to building a powerful nation and saw to it that all state efforts were directed to the field of science and technology. It is also proved by the fact that he has shown great care and trust in the scientists and technicians and led them to creditably play their role in building a powerful nation. It goes on: The WPK's idea of attaching importance to science represents the great pluck and will of Kim Jong Il to put the science and technology of the country on a world level as early as possible and achieve successes of world significance in the scientific and technological field. 

It is the firm faith of Kim Jong Il not to spare any investment in the scientific and technological development for the prosperity of the country and happiness of all generations to come. Deeply concerned for science and education, he has provided up-to-date computers and educational equipment necessary for the development of the it by spending a huge amount of fund, and shown deep trust and love for the scientists and technicians. Thanks to his loving care many heroes of the times were produced from among the scientists and technicians in the period of the "arduous march" and forced march and more dependable youth scientists are being trained to occupy a high eminence of ultra-modern science and technology. The 21st century is a century of great national prosperity in which the Korean people will build a nation strong in science and technology by using the existing potentials to the maximum under the leadership of Kim Jong Il, the article concludes. 

NORTH DISPATCHES ITS SOFTWARE EXPERT TO JAPAN

Joongang Ilbo reported that the DPRK has been dispatching its computer experts to a software company in Japan to jointly develop a computer program since last year. The ROK's Korea Trade Investment Promotion Agency (KOTRA) disclosed the fact on September 23, citing the words of Kim Ki-chol, vice-chairman of the DPRK's Chosun Computer Center, who said, "We have been launching a joint project with Japan's Dejiko Soft Company for about a year and are looking forward to an opportunity to promote our software standard and make headway to the international market. We have been dispatching our experts from four main high-tech institutions in the nation including Kim Il Sung University, Kim Chaek University, the Academy of Sciences and the College of Science. We plan to consider increasing our delegation if the demand rises." (Kim Hee-sung, "NORTH DISPATCHES ITS SOFTWARE EXPERT TO JAPAN," Seoul, 09/24/01)

NK Nearly Ready to Access Internet

Lee Kyo Kwan [email protected]  2001- 9-13 

North Korea, the only country in the world that is yet to be linked to the Internet, appears to have nearly completed preparations for access. "Science World," a scientific journal published in North Korea, showed in its April edition last year an ordinary but significant diagram, titled "Intranet," showing a system for a fire wall, installed between the Internet and the intranet, to screen and control information flowing between the two. It is taken as a sign that Pyongyang, prior to opening itself to the Internet, is building an information monitoring and control system. "The diagram indicates that North Korea, having completed a study on a fire wall, to a certain extent, is preparing itself for an access to the Internet," says a South Korean information technology expert familiar with the North. 

Pyongyang is likely to permit access to the Internet within the year, according to a reliable source. "North Korea has been expediting preparations in recent months judging that partial access to the Internet will be feasible within the year," commented the source. The North, which has not used its national domain designation "kp," has reportedly been test-using e-mail addresses incorporating it since June. 

Kim Chol Hwan, CEO of Gigalink Ltd., whose firm installed a superhighway communication device using telephone line "T-line" at the Pyongyang Information Center (PIC) in March, says, "North Korea has completed the construction of a fire wall." Professor Pak Chan Mo at the Pohang Institute of Science and Technology, specialized in electronics, adds, "The North has conducted a study on fire walls for years with Japanese scholars participating. This can be seen as a part of preparations for accessing the Internet." 

North Korea is also reportedly busy coding information flowing through the intranet linking ministries, IT research institutions such as the Korea Computer Center (KCC) and PIC, universities, and business establishments. The coding is aimed at blocking outside hacking once the North is hooked up to the Internet. 

North Korean authorities are conducting an ideological checkup of people engaged in computer work, according to sources, and it is hard to assess the scope of linkage once the North permits access to the Internet. Only a few special agencies such as the office of National Defense Commission chairman Kim Jong Il and the State Security Agency use the Internet with optical communications lines supplied by China Telecom. Internet sites publicizing the North Korean system have been established in China and Japan and elsewhere. When the North is linked to the Internet on its own, Pyongyang is expected to use the artificial satellite formula. President Cho Hyon Jung of Bitcomputer Ltd. agreed in June with the KCC on Internet access through satellites, which is underway for targeted completion by the end of this month. 

Even if the North does complete preparations for Internet access, it will be quite a while before the Internet is popularized in the North. North Korean people using the Internet are anticipated to be extremely few in number, confined mainly to those who develop computer software. 

Rason Telecommunications Centre opens

Rason, August 25 (KCNA) -- The Rason International Telecommunications Centre was opened. The centre will contribute to fully meeting the increasing needs for telecommunications in Rason area, a cargo transit point, and further promoting the economic development among the countries of north east Asia and their cooperation in telecommunications. Present at the opening ceremony held on August 25 were minister of Post and Telecommunications Ri Kum Bom, officials concerned and foreign guests from China, Thailand and other countries. At the ceremony speakers said that the course in which the centre was built provided an occasion of strengthening cooperation among companies of the DPRK, Thailand, China and other countries. The centre has been built as a comprehensive telecommunications centre, which not only renders international, city and other local telecommunications service but makes other services including training, they noted. A reception was given on that evening on the occasion of the opening of the centre. 

Telecommunications centre

Pyongyang, August 21 (KCNA) -- The Rason International Telecommunications Centre has been built. It is run by the North-East Asia Telephone and Telecommunications Co., Ltd., sponsored by the DPRK Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and Loxley Pacific Co., Ltd. of Thailand. This means the completion of a telecommunications system providing access to the international network. Loxley Pacific Co., Ltd. established a 30 year telecommunications network concession for the zone in a 28 million investment in April 1996. Telephone automation has been introduced through a digital telephone exchange and a data exchange facility. Rason city and china are linked with optical fibre cables. in addition, a comprehensive digital telecommunications centre has been built at a cost of 15 million. the centre, housed in a nine-storey building, has a total area of 7,000 square metres. The installation of additional networks, including internet, wireless pager and mobile telephone networks, is planned. 

INTER-KOREAN IT COMPLEX TO BE COMPLETED WITHIN THIS YEAR

Joongang Ilbo reported that the first-ever inter-Korean IT complex is likely to be completed by late this year in Pyongyang. Ntrack Co., approved as the business partner of inter-Korean IT project, held a joint press conference with its other business groups in the ROK to announce the likely completion of the IT complex in Pyongyang within this year. The agreement has the animation-producing Hahn Shin Cooperation and online game contents service provider Global Web to make a use of IT personnel in the DPRK in producing and exporting animation, game and internet software. The upcoming IT complex will be constructed at a site as large as 26,000 pyong (85,800 square meters) with a total floor space of 5,400 pyong (17,820 square meters). As a first step, a 500-pyong (1,650 square meters) large research center is expected to be established within next month. "North Korea has big hopes for the latest IT complex and we have reconfirmed that fact from out latest business trip to Pyongyang," Lim Wan-geun the representative of the
Ntrack said. "We plan to seek more business partners ahead to make full use of the North's 2,500 IT workers," he added. ("INTER-KOREAN IT COMPLEX TO BE COMPLETED WITHIN THIS YEAR," Seoul, 08/08/01)

Achievements in science

Pyongyang, August 4 (KCNA) -- Scientists have registered notable achievements in research and development in their efforts to put the country's scientific and technological standards on a world level and give spur to information technology. With the adoption of latest scientific successes and computer technology, the academy of agricultural science has made progress in cultivating fast-growing and early-ripening seeds, high-yielding seeds with no or less use of chemical fertilizers and high-yield crops resistant to cold and raising animals of good breeds. Scientists at a branch of the academy of light industry have developed a series of processing techniques and facilities to produce instant potato and fermented foodstuffs which gain public favour in service networks.Fish breeding institute under the branch academy of fishing industry has developed new breeds of fish relying on domestic source of fodder. The automation institute and others under the academy of science have ensured information service in production process and management and developed a computerized production control system needed for comprehensive automation, which has proved successful in ministries of the cabinet, factories and enterprises. Korea Computer Centre plays due role in the development of the country and building-material branch under the academy of science has developed a building design support programme. 

N.K. INTRODUCES FIRST COMPUTER NETWORK SYSTEM

Joongang Ilbo reported that Kwangmyong, an IT-related search engine developed by the DPRK's technology agency in 1997, now connects computers of over 1,300 institutions nationwide that include government agencies, universities, industrial complexes and research centers. The DPRK's monthly magazine "Minjok 21" in its August edition published on Sunday introduced photos of the homepage, which seems to have its basis in Microsoft's Windows system. The left-hand side showcased a database and other functions to log on and preserve files. "North Korea displayed its Kwangmyong homepage as it being the first network ever in the North," Shin Joon-young the editor-in-chief of Minjok 21 said. "Its explorer is in Japanese because it is based on the Japanese version of Windows. The network homepage named 'Kwangmyong' means a 'bright star.'" (Kim Hee-sung, "N.K. INTRODUCES FIRST COMPUTER NETWORK SYSTEM," Seoul, 07/23/01)

SEOUL TO HELP NORTH KOREA BUILD SATELLITE-BASED INTERNET ACCESS SYSTEM

Korea Herald, 28 June 2001. North Korea will soon enter the era of the Internet through the use of satellite-based infrastructure, Cho Hyun-jung, president of BIT Computer, said yesterday. Cho said that during his recent trip to Pyongyang, he agreed with North Korean officials to set up a system at the Chosun Computer Center enabling people there to access the Internet via a satellite. "North Koreans will be able to log on to the Internet via the system within three months," Cho said, adding that he would select a South Korean system provider for the project. 

Cho, one of the most respectable venture entrepreneurs in South Korea, visited Pyongyang June 19-23 at the invitation of the North Korean officials. It was his second visit to Pyongyang, his first was in late January. Cho said that North Koreans have thus far had a limited, phone line-based access to the Internet via China. "It is the first time that North Korea has built Internet infrastructures in earnest." He added that during his first visit in January, he stressed to North Korean officials the need to introduce the Internet. In explaining why the North chose a satellite-based connection, Cho said: "In Pyongyang and other major cities, optical cables have been laid with the support of the United Nations. Still, building connections to foreign countries and laying cables between major institutions will require prohibitively large additional costs. Hence, the low-cost satellite option." "North Korean officials did not seem to know about the satellite method, so I suggested it," Cho added. 

Using the satellite system, Cho said, BIT Computer will provide cyber education to North Korean officials. For this, the company will set up an Internet site ( www.bitcampus.com ) in August. Cho also said that he has agreed with North Korean officials to set up Bit Hot Line, short for Business Information Technology Hot Line, a dedicated line designed to facilitate private level exchanges between businessmen in the two Koreas. "We have also agreed to set up a PC room at the Chosun Computer Center to allow foreign or South Korean visitors to Pyongyang to read e-mail or do other business," Cho said. Cho added that he would send IT books to North Korea. "The satellite-based Internet system will provide the momentum for North Korea to grow into an IT powerhouse, an aspiration it has been striving for."

DPRKorea Infobank official website of N. Korea

Chosun Ilbo, 29 May 2001. The National Intelligence Service (NIS) announced on the 29th of this month that the DPRKorea Infobank (www.dprkorea.com) website, which was established in Beijing on October of 1999, is the official website of North Korea. Recently the NIS has found that DPRKorea was affiliated with other pro-North Korean sites on the internet. In addition, this site has been identified as the official North Korean website. The intelligence agency in a statement said that, "DPRKorea Infobank is officially known to have promoted propaganda and distortion and slander concerning South Korea." This statement was conveyed in a Question and Answer session between netizens and the NIS on a BBS on the NIS homepage (www.nis.go.kr). "If this site is deliberately conveyed to South Korea internet users, it will be in violation of the South Korean law," said an official from the NIS. "However, simply viewing this site, or reading the contents does not constitute a violation of the law," added the official. In the case one is to sign up as a member of the DPRKorea Infobank, one must first register with the Ministry of Unification." In addition, "If one sends e-mail to the webmaster of the DPRKorea Infobank or uses any of the information found in the website publicly, the party must first receive permission from the Ministry Unification," added the official from the NIS.

NORTH KOREA JOINS INTELSAT

Chosun Ilbo reported that the DPRK became the 145th member of INTELSAT, an International Telecommunications Satellite Organization, on May 24. An ROK government official said Tuesday that the DPRK's UN Representative Lee Hyung-cheol signed the entry agreement at the INTELSAT headquarters in Washington, on behalf of the DPRK's communications ministry. INTELSAT is an International Telecommunications Satellite Organization that provides commercial service such as the Internet, media broadcasting, telephone, and information telecommunications to over 200 countries around the world, using its 19 satellites. As the DPRK joined this organization, its international calls and satellite relay broadcasting are expected to improve dramatically. (Yoon Jung-ho, "NORTH KOREA JOINS INTELSAT," Seoul, 05/29/01)  

DPRK IS EDUCATING 100 HACKERS ANNUALLY

The Mainichi Shimbun reported that, according to ROK military sources quoted by the ROK's Yonhap News Agency on May 27, the DPRK is strengthening its military computer and information technologies and annually educating 100 computer hackers. The ROK military sources found out about the DPRK's information technology policy in US Defense Department documents. The report also said that the US sees the DPRK's technology as already equivalent to that of the US Central Intelligence Agency. ("DPRK IS EDUCATING 100 HACKERS ANNUALLY," Seoul, 05/27/2001) 

Scientific and Technological Information Service Active in DPRK

Pyongyang, May 17, 2001 (KCNA) -- The Central Scientific and Technological Information Agency is popular in the DPRK for its good service. The agency renders, in the main, information service through its computer network. It, at the same time, makes various forms of scientific and technological information service. Subscribers get all kinds of information everyday including new scientific and technological information, common knowledge and TV program. The agency provides them with e-mail and electronic news services. Meanwhile, the agency renders computer-processed services including provision of scientific and technological computer encyclopaedia and computer foreign language dictionaries, database for different fields, books, magazines, programs and information on common knowledge. it also publishes a variety of computer publications. It gives intensive and uninterrupted service to the institutes tasked to solve the latest key scientific and technological problems. Through its computer network the agency helps various units keep abreast of the trend of scientific development in the world and actively promote production and researches. Services to form network or repair hardware are also available at the agency. Various institutions receive from the agency services for designing a suitable network, purchase of equipment installing a network, technology of its operation, management, development of programs for editing, training of technicians, hardware overhaul and so on. The agency is now busy with various projects to gather more scientific and technological information to provide speedy and accurate information service to different fields of the national economy. 

Personal Computers and Games in North Korea

(Cho Myung Chol, ex-professor at Kim Il Sung University.) 

The first Western computers brought into the North in 1981 were Japanese-made Z-80, although some citizens and special agencies had earlier brought into the country a few different models. The North imported a large number of Z-80s for the purpose of making book management automatic at the People's Grand Study Hall (equivalent to the Central National Library in the South). North Korea's history of computer games began at this juncture, as the computers were accompanied by a variety of games. Right at that time, I was frequenting the People's Grand Study Hall to prepare my graduation thesis at Kim Il Sung University. Since the library was yet to open formally, I was able to indulge in computer games there...

Training of computer geniuses brisk in DPRK

Pyongyang, March 28, 2001 (KCNA) -- Efforts are made to train computer geniuses in the DPRK from the outset of the new century. Competent teaching staffs have already been posted at computer genius training centres and the selection of brilliant pupils is over nationwide. A final touch is now given to the building of those training centres with the approach of a new school year. Scores of projects including computer study rooms, rooms for hobby groups, printing rooms and service rooms have already been completed. The expansion projects for dormitories and dining halls are now underway. 

Meanwhile, institutions concerned including the Korean Computer Centre are going ahead with such technical preparations as installation and test of computers in a responsible manner, while pushing ahead with the work to form a computer database network at those centres. Teachers, scientists and technicians at various educational and scientific research institutes including Kim Il Sung University and Kim Chaek University of Technology are busy writing textbooks and reference books necessary for the training of computer geniuses. Classrooms are being fitted with furniture and equipment. Those centres will be inaugurated on April 1 amid the concern of the whole country. 

CHINA REPORT HIGHLIGHTS N.KOREA'S HOMEGROWN WEB

Reuters reported that the PRC's official Xinhua news agency said Friday that the DPRK has built a national Intranet network used by more than 1,000 people each day. The report said that the "Kuang Myong" network boasts "every feature of a well-established network -- a search engine, an electronic information system, a homepage search engine and a data transmission system." It quoted Li Hyok of the Korean Central Science and Technology Information Agency as saying, "Kuang Myong Net will become part of our daily life, just as the way America Online does to the Americans." Li said that the network is accessible only inside the DPRK and content is mostly limited to science and technology. It links scientific research institutes, universities, factories and some individuals as well as central and local government departments. Li said that his agency had posted more than 30 million scientific documents on the network, which also provides television program guides and an on-line system that translates English, French, German, Chinese, Japanese and Russian into Korean. 

He added that while it was "too early" for e-commerce in the DPRK, the network had already started a commercial and trading information service. Li said that 50 DPRK technicians began building the system in 1996 and developed the software for the system without outside help. Foreign diplomats with experience in Pyongyang said that they were aware of such a Network but had not actually seen it. One diplomat said that the users were "very selective -- the inner circle only" and that accessing the Internet from Pyongyang required costly overseas calls or other arrangements. The Paris-based Reporters Sans Frontiers (RSF) in its annual "Enemies of the Internet" report issued this month stated, "North Korea has decided: no servers, no connections. President [sic] Kim Jong-il's country is the only one in the world where the Internet does not exist." RSF added that a few DPRK elites with rare access to international telephone lines could log on to the Internet. ("CHINA REPORT HIGHLIGHTS N.KOREA'S HOMEGROWN WEB," Beijing, 03/23/01)

Whither the Web?

"According to the far-reaching plan of the Great General who is determined to computerize the whole country, computer genius education bases will be newly established." That report in the North Korean party paper Rodong Sinmun goes on to extol Kim Jong-il's "extraordinary knowledge about  the computer area". Aidan Foster-Carter writes about the North's expanding, if still restricted internally, interest in the World Wide Web and notes that, as ever, self-reliance rules. But, he adds, that can't last...

Information service, activated

With the eye-opening development of computer technology, the Central Scientific and Technological Information Agency is making rapid progress in the software service. The agency puts in floppy discs and CDs a wide variety of software encyclopaedia, database, publications, magazines, programs and general information. It also issues various electronic publications at the request of the clients, as well as e-mail. The service facilitates the netizens' easier access to information and the sharing of information among them and more effective management of production, research and business activities. The agency's bulletin board service and foreign magazine reading service are highly favoured by the users. The former enables the netizens to upload their articles or read the articles of others, and the latter offers a possibility of remote reading of foreign magazines. The agency provides concentrated service to major research and educational institutes and person-to-person consultation with famous scientists and experts. (Pyongyang Times, 10 Mar., 2001) 

Computer network set up in Anju

By Kim Kil Nam "Pyongyang Times" staff reporter 

In hearty response to the science-first policy of the Workers' Party of Korea. scientists and technicians in Anju, South Phyongan Province, have succeeded in setting up a city-wide computer network. The computerization scheme was first carried out at the Anju Bean Paste Factory. Soon a project for linking the city cooperative farm management committee to rural communities by computers was afoot. The city population has rehabilitated a power station to alleviate power shortage and have extended hundreds of kilometres of transmission line. They have refashoned the switchboard for the setting-up of computer network. A short-course training has produced numerous personnel.

The linkage to the capital-based Grand People's Study House, the Central Scientific and Technological Information Agency, the Academy of Agricultural Science and the Scientific and Technological Information Institute has ensured an instant supply of information needed for farming. The development of programs for the implementation of economic policies, manpower management and daily command and review has put the agricultural management on a scientific basis. Schools in the city concentrate on the computer teaching.
Now the city is pressing on with an ambitious plan of expanding the network into industrial establishments.(Pyongyang Times 24 Feb.,2001) 

NATION'S COMPUTER

Ekaterina Vykhukholeva of Izvestia reported, "The DPRK today solemnly celebrates its beloved leader Kim Jong-il's birthday." She added, "from now on the nation's father will personally command the North Korean Internet, as well as mobile phone and paging communications." The DPRK Government has forbidden cellular phones, pagers and the Internet. Because prior to that Internet was neither permitted, nor banned, some semi-legal providers had been operating in the DPRK for several years. Yet, DPRK has not fallen out from virtual space. Kim Jong-il himself is known to love cyberspace surfing. His most advanced computer is switched into the WWW via a maximum speed channel. ("NATION'S COMPUTER," Moscow, 1, 02/16/01)

Electronic multilingual dictionary available

By Kye ln Jun PT staff reporter 

A new Kwangmyong 2001 version, the electronic multilingual dictionary of science and technology, has recently been developed by the Central Scientific and Technological Information Agency. The seven-language dictionary (Korean, English, Russian, German, French, Chinese and Japanese) comprises 18 main branches of natural science and technology. It is simple and fine in the selection of language version. Each language version contains some 300,000 words, the scientific and technical terms widely used in those countries. The dictionary is set up in such a way as to have quick access to the entries. When the user sees unfamiliar words or vocabularies in a text on the monitor, he can click the mouse to select the translation equivalents in other languages.

It gives three modes for searching of entries; index mode search, keyword mode search and letters
mode search. A chief interest in this dictionary is a possibility of vocabulary search by the keywords by taking advantage of word structures of every language. The selection of source language and target language are available at any moment so that the user can read patent documents or references in either Western or Oriental languages. The dictionary works safely at any language versions of Windows 95/98/2000/NT and gives no negative effect to the drive of other programmes. (Pyongyang Times, 10 Feb., 2001) 

DPRK WILL GO ON INTERNET

Global Times reported that DPRK leader Kim Jong-il attaches great importance to the Information Technology (IT) industry. He visited Legend Group and Shanghai Software Park during his PRC trip in last May and this January. The news story said that Kim, proficient in computer and networks knowledge himself, made many instructions in recent years, ordering DPRK citizens to devote efforts to the IT industry to realize production automation and computerization of the national economy. According to local news agency, the DPRK will not only go on internet, but also set up mobile phones services in some areas of DPRK, which is likely to be realized within 2001. (Zhang Xinghua, "DPRK WILL GO ON INTERNET," 02/13/01, P2)

North Korean Cyberization.

by Kang Won-sik (in Korean)

북한의 정보화 가능성과 사이버시대 남북한관계 『 북한연구학회보 』 ( 북한연구학회 ), 제 4 권 제 1 호 (2000), pp. 51-72. 강원식 ( 관동대학교 북한학과 교수 ) (in Korean)

Computer education intensified in DPRK

Pyongyang, January 18 (KCNA) -- Computer education has been intensified as an important subject in education in the DPRK today when information technology is making rapid progress, said director of the program education guidance department of the ministry of education O Min, when interviewed by KCNA recently as regards the computer education emphasized in the educational field in keeping with the need of the present times. He said: In recent years, the state set up a new program education guidance department at the ministry of education for the purpose of enforcing computer education in the fields of higher and common education under a uniform and long-term plan and organized a center for program education under it. 
These mechanisms give a uniform help and guidance to research work to improve schedules and contents of program education and develop computer programs. 

In the field of higher education, the computer science college was newly established at Kim Il Sung University and such specialized computer colleges as the computer technology college appeared in Pyongyang and Hamhung. A faculty of computer engineering made its appearance at Kim Chaek University of Technology and a faculty of computer science at university of science. At the same time chairs and courses of information engineering were set up at several universities to train computer experts. 

In the field of common education, program classes appeared at various provincial senior middle schools no. 1 and a considerable portion of mathematical lessons is devoted to computer education from the second year to the sixth year course at senior middle schools. Computer education has thus been made a compulsory subject at all universities, colleges and middle schools throughout the country. A national program contest and exhibition was held last year with teachers and schoolchildren of schools at all levels attending. This program contest and exhibition is expected to be annual event. 

"친북성향 인터넷 사이트 20개 운영중"

(Friday, September 24, 1999 서울) 호주를 비롯한 전세계 인터넷에는 20개의 친북성 향 사이트가 개설, 운영중인 것으로 나타났다.

독일 본대학의 레오니드 페트로프 박사는 23일 인터넷 사이트 「포춘시티」에 기고한 글에서 "현재 북한은 일본에서 조선중앙통신(KCNA)이라는 공식 홈페이지를 운영하고 있으며 호주 등 각국에 20개의 친북 사이트가 운영중"이라고 말했다.

페트로프 박사는 "인터넷 사이트 개설로 북한이 국제사회에 보다 투명해진다는 것을 의미하는 것은 아니다"며 "그럼에도 불구하고 공산주의권의 붕괴이후 선전선동 사업에서 가장 놀랄만한 발전상의 하나"라고 평가했다.

그는 "심각한 외화부족에 시달리고 있는 북한정권이 이런 모험을 시행하는 목적 은 의문시된다"며 "대부분의 북한 주민들은 퍼스널 컴퓨터가 없고 기술상, 보안상의 이유로 인터넷 접속도 어려워 친북관련 사이트는 내부용은 아니다"고 강조했다.

페트로프 박사는 친북 사이트 대부분이 「평양타임즈」(Pyongyang Times),「인 민조선」(The Peoples Korea), 월간화보 「조선」(Korea) 등 북한발간물의 내용을 그대로 반복하고 있으며 오늘날의 북한 실상 소개에는 관심이 없다"고 덧붙였다. (in Korean)

 

Is the Internet on the Side of "Rogue States"?: A Lesson from the North Korean Case

by Hiroyasu AKUTSU

Is the Internet on the side of "bad guys" in the international community? Those "bad guys" or "bad nation-states" are often referred to as "rogue states," especially by the US, according to the level of their hostility and threat to the global community (or perhaps mainly to the US itself). Given that the Internet can work both for and against any government, it surely can do so both for and against these "rogue states" and also their "adversaries." Then the question is which is more true: Does the Internet work FOR "rogue states" or AGAINST them? This short essay briefly addresses this question by looking at the case of North Korea (NK), a front-running "rogue state" of the day. The essay focuses on (a) what South Korea (SK)--another half of the divided Korea and the North's technical enemy for nearly 50 years--has done to block the North's "official" or "unofficial...

NORTH KOREA IN CYBERSPACE

by Leonid A. Petrov 

North Korea's recent entry into the global computer network is one of the most surprising developments in Communist agitation and propaganda after the collapse of the Communist bloc. The very idea of a virtual bridge between the smouldering wreck of the Cold War and the new world of global integration awakens great interest among internet users; it excites some and horrifies others. The use of cutting-edge computer and telecommunication technologies by North Korea has enabled this classic example of oriental despotism with its added ugliness of Stalinist political culture to become a competent player in the global information market...

Leonid Petrov's KOREA VISION Online

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