North Korea Introduces 'Secure' E-mail

An anonymous reader sent in a strange little story running over at ZD that discusses North Korea's new secure email system. There's a lot of strange bits in there about trained North Korean hackers, and the fact that North Korea's news agency is hosted in Japan.

Comments

Time-honored facts...

[typobox43]

Again, they're just proving that the best security method is just to not let anyone on the system at all.

DictatorMail.com ?

[grub]

How the system (likely) works:

The government assigns you a password.

You send email, people send you email.

You sleep well knowing that your email can only be read by the sender, recipient and.. that.. man.. with the rubber hose.

To me it sounds like Kim Jong Il is getting even more paranoid. He's wanting to control (and snoop) all email in within his borders for fear of net-savvy citizens daring to send subversive email. Pretty soon he'll probably start shooting people with glasses ("intellectuals") as Pol Pot did in Cambodia.

Hint to Kim Jong Il, try feeding your millions of starving children before promising them a corrupt email system few of them will ever live to see.

Re:DictatorMail.com ?

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a regime that forces its athletes to shut curtains on their buses when traveling in foreign countries because they might have to bear the sight of all the unspeakable horrors in capitalist countries if those windows were open. Horrors like traffic, I guess.

At any rate, the last thing the North Korean government wants is an online citizenry.

This latest press release by the Japanese North Korean contingent is just more floundering of a sadly dying nation.

Off Black list? Nope...

[RedHat Rocky]

If this is North Korea's attempt to get off my black list, it's a failure.

Is that where the Iraqi information minister ended up? :)

What about North Korean IM?

[stendec]

License2KimJongill: hi what's up
License2KimJongill: hello?
License2KimJongill: helloooo...

Bush43: SORRY CAN'T TALK RIGHT NOW
Bush43: GOT COLON POWELL ON THE PHONE

License2KimJongill: i'm pretty sure it's spelled colin
Bush43: WELL I'M PRETTY SURE YOUR NAME IS SPELLED KIM JUNGLE

License2KimJongill: shut up

Bush43: YOU SHUT UP

License2KimJongill: no you shut up

Bush43: MAKE ME

License2KimJongill: make me make you

Bush43: WHAT?

License2KimJongill: i have to go too, I have colin powell on the phone too. You're talking to "colon" powell so I bet you have the wrong guy

Bush43: SHUT UP

License2KimJongill: you shut up

Shamelessly stolen from the Kim Jong Il livejournal

of course

[theMerovingian]

Great Leader Kim Yong Il is computer-savvy. Check out the Frontpage-For-Dummies official site of the DPRK.

I would be embarrassed to put pictures of my CAT on a website that lame.

Fighting oppression

[mcSey921]

From the article: "It remains illegal for any South Koreans to email their northern neighbors without government permission. "

So South Korea is fighting the oppression and censorship of the North with oppression and censorship?

Should have just bought PGP-Universal

[Nonesuch]

All that work, and they could have just installed one of these on the DMZ and been done with it.

PGP.Com products are notoriously overpriced, but I bet North Korea could negotiate a nice discount on a 22,000,000 seat license with A.T.M. Networks Inc, the South Korean sales agent...

One hitch -- I tried completing the "free download" form with "N.Korea" as the country code, and got this popup:

'In accordance with current US Export restrictions, PGP 8.0 products may be downloaded by individuals throughout the world except those in the following countries: Cuba, Libya, Iran, Iraq, North Korea, Sudan, and Syria. If you are in one of these countries, you may not download PGP software'."

Ah well, GPG doesn't have these petty restrictions!