The Internet Black Hole That Is North Korea

Nrbelex writes "While other restrictive regimes have sought to find ways to limit the Internet — through filters and blocks and threats — North Korea has chosen to stay wholly off the grid. The New York Times discusses the total lack of 'net access facing the North Korean state, and what it means in the long term." From the article: "The South was illuminated from coast to coast, suggesting that not just lights, but that other, arguably more bedrock utility of the modern age -- information -- was pulsating through the population. The North was black. This is an impoverished country where televisions and radios are hard-wired to receive only government-controlled frequencies. Cellphones were banned outright in 2004. In May, the Committee to Protect Journalists in New York ranked North Korea No. 1 -- over also-rans like Burma, Syria and Uzbekistan -- on its list of the '10 Most Censored Countries.' That would seem to leave the question of Internet access in North Korea moot."

Comments

Speaking of Black Holes...

[this great guy]

The Internet is all about sharing information. Yet, they chose to make it difficult for people to share and access it. Gosh, I hate this nytimes.com login form. Here is a direct link to the article (no login required).

Re:Soviet Russia Joke

[AlecC]

According to this weeks Economist, even the army sometimes starves. Families fight to help therir sons avoid concsription into army units notorious for malnutrition.

Re:Soviet Russia Joke

[AlecC]

If you could get the message to them and be believed in time, probably. The problem is that they have had a lifetime of being told thet Kim Jong Il and Kim Il Sung are the source of all things good, and thet everybody outside NK is a lying hyaena out to destroy the workers paradise. It wouldn't take many weeks to overturn this. The trouble is that Seoul is within easy artillery shot of the NK aremy, and it wouldn't take many hours for NK to wreck large areas of it and kill tens if not hundreds of thousands of S Koreans. Even malnourished soldiers (and the ones near the borders get the best food) could fire off a hell of a lot of shells before they were overrun.

The other problem is that if you do get through to them, every singlr North Korean is going to want out of there fast, and you will have 60 million refugees flooding into S Korea and China, or anywhere they can get a boat to. A problem that would make the Vietnamese Boat People look like a trickle. Both SK and China are terrified of this. China could probably topple the NK govenment within weeks if it wanted to - but it is desperately afraid of tha anarch that would follow. The same Economist article said that it was rumpured that the Chines army had stiied whether it was possible to take over NK "blizkrieg" style, so as to be in charge before the country collapsed into chaos, and had come to the conclusion that it was impossible.

Re:How 'bout just a black hole

[vertinox]

Only children, simpletons, and power-hungry ideologues believe in socialism any more

Then why does Norway have the highest standard of living in the world?

Seriously, get your damn terminology straight.

Socialism does not equal communism!

Even then it isn't black and white. North Korea is Stalinist Communist (as opposed to Marxist Communist or post-Stalinist Kruscheve Communist with each its own type of dogma)

Heck... Hitler's government was National Socialist and that is as far as you can get from communist ideology.