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North Korea Opens .kp Sites On the Internet
eldavojohn writes "What an auspicious day for the Democratic People's Republic of Korea! To commemorate the 65th anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers' Party of Korea, North Korea will no longer depend on Chinese national internet service to reach the outside world — they have their own connection and are hosting sites like the state run media. The article mentions that about a thousand websites are coming online, including services like Skype and Twitter. From where I sit in the United States, I can't seem to get any .kp TLD sites to resolve, but the news is promising if in fact it will bring more information to the information-starved masses of North Korea."
I'm going to beat the land rush to register "NorthKoreaIsTheBestKorea.kp" before Kim Jong-Il gets there first!
I doubt they even have TVs or radios. I bet it's not even legal for them to either.
...that the average North Korean even has a computer to access the internet with.
-- Even if a god did exist, why the fsck should I worship it?
I recall reading somewhere that radios imported from China could be bought in North Korea, but you were legally obliged to have the radio modified so that it could receive only the government broadcasts. A similar law existed in much of the former Communist Bloc.
They have TV, but tuning in to Chinese or South Korean broadcasts is illegal. Their television sets are even modified to avoid such actions.
I doubt you'll actually bother looking up info on TV/radio ownership in North Korea. I bet your random guessing and stabbing in the dark will get +5 Insightful.
On a tangential ramble, Kim Jong-Il's Comedy Club was a very interesting documentry, and a rare glimse inside the weider-than-fiction world of North Korea.
This is just going to be for more external propaganda. The very act of using this domain IS propaganda.
Even if it does indicate more internal dissemination of information, more information isn't always good, if it's more of the same disinformation.
From the effin' article:
"While Internet access is believed to be available to small group of elite members of the ruling party, the rest of the country is not permitted access to outside sources of news." :(
The real reason for this is that Kim Jong Il's cognac distributor went electronic and he needed to provide a contact email. Kim Jong Il knew the only domain for a email address he could trust is one Norht Korea owned, so they had to make .kp.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
South Korean soap operas are apparently quite popular to watch illegally on imported DVD'
I would hate to go to jail just because I wanted to find out if Kim ever recovered from double amnesia to discover his wife was really his father's ex-lover...
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
North Korea, or the "Democratic Peoples' Republic of Korea" as they like to call themselves is a criminal state that murders its own citizens while denying them even the most basic human rights such as freedom of movement. The only North Koreans who will be blogging or communicating on these web sites will be ones from the Propaganda and Agitation ministries. North Korea has lost a lot of face over abducting Japanese and South Korean citizens, shooting down a Korean airliner, sinking a Korean destroyer, and the mass starvation after the collapse of the Soviet Union. North Korea wouldn't even exist if it weren't for external support from the Soviet Union, and later on China and South Korea. The only legitimate government on the Korean peninsula is the Republic of Korea. The regime in North Korea are a bunch of criminals and they maintain the largest prison in the world. Hopefully one day it will all end peacefully the same way that East Germany dissolved as soon as the Soviets refused to crush the crowds of demonstrators with their tanks.
mud.kp.
Now maybe we'll get Voice of Korea (was Radio Pyongyang) streamed on the internets! That's some good agitprop: "Today, Glorious Leader stated that he is pleased at the 3000% increase in rice production announced by the Ministry of Agriculture. The running dog capitalist Western press had no comment on our great achievement." Really! They still broadcast stuff like this. It really doesn't get any better, comedy-wise.
That is all.
I read somewhere that their radio was permanently tuned to the govt channel. and you couldn't turn it off.
Sorta correct. The radios are pre-tuned to the government station, and then sealed. If you're caught with a radio with its seals broken (i.e. someone opened it up) then you're arrested. This is to prevent people from trying to receive signals from South Korea and/or China. You can, however, turn the radios off.
I'm betting their computers are like their tv's.. a cardboard box with the glorious leader's picture on it.
The above is accurate ALTHOUGH the accusations COULD be put on different countries. The USSR shot down a korean plane that came into its airspace and the US has shot down a Iranian airliner claiming it was an wave of fighter aircraft (despite being far slower climbing constansly and only firing ONE missle at SEVERAL incoming aircraft (real naval action would have been to throw everything at incoming fighters including the kitchen sink after the experience at the falklands)) and as for mas starvation, how many indians died of that again after forced relocation to inhostipable regions of the US to make way for white settlers?
Ancient history? Yeah, that is convenient BUT this ancient history IS being remembered by people around the globe who use it to excuse their own injustices. It is a very powerful excuse. China does not want north korea but it wants the vassal state of south korea even less. That would mean US forces right at its borders. North Korea abducting Japanse citizens? Gosh, somehow I don't see China caring. That would be like Israel caring about germans getting killed. Japan is not wel liked in the region. Something about being a nation riddled with war crimes and never making attonement for it might have something to do with it.
And so North Korea continues to happen. As a buffer against the US as a way of saying "No, rampant captalism will NOT overrun the entire world" as a way of not having to answer just why this was allowed to go on.
And lets face it, IF NK is going to collapse, who is going to pay for it? The reunification of germany cost western germany dearly and is still not going smoothly. The collapse of the USSR has made the world less safe and make life in those regions far less free. One dictartorship fell, countless replaced it.
The world ain't a nice place. NK is one of most not nice places around but it happens because the rest of the world isn't nice enough to stop it. And that includes people like BKMOORE, the parent, who claim SK is only legitimate government... yah. That government never did any wrong. Nope...
AND that is what fuels division and allows NK to exist. If you want to change the world, you got to start with yourself. SK is puppet government that has become legit because it has made economic success so people forgot about the past. If you want to convince the NK that it must change its way, claiming money makes right is not going to do it.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
In the early ninties, a country profile for the Library of Congress estimated that North Korean had about 250,000 television sets and 3.75 million radio sets, all fixed to receive only government broadcasts. Visitors cannot bring a radio into the country.
Radio and TV sets in North Korea are pre-tuned to government stations that pump out a steady stream of propaganda. The state has been dubbed the world's worst violator of press freedom by the media rights body Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Press outlets and broadcasters - all of them under direct state control - serve up a menu of flattering reports about Kim Jong-il and his daily agenda. North Korea's economic hardships or famines are not reported.
Ordinary North Koreans caught listening to foreign broadcasts risk harsh punishments, such as forced labour. The authorities attempt to jam foreign-based and dissident radio stations.
The "only glimmer of hope", according to RSF, is the "communications black market" on the North Korean-Chinese border. Recordings of South Korean TV soaps and films are said to circulate. North Korea country profile [Oct 2, 2010]
Googling for site:.kp shows two different domains (kcce.kp and friend.com.kp) but nothing resolves here.
I have some scripts which periodically scan DPRK ips, and found a few things recently.
There is a news site at http://175.45.179.68
There are a couple http/https servers with self-signed certs for domains which dont yet exist:
176.45.176.6/7
And there are cisco routers at 175.45.176.131, 175.45.177.193,194,197,198,201
I tried to read that aloud with a straight face but failed miserably.
The state has been dubbed the world's worst violator of press freedom by the media rights body Reporters Without Borders (RSF).
Huh, you must be referencing an older report. Allow me to bring you up to date on 2010's assessment of the illustrious Democratic People's Republic of Korea!
Internet: Nothing but a vague rumor
A very limited Intranet has developed, consisting of an email inbox, a few news sites relaying regime propaganda, and a browser providing access to the databank Web pages of the country’s three biggest libraries: the Grand People’s Study House and those of the Kim Il-Sung and Kim Chaek Universities. This Intranet is accessible only by academics, businessmen and high-ranking civil servants who have received special clearance.
Here's to hoping that once that intranet is connected to our internet we see those academics online :)
... there are nation states and there are sad states. I wish there was a non-detrimental way to help the people inside North Korea.
Oh, also, I like how one hour of internet usage in a cafe in North Korea will set you back $8.19 (high even by my cushy American standards) and yet the monthly wage in North Korea is a paltry $17.74. So yeah, go ahead and walk into an internet cafe and blow a month's salary in two hours. I almost feel guilty about bitching about Comcast's $40/month cable internet.
Furthermore Eritrea beat them out in 2009 leaving them at 174/175 on their worst violators
My work here is dung.
Perhaps someone can provide some citations to info on what frequencies they're using?
A.M. and shortwave radio technology is not high tech. It wouldn't take much knowledge of electronics to make receivers or frequency converters from parts out of old VCRs or whatever.
Clever hacks are possible too. If they're using the low cost Chinese CFL replacements for incandescent lamps, maybe some could be modified to work at a switching frequency that would allow them to act as an conversion oscillator to shift a desired signal to a vacant supported frequency.
Beyond radio inspections, their government might be able to tell what frequency a standard radio is tuned to by detecting radiation from the oscillator. The oscillator normally is offset by a standard amount from the frequency of the selected signal. (typically + 455 kHz for AM, + 10.7 MHz for FM)
To illustrate the principle, one can tune a typical FM radio to a quiet spot on the top half of the band, and hear the oscillator (silence instead of static) when a second nearby radio is tuned 10.7 MHz lower in frequency. I once read of a college station that went around tracking down listeners and surprised a few knocking on doors and giving them a prize. That's a pretty good gag, but hard to do in areas where the band is very congested. When one is tuned to the upper half of the band, the oscillator may fall on VHF aircraft frequencies. That is why many had those bans on using radios when flying.
Not according this to BBC documentary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSrcLC6Zz54
(Skip to ~1:40 to see them talking about a state radio in every kitchen that can't be turned off)
I have a friend who is a ham radio operator who took his equipment on a cruise. The cruise ship was being repositioned, so they went around much of the Pacific (my friend is retired). Off the coast of North Korea, he could hear their hams talking. As soon as he tried to contact someone, the air went silent followed shortly by an extremely high power broadcast extolling the virtues of Kim Jong Il. My friend was using a Japanese call sign.
My point is that the equipment and expertise to do some of the things you mention does exist in North Korea. No doubt a few people do listen illegally to broadcasts out of South Korea. But that few people will never be the majority of the people or even a significant minority. I don't think you can overestimate the level of control the government has over the people, down to the psychological level where they can't even imagine having an open conversation or circumventing the government controls on their radios.
"...but the news is promising if in fact it will bring more information to the information-starved masses of North Korea".
I don't see why the existence of ".kp" domains will bring more information to the folks in North Korea, any more than the words
"Democratic People's Republic" in the country's official name would make it owned by the people, democratic, or a republic.
Labels have power, sure, but not always the way one hopes.
Anyone remember Kremvax? Started out as a hoax, but eventually becamse something real.
In an even more ironic historical footnote, kremvax became an electronic center of the anti-communist resistance during the bungled hard-line coup of August 1991. During those three days the Soviet UUCP network centered on kremvax became the only trustworthy news source for many places within the USSR. Though the sysops were concentrating on internal communications, cross-border postings included immediate transliterations of Boris Yeltsin's decrees condemning the coup and eyewitness reports of the demonstrations in Moscow's streets
Who knows, perhaps someday the nascent net in Korea will lead to something greater?
The story is much more complicated than that; you're being selective with the facts here. There are a few issues about Japan's attitudes towards its past that still bother the heck out of a lot of people:
The trend is pretty clear: there is a significant conservative segment of the Japanese population whose attitudes just piss off the rest of the region, and there are many politicians who pander to them.
Are you adequate?
However the principle by which they are working is very real. And in North Korea, there is (supposed to be) silence on all frequencies except the government approved ones, therefore any activity there whatsoever would be a lot easier to pickup.