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How Technology Gets the News Out of North Korea
itwbennett writes "Kim Dong-cheol is a North Korean with 'a double life,' writes the IDG News Service's Martyn Williams in a story on ITworld. 'In addition to his job as a driver for a company, Kim also works as a clandestine reporter for AsiaPress, a Japanese news agency that's taken advantage of the digital electronics revolution to get reports from inside North Korea,' says Williams. 'When we started training journalists in 2003 or 2004, getting cameras into North Korea was a real problem,' said Jiro Ishimaru, chief editor of the news agency, at a Tokyo news conference on Monday. 'Nowadays, within North Korea you are able to have your pick of Sony, Panasonic or Samsung cameras.' The images they're capturing are 'often startling,' and it 'documents a side of the country the government doesn't want the world to see,' says Williams."
Noticed they mentioned Samsung... I wonder why N. Korea is allowing S. Korean brands to be sold. Any ideas?
It's always confirmation bias!
>>"Kim Dong-cheol is a North Korean with 'a double life' Not anymore.
"Kim Dong-cheol is a North Korean with 'a double life"
Not anymore.
by posing as "hikers".
Yours In Osh,
Kilgore Trout
Really do we need to know how this is done? I am hoping this is a red heiring and that they are using other methods to get the SD cards out.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
This is not how these things work, news to me, thank you.
From TFA, emphasis mine:
It was shot on a cheap camera by a man who goes by the pseudonym Kim Dong-cheol, a North Korean with a double life. In addition to his job as a driver for a company, Kim also works as a clandestine reporter for AsiaPress, a Japanese news agency that's taken advantage of the digital electronics revolution to get reports from inside North Korea.
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The interesting part is that they use Chinese cellphone networks, which leak into North Korea at the border, to get the videos out. (The Burmese opposition also does that, connecting to Bengladeshi networks.)
I wonder why China lets that happen, as it would be trivial for them to ban any data coverage in this area and/or report any suspicious activity to the North Korean authorities. Maybe it's a way for them to put some pressure on their North Korean "ally", which has become somewhat of an embarrasment to them lately.
If cell phone coverage goes down, they could still use carrier pigeons to send Flash drives to China or South Korea...
Hello! I'm a disaster waiting to happen!
while in the army and stationed in south korea i came literally within 20 feet of the demarkation line and toured the DMZ. it was cool in a museum sort of way. but even though i'm originally from the USSR and remember life under communism, i don't really care about life in north korea.
sure it sucks for people there, but i'm not living there. except for a few crazy people who try to sneak in, most people want to get out. i can't do anything about the people living there so it's not a priority for me
As long as properly used, technology is always supported every human activity .So be positive on the technology, and technology will have a positive impact also on all of us.
A place with no advertisements, no light pollution, and few cars sounds good to me.
The dictatorship is bad, but the economic situation is caused by bad location in the globe, lack of innovation to improve farming/manufacturing, corruption, and bad trading.
North Korea is very opaque, even for China and Russia. China can only go so far in assessing the state of North Korea through its official channels (even if they attach intel officers to their diplomatic mission). It's not like Chinese agents can mingle with the rest of society in North Korea like they could, if posing as "immigrant workers" or "tourists" in South Korea or Japan. This helps them get additional, cheap information.
That's what I learned from this article.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
My first response was that that was awful and reflected very badly on the country.
Then I remembered meeting a dirty ragged skin and bones dude I met the other day on the street in my own western democracy. He survived off of collecting bottles from rich peoples garbage. I wonder how that would go down as a single picture and story with no broader context?
While I still am almost certain North Korea is much much worse on average, it is an interesting thought. A single case a statistic does not make.
There's one bright spot when it comes to the DMZ. It's home to a lot of species that wouldn't thrive anywhere else.
Before the Iraq war, I was in South Korea. As a soldier, I obviously couldn't actually enter NK, but I have been on the DMZ. The first thing I noticed about NK is that there are no trees. South Korea has forests, but NK appears to be clear cut as far as the eye can see. The NK Guards have soviet-style costumes. If NK weren't so dangerous, the DMZ could pass for a set in a Steven Spielberg film. But the three things NK seems to have in abundance (at least as seen from the DMZ) are oversized flags, martialistic music and Guard Towers. From the DMZ, North Korea looks like the biggest prison in the world. I am glad someone is sneaking cameras into the country and recruiting journalists, because the world seems to be willfully ignorant about how bad the situation is in NK. Hopefully NK will eventually peacefully implode, like East Germany, but the Kim family and his Cronies are enriching themselves at the expense of the Korean People, so they probably won't go without a fight. Maybe we'll get lucky and the North Koreans will deal with the Kim family the same way the Romanians took care of the Ceauescu family.
http://www.vbs.tv/watch/the-vice-guide-to-travel/vice-guide-to-north-korea-1-of-3
When I saw this, it changed my perception (in a bad way) of just how messed up north korea is.
It's inevitabre...! Kim Jong Il: Now you see, the changing of the worrd is inevitabre! Lisa: I'm sorry, it's what? Kim Jong Il: Inevit, inevitabre. Lisa: One more time. Kim Jong Il: [shouts] Inevitabre! Things are inevitabrey going to change! Goddamnit, open your fucking ears!
I have _no_ sympathy for the NK government. But I find the overly obvious mental images and herd mentality of americans amazing. The appetite for others onto which bad qualities can be projected seem endless. The problem is that it appears as if these images prevent people from critically reflecting on their own situation.
The hunt for the "new bad" goes on and on and on, surprisingly for such a diverse nation everyone seems to latch on to the latest trend. I belive USA hangs by a tread woven from shared hatred of whatever the new enemy is. Known neocon strategy I know, but still surprising how effective it is
At my university, the Environmental Science department has offices next to the ROTC staff - I commented on this apparent irony to one of the Environmental Science guys, and he pointed out that a side-effect of military' bases secure zones as wildlife preserves. That effect isn't limited to DMZs per se; here's a local example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_White_Deer
Good job on his part fishing for a connection between two apparently-unrelated things, I do that all the time in other fields.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
How do you STOP a radio signal? These are ordinary chinese towers to which ordinary chinese telephones connect. That they come from the south instead of the north would not be impossible to block but not a standard on how cellphones work. And why would China?
North Korea isn't just a buffer for them between and the US but also a very nice "You think you got it bad Hong Kong? It can be worse." Any Chinese person who wonders if the Chinese communist regime is repressive only has to look south. It is kinda like Jews in England, a very anti-semitic nation, but compared to the main land, not so bad after all.
North Korea is a bad spot for the entire world but the cold war (that the USSR has for now stopped playing doesn't mean the cold war is over, or did you foolishly believe Reagan?) has kept many a regime that shouldn't be in power.
Do you think the US really wants its soldiers on the border of China (if korea was re-united) and deal with Chinese refugees? It is not so much that any country likes or supports North Korea but changing the status quo is VERY risky and the aftermaths of Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, the collapse of the USSR, Israel, India/Pakistan make the world powers very hesistant to change the borders of the world. So what if millions die, they die all the times. Nobody cares. (And don't think that because you bought/pirated a live aid CD that you did, because nobody needs to starve on this planet if some people didn't hog all the resources. Like me, and I have to admit in my deep dark soul that I don't care if some child dies in Afrika as long as it exports the chocolate and peanuts to feed my fat belly)
But don't think the Chinese government is somehow being nice. They send any refugee they capture back, to certain death without any hesistation. Kinda like the US sending mexicans to a country to a war torn apart by the drugs the same US seems to need.
World politics, very depressing.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Wow, the North Korean shutterbugs probably got better gear selection than counterparts in the much ballyhooed India.
Pictures leaked out of India isn't much rosier.
North Korea government murders so many peoples every day that this just isn't funny.
Such situation can be actually true, and an someone innocent, that has already miserable life will suffer even more now
Linux forever
http://www.korea-dpr.com/
Quite incredible..