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North Korea To Enable Mobile Internet Access — For Visitors Only
An anonymous reader writes "The BBC reports that the reclusive country of North Korea is planning to enable 3G mobile internet access. It will not be available to the country's estimated one million mobile users, however. The service will be available only to international visitors, who have been allowed to bring their own mobile devices into the country since January of this year. The decision comes shortly after Google Chairman Eric Schmidt said enabling 3G internet in the country would be 'very easy' during his recent visit there. Currently, North Korean citizens can only access a small number of state-controlled sites. Might this decision open the door for some of them to surreptitiously access the open net?"
Almost certainly just to troll for information... Like taking a laptop to China...
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
Might this decision open the door for some of them to surreptitiously access the open net?
Hahahahahaha! Yeah. Sure. Good plan if those foreigners want to get an up close and personal tour of the labor camps.
Somebody goes there by their own will?
It's possible that we're witnessing a gradual sea-change in NK's politics.
Kim Jong-un was pretty much obliged to make a show of strength upon taking office - launching "satellites" and testing "nukes". This ensures that he doesn't get overthrown by his own people, or "liberated" by you-know-who.
Kim Junior has experienced the outside world, and he may well believe that it is in everybody's best interests, even his, to gradually open it up to his people. Time will tell.
I mean, even the great firewall of china allows users to access data outside of china (albiet with state filtering and what not).
I don't know if this is a good thing or not that they haven't got better access considering their penchant for building nukes and what not, but with better access to information outside their own borders they probably would have had a working missile system 5-6 years sooner. If not from simply having access to that kind of information from the internet, then the benefits of better education for the potential scientists in the country.
In a bit of shameless internet panhandling, I accept Litecoin Donations at Lbd2oH9QsthD1GfuUXPyka12YxvWJYnBVf
Now you've made me all nostalgic for USENET.
P.S. We need to talk about your dosage...
Yeah, I'd want to use internet on a device in a country where His Supreme Leader of Batshit Fucking Crazy reigns. That would be secure and trustworthy.
Then again, except for this publicity stunt (?) from Schmidt, I have no idea why most people would have any interest in going to North Korea.
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
what will the roaming fees be like?
Last I heard, Kim Jong Un turned off the internet for the entire country. How can this be?
sudo make me a sandwich
The inevitable comparison of USA to NK appears! Anyone who makes this comparison has no sense of scope or scale.
To offset political mods, replace Flamebait with Insightful.
In case you are not aware, the post is a satire of a fellow known as APK. The grammar used is modeled after APK's as you can see here. Or, you can just look around a bit and see some of his posts on here about the wonders of host files.
Apparently wizard is not a legitimate career path, so I chose programmer instead.
Greetings undercover CIA personnel, welcome to glorious leader's free wi-fi access. Please feel free to communicate with your contacts and login to accounts and databases in United States and Japan. All communications 100% encrypted by glorious leader himself, ensuring the utmost confidentiality in communications. Also, please friend and like us on Facebook.
More complete ignorance ...
North Korea has 3G networks covering more than 90% of the population.
However, given the general poverty and rural lifestyle, market penetration is only around 5% and that is predominantly limited to the educated/employed population in major cities. External internet is not available but 3G telephony certainly is.