North Korean Business Park Getting Internet Access

Daniel_Stuckey writes "A business park in North Korea will soon have (limited) access to the Internet, according to news reports. The Register wrote that an industrial park in the Kaesong Industrial Region will house Internet-connected PCs by the first half of this year. The Daily NK explained that the first step to connectivity will be an Internet cafe with 20 computers but afterward company offices will also be connected. They quoted a spokesperson from the Ministry of Unification — a department of the South Korean government that works on unifying the two Koreas — as saying, 'We are planning to launch the basic level of Internet services at the Kaesong Industrial Complex starting in the first half of this year,' and adding, 'Officials and employees in the North's border city will be able to use most of the online services now available in South Korea.'"

Comments

But ...

[PPH]

... Netflix will be throttled. They will be hiring Verizon to provide broadband.

Re:But ...

[Thanshin]

At least that would be coherent with other behaviors of that country, like three generations life imprisonment in torture camps for arbitrary reasons.

Forcing their population to use Verizon broadband might be a bit over the top, though.

Worth Noting

[Akratist]

For anyone who is complacent or unconvinced about the value of the internet in terms of providing a meaningful political dialogue, political education, or otherwise serving as a tool of the people to at least aid in political expression, look at the places where it is controlled and how politically repressive those places are. If nothing more, it should show that attempts to restrict or regulate it may indicate that those parties attempting to do the restriction or regulation may not have your best interests at heart.

Restrictions will be in place

[smileytshirt]

Having been a bit of a North Korean watcher for a few years I don't think this will change much. There is already internet access available to certain groups of people in North Korea with restrictions applying to each group. Examples include:

Tourists who are allowed to bring in mobile phones, and for an exorbitant fee can have a North Korean SIM card with access to the wider internet - even less restricted than China's firewalled internet access

Certain students, academics and professionals may access the internet in a supervised format. Areas of research and specific websites must be submitted to a human monitor who must approve the sites and who remains in the computer room to ensure users only access what has been approved

And of course the higher level officials are assumed to have internet access

Other than that, the general population only has access to the North Korean intranet - which among other things has government sites, game sites and even a dating website. Any new access to the wider internet is surely going to come with very strict controls and monitoring.

Re:Restrictions will be in place

[ACS Solver]

This is likely correct (I have likewise been somewhat of a NK watcher), but one important point. The general population doesn't have access to the NK intranet. Those that do aren't quite the country's elite, but still represent the better-off social class. Most access to the intranet happens through universities and major organizations, while close to half of NK's population lives outside cities, and in cities other than Pyongyang the infrastructure is nearly non-existent. Sariwon and Wonsan can be barely made out as lights in nighttime photos.

Re: RE: Which North Korea?

[maccodemonkey]

I think OP is trying to make a witty joke comparing the North Korean government to the US's. Unfortunately, it's not all that witty.

Of COURSE North Korea has Internet access

[93 Escort Wagon]

Kim Jung Un invented it, after all.

Of course there's a catch.

[Minwee]

All of your TCP packets need to be written down on a 3x5 card and hand delivered to the nearest government office for manual processing before being typed in and sent to uunet via dprkvax. This will lead to a tiny slowdown in network access, but nothing that you should notice.

North Korean business park

[Culture20]

What do they make, oxymorons?