South Korean Activist To Drop "The Interview" In North Korea Using Balloons

Siddharth Srinivas writes Park Sang Hak, a North Korean democracy activist, said he will start dropping 100,000 DVDs and USBs with Sony's The Interview by balloon in North Korea as early as late January. He's partnering with the U.S.-based non-profit Human Rights Foundation, which is financing the making of the DVDs and USB memory sticks of the movie with Korean subtitles.

Comments

Re:And who will watch it?

[Frosty Piss]

DVD players are quite common in the North, the government produced a wide range of propaganda for public consumption. Computers, less so, but remember, they are connected to what is essentially a locked down "intranet".

Re:And who will watch it?

[Anonymous Coward]

I read through this report the other day:
Report of the detailed findings of the commission of inquiry on human rights in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea - A/HRC/25/CRP.1
http://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/CoIDPRK/Pages/ReportoftheCommissionofInquiryDPRK.aspx

From that document it sounded like watching/selling unapproved dvds was a major reason for people to go to the prison camps. So it can't be that rare. The report estimates that 50% had watched a foreign DVD by 2012:

214. All CDs and DVDs used in the DPRK must have a stamp to show they are government approved. Over the last few years with the growth of informal markets, movies and recorded television programmes from the Republic of Korea are increasingly being smuggled into the DPRK for use on CD/DVD players and mini disk drives. Local officials, sometimes including SSD agents, or persons connected to these officials, are often involved in secretly selling and distributing ROK films. A 2012 study on the changing media environment in the DPRK found that half of its sample reported having watched a foreign DVD.
215. Many witnesses spoke about crackdowns and inspections searching for ROK soap operas and films on DVDs, CDs and USB sticks. They recounted personally being caught and punished for watching ROK content, or knowing people who were subject to such treatment. The minimum punishment for those found to have watched South Korean films or with South Korean films in their possession was a period in a labour re-education centre.

Re:And who will watch it?

[Charliemopps]

Are there 100,000 DVD players or PCs in private hands in North Korea? This doesn't seem like it is likely to have much effect.

http://i.guim.co.uk/static/w-6...

They don't even have electricity... so I doubt it.

Re:S. Korean Idiot tries to piss off N. Korean idi

[WillAffleckUW]

Dumping food on countries kills off the local farms, causing even greater food insecurity.

Think before you drop bags of food on people's heads, crushing their farm animals and houses.

Re: And who will watch it?

[NoKaOi]

Technically, it is an Internet, not an intranet. However, it's not the Internet.

Technically, it's an internet, not an Internet. The Internet is an internet, but an internet is not necessarily the Internet.

Re:And who will watch it?

[Half-pint HAL]

What? That's a ridiculous comparison. If someone was to send you a parcel of cocaine and you got arrested because the police did a random check that day, then you'd agree that the guy who sent the drugs screwed you over. This is contraband. Sending it over risks getting the recipients killed.