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Inside the North Korean Data Smuggling Movement
Sparrowvsrevolution writes A new Wired magazine story goes inside the North Korean rebel movement seeking to overthrow Kim Jong-un by smuggling USB drives into the country packed with foreign television and movies. As the story describes, one group has stashed USB drives in Chinese cargo trucks. Another has passed them over from tourist boats that meet with fishermen mid-river. Others arrange USB handoffs at the Chinese border in the middle of the night with walkie talkies, laser pointers, and bountiful bribes. Even Kim assassination comedy The Interview, which the North Korean government allegedly hacked Sony to prevent from being released, has made it into the country: Chinese traders' trucks carried 20 copies of the film across the border the day after Christmas, just two days after its online release.
This exact same topic was covered in Frontline's special on North Korea over a year ago. Their point of contact was Jiro Ishimaru of Asiapress who was sneaker netting USBs over the border. They even took a video of people trying to watch on a tiny screen and having to shut everything down whenever they heard someone outside.
The documentary also touched on humanitarian issues as much as it could using a secret camera. Sad stuff. Great thing to watch. Occasionally you can catch it streaming on Netflix but it seems to not be available right now.
My work here is dung.
Even if people cannot change the circumstances of their existence, they are able to change their thoughts and opinions and recognize that what they're being told to think doesn't match up with reality. People who lived behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War realized that they were being fed a line of BS and were eager to read western literature and listen to western music when they could find it, even if they weren't going to get Soviet tanks to leave by force.
I once read that sometimes the secret service in N. Korea would switch off the electricity of a block of houses and then do a raid. DVD players would be stuck with the disc inside, and if it turned out to be a western movie then the owner had a real risk of being executed. The solution was to use UPS. Of course usb sticks are easier to conceal.
We still do the same from Hong Kong into mainland china, smuggling in every thing their crazy censorship government doesn't want them to know, like tianamen massacre (6/4) and scandals with government official
And get sued by the MPAA? There are some risks that you just don't take.
AKA the CIA
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
ASAP
I'm sure we could if we wanted too, but ask yourself a few "what happens then" questions and I think it will be pretty easy to figure out why he's still alive. What's the point of killing this guy if his replacement isn't any better and in the fight to see who's left in charge a lot of people die? Then there is the question about what this means for the Korean War, which is technically still NOT over. North Korea might (Or likely would) see this action as a provocation and reignite the war. Now THAT would not be a pleasant turn of events, even if the conflict would likely be pretty short and one sided.
No, Kim lives.... As much as we might want change in NK, I don't think killing Kim is the way to get the change we want..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
WHOOSH! Seriously?
"What the American public doesn't know is what makes them the American public." -Ray Zalinsky (Tommy Boy)
And you think they don't do this now?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
So that there's a power vacuum and his crazy ass relatives can fight over it? Because that's worked AWESOMELY in the past when a tyrannical leader is removed from power by outsiders.
My first thought was what is someone in North Korea going to do with a USB? Its not like they have electronics.
Brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.
'Chinese traders' trucks carried 20 copies of the film across the border the day after Christmas, just two days after its online release.'
So that would be 20 times about 2GB, which easily fits on one 64G usb-stick the size of an inch. What did they need the trucks for ?
There were extensive liner notes.
Dark Reflection
Clearly you've never seen how much packaging online retailers like Amazon can use for such a small object during the holidays!
You'd be surprised. The ones that matter do unfortunately majority of them also get their bread buttered under the existing regime.
The Chinese media distribution system is days more efficient at distributing movies than Hollywood is.
Chew on *that*, MPAA!
I'm thinking that those B52:s left over from the cold war could be put to use. Carpet-bomb the nation with propaganda-filled USB sticks!
What could possibly go wrong?
We are almost as evil as Kim Jong Un.
Why not just give them weapons and intel?
*** Don't be dull.***
Why haven't we "smuggled" a 2,000lb JDAM into North Korea to where ol' Kimmy boy sleeps at night?
One good reason is that any outbreak of open war would very likely result in the immediate deaths of tens of thousands of South Koreans in Seoul. The South Korean capital is only 35 miles from the North Korean border, and the North Korean government is relying on a sort of mutually-assured-destruction strategy there to deter foreign attacks.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
The progressives in this country are hot and heavy to get rid of all of the US's nukes. A NK disposal solution, also known as a two-fer, would take care of things.
I highly doubt NK could detect a Cessna, much less ICBMs warheads before it was too late.