Slashdot Mirror
Reddit Brings Down North Korea's Entire Internet (mirror.co.uk)
After a North Korean system administrator misconfigured its nameserver allowing anyone to query it and get the list of the domains that exist for .kp, it was revealed that the secretive country only has 28 websites. That's 28 websites for a country with nearly 25 million people. Naturally, the story was published all across the web, including on Reddit, which resulted in a high number of users visiting North Korea's websites. Mirror.co.uk reports: When a list of North Korea's available websites was posted on Reddit, the surge of visitors to the reclusive state's online offering overloaded the servers. North Korea runs a completely locked-down version of the internet that consists of only 28 "websites" that the population is allowed to view. However, a technical slip-up allowed a GitHub user to work their way into the country's computer network and view the websites from the outside. As the GitHub user puts it: "One of North Korea's top level name servers was accidentally configured to allow global [Domain Name System] transfers. This allows anyone who performs [a zone transfer request] to the country's ns2.kptc.kp name server to get a copy of the nation's top level DNS data." Pretty soon, links to all the websites were posted on Reddit, where thousands of visitors took the opportunity to see what the web looks like from Pyongyang. Reddit's surge of traffic isn't the first time North Korea's internet has been knocked out. In 2014, the country suffered a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack that was believed to have originated from the U.S. Redditor BaconBakin points out that while North Korea has 28 websites, GTA V has 83 websites. They added, "I think it's safe to say that San Andreas is more technologically advanced than North Korea."
someone probably died for this mistake
You capitalist pigs cannot access it because der Leader has decreed it so! (and somebody just pulled the cable from the PRNK side of our border router).
Reddit didn't do anything! It was ALL part of our plan to get attention....
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Not kidding. When I was in specialized military training program we saw crazy looking dude with a unkempt uniform and absolutely no personal hygiene. We made a couple snide remarks amongst ourselves and later mentioned the guy to an instructor.
He told us that the guy was from Saudi Arabia. He also told us that every foreigner in the school always passed. A few years back, he didn't specify how many, a Saudi officer took the course and failed. The government beheaded him and apologized to the school.
So, good job Reddit. If he had a family, their probably gone as well.
You can't blame Redditors for being responsible for a despotic regime's policies of executing anyone who upsets or embarrasses the leadership. The blame lies squarely at the top. It always has, and this is precisely why it is a basic human right to live in a free and just society.
But while we're at it, I dare say that the blame for North Korea's situation also lies with its people. I know that the people are brainwashed, poor, coerced. The Western media likes to characterize the DPRK as a tyrannical government enslaving its hapless citizens, because doing so conveniently focuses the blame on the regime. But that same regime does not operate in a vacuum, as isolated as it is from the rest of the world. The reality is that a large segment of North Korean society actually believes the propaganda that is fed to them, much like how many Americans believe the propaganda they are exposed to. Being shown stark evidence that their worldview is wrong, such people actually redouble their fervor in supporting the narrative they have been led to believe. This phenomenon, carefully exploited, is the seed of fascism.
Being a tech site, I'm curious: When did a registered domain become referred to as a single website. Having looked at the articles, I see plenty of reference to 28 domains, but no mention of how many sub-domains each has, nor how many sites (blogs/static page/wiki/whatever) are hosted on each domain, and so I was wondering why it is being categorically stated here that there are only 28 websites. My understanding has always been that there can be multiple websites on a single domain, but Slashdot seems to be equating 1 domain=1 website here (and on looking at the links, even some inaccessible domains are being categorised as websites, when it is equally possible they are registered purely for email and have no webpages attached).
"much like how many Americans believe the propaganda they are exposed to"
Americans have unfettered access to numerous sources of information each spouting their own version of the facts and biases. In your arrogance you some how believe you are the only one who understands the truth. And stop with the generalizations of "Americans". "Americans" are suppose to be fat and lazy but some how end up dominating the world in international sporting events such as the Olympics. "Americans" are supposed to be knuckle dragging idiots but some how lead the world in technological advances and it's Universities and Colleges admit students from all over the world. "Americans" are suppose to be nothing but a bunch of racists and xenophobes but people are lined up in front of American foreign embassies trying to get visas and start the paperwork for immigrating to the US. Others don't bother with the formalities and just enter illegally, How many people are standing in line to immigrate to China, Russia, NK, Mexico, and similar hell holes throughout the world. The US has the most diverse population on the planet. All nationalities, ethnic groups, and races. People bitch and moan about US military bases around the world and then go into a blind panic every time the US even mentions downsizing and closing bases.
You seem to have magnified the import of my original statement in your mind.
In relative terms, Americans are indeed far more diverse in their viewpoints and backgrounds than virtually all other nationalities on the planet. And yes, in with respect to access to information, Americans do have the ability to investigate on their own and are, again, relatively much more free to express their own ideas and positions.
However, many (which is the exact word I used in my previous post) Americans are horribly susceptible to propaganda. It is also true that there are many Americans who are smart enough to detect such sophistry. Of course, the United States is not unique in this; any nation's citizens are vulnerable to the machinations of those in power. This has been demonstrated throughout American history and more broadly, world history; but it is all the more evident in the current geopolitical climate. Free access to information and freedom of expression are only parts of the story; these are not in themselves sufficient to inoculate society against the persistent threat of tyranny, as the Founding Fathers had recognized. What they perhaps did not anticipate was the slow encroachment of ignorance upon the public; the systemic failure to educate people, to teach them how to think and reason for themselves. (The familiar saying, "you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink" applies here.)
Consequently, political partisanship in the US has recently led to explicit jingoistic, xenophobic, and racist violence. This is only possible for the reasons I already explained. And the notion of American exceptionalism is merely one manifestation--albeit a rather stark one--of the more fundamental inability to accept facts that contradict an existing worldview when the emotional and cultural investment into that worldview has been considerable and lifelong.
To circle back to North Korea, then, we can see through the lens of history that despotic regimes do not simply appear de novo in a society. They come to power through the exploitation and manipulation of fear, and the slow but steadily increasing intellectual disenfranchisement of each passing generation. We saw this in China during the Cultural Revolution; Russia in the rise of the Soviet Union and more recently, the collusion of the oligarchs to permanently place Putin in power; and Germany post World-War I. The United States, if it is not careful, is just as susceptible, despite the protections afforded by the Constitution, so long as some Americans wallow in their own self-delusions of greatness and superiority. In the course of human civilization, 240 years is but a blink of an eye.