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Call Me, Comrade: The Surprise Rise of North Korean Smartphones (nknews.org)
Tia Han, reporting for NK News: 2018 marks the tenth year that cellphones have been legally available in North Korea. The number of users has been growing significantly since then, but overall use remains low: according to the country's state-run Sogwang outlet in January, more than 3.5 million -- out of a population of 25 million -- have mobile subscriptions. "We started providing the 3G service in December 2008, so this year marks the 10th year of the service," Han Jong Nye, from the Arirang Information and Technology Center in Future Scientist Street in Pyongyang, was quoted as having said in Sogwang in January. "The demand for mobile phones is growing larger and larger."
[...] North Korean mobile users cannot access the worldwide internet, of course: use is limited to the country's state-run intranet. Reports suggest various kinds of applications are now accessible for mobile users -- from games to shopping -- several state-run North Korean outlets have reported on their recent technological development, often with a great deal of emphasis on their local origins. State media suggests that North Koreans are playing games, reading books, listening to music, doing karaoke, learning to cook, and even increasing crop output on their smartphones.
[...] Since the majority of smartphone users do not have an access to the internet, according to one expert, users have to go to a technology service center where technicians install apps to their cell phone. "Most mobile users do not have data service even if they buy a smartphone, so they have to be happy with pre-loaded apps such as games and dictionaries," Yonho Kim, a non-resident fellow at Korea Economic Institute, told NK News.
[...] North Korean mobile users cannot access the worldwide internet, of course: use is limited to the country's state-run intranet. Reports suggest various kinds of applications are now accessible for mobile users -- from games to shopping -- several state-run North Korean outlets have reported on their recent technological development, often with a great deal of emphasis on their local origins. State media suggests that North Koreans are playing games, reading books, listening to music, doing karaoke, learning to cook, and even increasing crop output on their smartphones.
[...] Since the majority of smartphone users do not have an access to the internet, according to one expert, users have to go to a technology service center where technicians install apps to their cell phone. "Most mobile users do not have data service even if they buy a smartphone, so they have to be happy with pre-loaded apps such as games and dictionaries," Yonho Kim, a non-resident fellow at Korea Economic Institute, told NK News.
What better way to spread the word of the Great Leader than you have everyone in the country have a cell phone? As long a the government controls the content that can be accessed on it.
Remind you of something?
will listen in. CIA will phone NK nuclear scientists with offers of cash.
Domestic spying is now "Benign Information Gathering"
Makes perfect sense. Audio, video, location, internet, anything else on-screen, great for spying. Even turned off, they provide useful information, namely it raises the question why so-and-so has their cellphone turned off. Maybe someone ought to check up on them.
That almost happened to us. Back in the 1980s, the "network" you dialed into with your home computer was a corporate fiefdom. Prodigy, CompuServe, AOL, Delphi, GEnie. Each set up their own site with guides, forums, chatrooms, shopping, messaging, etc. and you paid them a monthly subscription to be able to access it. Communication between them was initially impossible, and accessing a different service's site required paying their subscription fee. MSN was Microsoft's attempt to set up a similar subscription service (done in conjunction with NBC, hence MSNBC).
Those of us in schools, the military, and certain tech companies knew there was a bigger, better way to network things. And we began informing regular lay persons about it. Gradually the services started to allow email between the services, and a few even gave access to some select Usenet newsgroups. People slowly began to realize that there was actually another thing out there called the Internet which could connect everything together. Instead of being stuck with only the guides, forums, and sites you were subscribed to, you could access everything that anybody in the world made. And they began to demand being able to access everything. Finally in 1994, Bill Gates threw in the towel and added a TCP/IP stack to Windows 95 (before, you had to download and set it up yourself using something like Trumpet Winsock - a feat beyond the technical capabilities of most users). Which coupled with the HTTP protocol (websites) gave birth to the Internet the way most people use it today.
We fought hard to inform the public that the Internet existed, and for direct access to it. That's why it horrifies us that many people are taking that freedom we fought and bled for, and willingly giving it up to return to the AOL-like walled gardens of Facebook and iOS, where the company controls everything you can see and do. Don't take your freedom of choice for granted, and throw it away so blithely.
Imagine not having a cell phone, or access to much of any technology created in the last 30 decades or so...
Then one day, north and south are reunified... and you've got electric cars driving through north korea, 3g cell phones with no data replaced by the latest and greatest iphone... the sudden shift from impossible to common place...
I'm only surprised they can afford them. The smart phone, in a state like DPRK, is the greatest mass surveillance tool ever invented. The entire population carrying around always-connected cameras, microphones, and GPS trackers everywhere they go is an authoritarian state's wet dream. You don't even necessarily have to have one yourself to be effectively surveilled, if enough people around you have them.
Leash, Tracking Device AND a Bug!
If cellphones didn't exist Dictators would have to invent them.
Imperialist pigs cannot compete with the innovation of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea.
Our low-energy dictator is making North Korea great again. Brutal regimes are making a big comeback under the peach-faced cuntmuffin we have as president.
You are welcome on my lawn.
What percentage of this 'news' is real, though, given the source?
Also only The Rich (which is a very, very small percentage) will have cellphones, the rest of the citizens are just trying to get enough to eat.
Imagine not having a cell phone, or access to much of any technology created in the last 30 decades or so...
Then one day, north and south are reunified... and you've got electric cars driving through north korea, 3g cell phones with no data replaced by the latest and greatest iphone... the sudden shift from impossible to common place...
It is easy to imagine... I drove through West Virginia a few months ago.
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
I toured the DPRK in 2010. Even back then, our North Korean tour guides had modern cell phones. Our female guide's phone, complete with keychain mascot, rang while we were in the woods driving from Pyongyang to the DMZ. This brought sense to why they told us we couldn't bring phones; these phones could potentially, ya know, work. The foreign tour guides, who did not have phones, explained that only government workers (like the tour entity) were allowed to have cell phones. I guess that loosened up, tho I can't fathom how a regular citizen would pay for the device or use.
Probably because the majority of the population is poor and is more focused on food and shelter than using the intarwebz. If their Dear Leader gets his shit in order and decides to play nice with developed nations then their county will prosper. Until then...
"A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
if they buy a smartphone, so they have to be happy with pre-loaded apps such as games and dictionaries,"
"...and government monitoring software."
"That's a lie!" said the government minder. "Warrentless metadata gathering allowing us to track suspected resistance people to flesh out their contact networks is sufficient!"
"I heartily agree. I wish I had this 250 years ago," said old King George III of England.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Country Wide Web instead of World Wide Web.
The next thing on the North Korean agenda: electricity for their subjects.
It would certainly be an amazing experiment to split a country in two, make one half capitalist and the other half socialist, and come back 75 years later to see what the different results were...
To the tune of "Call Me Maybe"
So they get to play Farmville?