Only a strictly selected social "elite" can use the Internet

Absrtact: Is it possible for a strictly selected social elite to use the Internet in the world's most secretive country? The short answer is: weird. At least in the eyes of all other countries. But as North Koreans start risking their lives,

Only a strictly selected social "elite" can use the Internet

What would it be like to surf the internet in the world's most secretive country? The short answer is: weird. At least in the eyes of all other countries. But as North Koreans start risking their lives trying to get in touch with the outside world, they may create dramatic moments for the country's history.

Every North Korean official web page has a peculiar phenomenon, a small program will appear in the code of each page. The program's role is very simple, but also very important, as long as the state leader Kim Jong-un in the Web page mentioned, his name will be automatically magnified a little bit, to make it from the surrounding text highlighted.

The names of Kim Jong Un and the past two leaders have been slightly magnified on the North Korean web page.

This is only one aspect of the network of North Korea's unique and magical country. In a country where people are deliberately isolated from the internet and are thirsty for information other than government propaganda, the use of the web depends on government directives. But there is a growing belief that such controls are beginning to wane.

"The government will not be able to control all the information exchanges in this country as before," Scott Thomas Brousse explains. He is an expert on North Korea and has written a number of related articles. "This is a major step forward. ”

101 Years

Only in Pyongyang, North Korea, is the only internet-accessible coffee shop in the country.

Every person who opens a computer in a café will find that the computer they are using is not the Windows operating system, but the Red Star, a specially developed operating system by North Korea, which is said to have been personally commissioned by former leader Kim Jong Il.

A read-only document before a system is loaded explains the significance of this operating system in conjunction with national values.

The North Korean computer runs a specially developed red Star operating system

The computer calendar shows years not 2012, but 101 years, the year from the birth of Kim Il Sung, the first national leader's political theory that determines all political decisions.

Ordinary citizens are unable to use the Internet, and the privilege of surfing the Internet is limited to a select group of people, including some elites, academics and scientists.

But even the internet, which is seen by these people, is very narrow and shallow, and it is more of an expensive corporate intranet than a costly global internet like other countries.

"The network they build is a system that they can control and destroy when necessary," Mr. Bruce explains.

This system is called Guangming Network, which is managed by a network service provider running independently of the state.

According to Mr. Bruce, the light network consists mainly of news announcements, conversational functions and state-supported media. No surprises, no traces of Twitter.

"For many authoritarian governments looking at what is happening in the Middle East, they are not saying they want to access Facebook, or to introduce Twitter, what if the government just created a Facebook that could be regulated and controlled?" Said Mr. Bruce.

Red Star operating system is a modified Firefox browser, called My Motherland, and North Korea's network port name. It also has an English version.

Typical Web pages include news services, such as the voice of North Korea, and North Korea's official agency, Labor news.

But anyone who scoffs at the network has to be careful, Reporters Without Borders, a group that oversees the freedom of global publishing, says some North Korean "journalists" find themselves being sent to "makeover classes", only because of a typographical error in their article.

In addition to the bright "inside" net, a handful of North Koreans have access to a full, unfiltered network, but believe that the privilege is limited to dozens of families, most of whom are relatives of Kim Jong Un.

"Mosquito Nets"

North Korea's reluctance to link their people to the Internet has been refuted by some as an exchange that will have to be opened up slightly if North Korea is to survive in the nation of the world.

Compared to China's famous "Super Firewall", blocking websites such as Twitter and shielding the BBC from time to time, North Korea's communications facilities are described as "mosquito nets", allowing very little information to be in and out.

The most overlooked part of the mosquito net is the mobile phone.

Although there are official mobile networks, but do not support data connections and international calls, in this case the North Koreans are holding more mobile phones in China, mobile phones are smuggled into North Korea from the border.

The handsets smuggled from China are often used only within 10 kilometres of the border, and are at considerable risk.

"The risk that people are willing to take now is unthinkable 20 years ago," Nette Cole Dreizin said. He has been involved in writing a report on the changing media environment in North Korea, which is very innovative. The report, titled Silent Opening, interviewed 420 people who defected from North Korea, and from their stories they could glimpse how far they could go to use illegal handsets.

"To make sure the phone frequency is not captured, I will fill a basin with water and put a pot lid on my head," says one respondent, who said he was 28 years old and left his country in November 2010.

North Korea's mobile phone offers 3G frequency, but no network

"I don't know if it's going to work, but I didn't get caught once," he said. ”

Although his scientific method is questionable, his fear is accurate.

"Owning an illegal cell phone is a serious crime," explains Mr Bruce.

"In fact, the government has bought detection equipment to pursue those who use illegal mobile phones," he said. If you want to use a mobile phone, you should find a densely populated area, and it can only take a short time. ”

Real information

During Kim Jong Il's leadership, he would have hundreds of tanks on the street parade to show he was a military genius.

Many observers say his son, Kim Jong-un, is likely to show that he has a shrewd scientific mind and may bring some high-tech improvements to his people's lives.

But every step of this improvement will bring to the North Koreans some experience they have never had-the real message. This can have an astonishing impact on all closed countries.

"I don't see any sign of the advent of anything like the Arab Spring ①," Mr. Bruce said. "But I do believe that the Korean people are longing for a way to use the Internet, which creates an environment full of people's visions, and that the environment is not going to be easy." ”

① Arab Spring, beginning with the outbreak of unrest in Tunisia since November 2012, people in some Arab countries have taken to the streets, demanding the overthrow of their authoritarian regime, and are optimistic that "a new Middle East" is expected to be the future of the movement, and that this "Arab Spring" belongs to the "familiar Internet , demanding a younger generation with basic democratic rights, like most other parts of the world.