North Korea: A Digital Panopticon

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Juche: Radical Self-Reliance

North Korea is by any stretch of the imagination the most closed off country in the world. The ideology of the state leadership in the “Hermit Kingdom” is known as Juche or “self-reliance.” Juche was formed by Kim Il-Sung in the crucible of the Japanese occupation of North Korea and World War II. Kim continued to develop this ideology as he gained more and more power in the period during and following the Korean War. Juche is described as a “radical independence” and includes all aspects of North Korean life, politics, military philosophy, and the economy. The concept of radical independence has continued to drive the leadership of the country in the 21st century and the reign of Kim Jong-Un.

North Korea Develops Its Own Intranet

In line with the Juche Ideology, North Korea began developing their own computer network in the 1990’s. At the time, Korea Computer Center (KCC) was the organization tasked with all aspects of the new internet. What they eventually developed was North Korea’s totally isolated intranet known as the Kwangmyong network (Kwangmyong means “Bright Light”). Any website on the intranet has to be approved by the KCC. The country has it’s own email services, banking sites, and even online shopping. But, there is no connectivity to the outside world, at least for the average citizen. That would be limited to only the highest ranking officials.

Any access to the internet (as opposed to the Kwangmyong intranet internally) is routed through China by way of Pyongyang. There was a 3G network allowing foreigners to access the internet while in North Korea. That is believed to have been shut off, and may only exist for visiting dignitaries (i.e. Dennis Rodman). There may be different forms of internet access for the highest officials. According to Wikipedia:

Many of North Korea’s physical Internet connections go through a line that runs from Pyongyang to China, connecting to China Unicom. There are longstanding rumors of a secret T1 line which is used to link devices used by the highest officials at much higher speeds and makes them appear with Chinese IP addresses. North Korea is also believed to route some Internet connections through satellite-based systems.

Radical Self-Reliance Leads to Radical Censorship

Online censorship in North Korea is first and foremost accomplished by the isolated Kwangmyong network. Once again, the average citizen simply has no means of accessing websites outside of the country. We’ve seen a similar intranet setup in Iran (see my post Iran: The Disconnected Nation). North Korea’s version seems to be even more restrictive, and any attempt to access the outside world can result in years of hard labor or even the death penalty. The threat of arrest alone is probably enough of a deterrent in most cases: defectors have described horrific conditions and torture in the country’s prison camps.

Because access to the outside world is mainly via the single Pyongyang to China connection, government shutdown of the internet would be easy. Shutdowns have been detected, but weren’t necessarily attributed to the government. At least one may have been caused by the American Hacker PX4. There has also been speculation that the U.S. government may have caused a shutdown after a North Korean missile test, but has never been confirmed.

Red Star OS Tracks Everything

North Korea has it’s own internal Operating system based on Linux called Red Star OS. Analysis by outside researchers has show that this system is full of spyware and tracking tools. Any file uploaded to Red Star is watermarked, allowing it to be linked to an individual user. Then, these watermarked files can be tracked even if they are transferred to another user. The system can even locate files with undesirable content and delete them. Researchers even came across some poorly understood software that may be used to register the computer ID. Modifying the system would be nearly impossible for regular users. According to researchers Florian Grunow and Niklaus Schiess:

Red Star also makes it nearly impossible for users to modify the system for their benefit. Changes such as an attempt to disable its antivirus software or internet firewall will be detected and prompt the system to reboot.

As an aside, the researchers also point out that it is ironic that North Korean authorities chose to base Red Star OS on Linux, an OS designed to be free and open-source.

Mobile Devices Are Monitoring Tools

It is possible for North Korean citizens to obtain mobile devices. These devices, though, are also heavily monitored. The BBC investigated a phone smuggled out of the country. The device had the following built-in capabilities:

Blocking of the South Korean Language
Automatic Content Censorship
Spyware that allows real-time monitoring of users activity

The devices will even convert South Korean Language into phrases that fit into the state’s ideology. According to the India Times:

The censorship system is built directly into North Korean smartphones. The phone examined by the BBC showed that common South Korean terms are automatically corrected to fit the regime’s ideology. For instance, typing “South Korea” is immediately changed to “Puppet State”—a phrase the state uses to characterise Seoul as an American-controlled outpost.

The devices can also take screenshots every 5 minutes, which are saved to a folder that can’t be accessed by the user. Of course, government officials can open the files and develop a complete picture of sites visited, messages sent, and apps opened.

Other Measures to Ensure Compliance

If a heavily regulated intranet and cellphones and computers that spy on citizens isn’t enough, there are certainly other disincentives to illegal activity in North Korea. There are laws criminalizing the distribution of possession of any foreign sources of information or entertainment. Parents are even held responsible for their children’s speech. Even if you can get access to the internet, you’ll be watched. Defectors have talked about getting online in libraries while a librarian sat with them and monitored all their online activity. The library internet may actually “freeze” every few minutes, requiring a fingerprint scan by the librarian. Using the internet in a library for more than an hour requires special permission. On top of these measures, citizens have to worry about being spied on by their own neighbors. According to Stimson.org:

Much of the country’s existing surveillance network relies on a massive network of human intelligence gathering. From state security agency officials and police all the way down to the workplace administrators and the inminban (인민반) leaders who keep watch on their neighborhoods, some estimates say as many as 1 in 20 North Koreans is part of the existing surveillance system.

Circumventing Censorship is Difficult

Obviously, anywhere there is oppression, there will be attempts to circumvent it. In the case of North Korea, though, a great deal of these attempts may come from outside the country. The Insular nature of North Korea makes it difficult to know a lot of things for sure, but circumvention tools like Tor and Psiphon probably have limited use. Even if they were available to the general population, getting even a Tor bridge out of the country would seem nearly impossible. There is evidence of VPN use, and Psiphon3 has apparently been used to circumvent censorship, but only on a small scale. Some researchers have expressed skepticism about how frequently these tools are actually used, especially any VPNs that require payment. Sometimes, North Koreans near the border will use Chinese SIM cards to get outside access. The penalties if they are caught are harsh, as noted above.

Activists outside of North Korea have attempted to get information about the outside world into the country. One group, Flash Drives For Freedom, smuggled over 130,000 USB devices into the country. These contained “subversive” information like foreign films and even an offline Wikipedia. Some devices were tied to balloons and floated north across the border with South Korea. Some statistics suggest that millions of North Koreans were reached. Unfortunately, activities like these were made illegal by the South Korean National Assembly.

Conclusion

North Korea is a digital panopticon. Virtually every digital device is used to monitor the citizens of the country. Access to foreign information is heavily restricted and practically impossible for all but the highest ranked officials. All of this is in response to an ideology of extreme isolation and radical self-sufficiency developed by Kim Il-Sung. Penalties for infringements are among the harshest in the world, and can include hard labor or even death. Circumvention is made a herculean task by the insular Kwangmyong intranet and a network of spies and informants.