It is suspicious of the use of the Internet and prohibits it for the vast majority of the population, although there is some. In the most secretive country in the world, which is none other than North Korea, there is the Internet, although it bears very little resemblance to the network that we can see in the West. It can only be used with official authorization from the North Korean Government and as long as it is done for something specific, such as scientific research.
Otherwise, accessing the Internet in North Korea is like traveling to Narnia, where everything is “fantasy and magic” about the ‘idyllic’ socialist political model of the country. There are up to four official news websites and thirty more that the Government controls to the millimeter, although the only one that ‘exports’ to the world is Rodong.rep.kp, an informative website where current events are conspicuous by their absence and everything is praise for the president of the country.
In fact, the first thing we find on this page, if your device does not block the entry, in a section of the “News of the revolutionary activities of our dear comrade Kim Jong-un”where we can find information such as “Dear Comrade Kim Jong-un visited the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun”, “Dear Comrade Kim Jong-un sent a congratulatory message to the Secretary General and the President of the Lao People’s Democratic Republic” and others inconsequential stories of “dear comrade Kim Jong-un”. In addition, we will be able to see the news about Kim Jong-un on this website for days and days, since it is rarely updated.
This ‘news’ about the North Korean president is the first thing you see when accessing the page. In a country where government propaganda makes up 100% of the newsthe rest of the information does not count and those that are published have little interest, as shown, for example, by the news about “A fair that is held late at night.”
In North Korea the Internet exists mainly because The North Korean Government wants to be informed about what is happening in the world. Another thing is its population, which is already indoctrinated by the Government and has no right to anything.
As for the emailthe first provider in North Korea was Sili Bank, whose servers are in Pyongyang, the country’s capital, although Its use is also restricted.
Powerful infrastructure
Although the use of the Internet is non-existent for most North Koreans, the country has an infrastructure of broadband and fiber optic links up to 2.5 gigabits per second. But the internet is offered through a national intranet called Kwangmyongwhich limits the use of the network almost completely, especially in hotels.
North Korea has little tourism, although it tries to encourage it and since February 2013 it has offered ‘its’ internet through that Kwangmyong intranet to foreigners who visit the country, with 3G technology managed by the Koryolink joint venturethe only mobile phone operator in North Korea. It is property of the Egyptian company Orascom Telecom and the Korea Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC).
In September 2007, North Korea created the top level domain .kp, that contains web pages connected to the North Korean government, and set up its first online store, called Chollimajointly with a Chinese company.
In any case, There are less than 1,500 IP addresses in the country. only. Internet is available in most universities, but the Government limits it to a minimum and also monitor your usage. Teachers and students have access to the North Korean internet while the Government maintains close surveillance to see the sites they enter.
Who can use the internet
The Internet, as an invention of the West, is not trustworthy in North Korea. Although Kim Jong-un even boasts of using the Internet and even of being an expert, the truth is that Only about a thousand people have access to the network in the country Asian and of course always restricted. Some diplomats and high-ranking officials can do this.
Social networks in North Korea do not exist. What’s more, the country blocked the main ones in 2016 (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and a multitude of South Korean websites). South Korea ‘gives’ its northern neighbor the possibility of entering on a much more mundane Internet, but the authorities of the North are in charge of blocking it, despite the limited possibilities of activity on the network of its inhabitants, just like They strive to instruct hackers that can harass and sabotage Western pages.
North Korea also has more than 40 propaganda pages especially dedicated to educating their neighbors in South Korea and the West.
Internet use in North Korea has not softened over the years, quite the opposite. In 2020 the Government announced a new law that prohibits the use of the internet on private sites and severely punishes those who access media from South Korea, the United States or Japan, above all. This initiative came directly to the concern of the North Korean leader, who is suspicious of any language that is not his own, of Western customs and of all “dangerous poisons” on the internet.
Access to pornography
Pornography is one of the stars of the Internet in the West, but not in North Korea, where any form of porn is prohibited for the more than 26 million inhabitants of the country, to the point that consuming content of this type can even carry the death penalty.
That is why the accusation made by the foreign affairs commentator of the prestigious newspaper Financial Times, Gideon Rachmanwhich ensures that the North Korean troops deployed to the war in Ukraine, which can reach up to 12,000 troops, they are consuming porn en masse.
In November, Rachman clung to a “reliable” source that does not reveal to make such accusations, even though there are North Koreans in Russia and Ukraine It doesn’t mean they have access to the internet. and less to those contents, or that have a terminal to be able to enter.
“A generally reliable source tells me that North Korean soldiers deployed in Russia have never before had unlimited internet access. As a result, “They are gorging themselves on pornography.”stated Rachman in X last month. In any case, it is practically impossible to prove it.
Success against Spain, theme of the year
One of the news items that North Korea has widely publicized, the topic of the year so far in the country, occurred at the beginning of last November and featured its women’s under-17 soccer team and also to that of Spain.
The Spanish team in that category lost, surprisingly, in the final of the World Cup in the Dominican Republic against North Korea in the penalty shootout.
This fact, and also in a ‘Western’ sport with the impact of football, was sold in North Korea with the same enthusiasm, or more, that they put into propaganda videos of its military, who practically present themselves as superheroes.
Mobile phones not very operational
As for mobile phones, the number of devices has increased in North Korea, which was not difficult because they barely existed. Currently, about half the population could have access to a mobile phone to make phone calls and send text messages.
But The North Korean Government controls all mobile phones existing in the country that, in addition, are extremely slow and do not have a good network to support them. Government control over cell phones is so tight that the authorities constantly make arrests of private mobile phones and establish control codes to avoid temptations to do something illegal.
Through these few mobile phones you can access the Internet, at least in theory, but always through a super slow network that makes you desperate already an internet completely capped.
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