In Stranger Things, Netflix’s critically and popularly acclaimed science fiction television series, scientists discover a parallel dimension, referred to by the show’s protagonists as the upside-down world, which is different from, yet similar to, this dimension.
Similar to some alternate dimension, North Korea has created its own kind of upside-down information landscape that exists in parallel to much of the wider world’s information landscape and yet remains cut off and bizarre.
Indeed, North Korea’s isolated, parallel information landscape is different, and yet strangely similar to that of most other countries. Its information landscape is starkly different because of the obsessively paranoid and nearly total degree of State control and surveillance of information and, further, because it is purposely separate, and separated from, the rest of the world.
Yet, perhaps ironically, its information landscape is strangely similar because many of its allegedly indigenous information communication technologies, services, and infrastructures resemble, and in many ways mimic, those used in, the rest of the world. North Korea, for instance, has its own version of the internet along with its own versions of an operating system, mobile technologies, and Netflix.
Kwangmyong (translated as ‘bright’), the North Korean internet, reflects this opaque country’s international isolation insofar as it is completely separate from the global internet. It can be considered a kind of parallel dimension internet – or, to borrow from Stranger Things, an upside-down internet – with a self-contained cyberspace, inaccessible to the actual World Wide Web, and restricted specifically to government-controlled content.
Managed and operated by the State-run Korea Computer Centre, the North Korean internet has its own browser, search engine, translation features, and e-mail service. The websites offered on the North Korean internet, consisting of only 28 in total, are basically propaganda, most of which are political in nature, featuring immersive coverage of the country’s leader Kim Jung-un and his government. Its main political websites include the official government web portal, the Korean Central News Agency, and the State insurance corporation. Its other websites include a Korean cookery, two sports-news portals, the Korean tourist board, the Pyongyang International Film Festival, and the national airline Air Koryo.
The North Korean internet is available only to North Korean citizens – however, this availability is constrained by limited accessibility. Although it is technically free, the North Korean internet can be used only by a few individuals who have access to a computer. Only a tiny fraction of the population, mainly located in the capital Pyongyang, has actual access to computers. In fact, computers, rare outside of the capital, are either prohibitively priced or specially assigned to individuals by the government.
Home internet connectivity is rare. Average North Koreans access and use Kwangmyong in public libraries or if they are part of a university or government department in which it might be used for their studies or work. Further, every computer, as well as every North Korean internet connection, whether public or private, must be registered with the police and government. These restrictions therefore mean that only an elite few thousand North Koreans, mainly located in Pyongyang, have access to the North Korean internet.
Red Star OS, the North Korean operating system, mirrors the country’s political system insofar as invasive surveillance on its users is concerned. According to information security researchers Florian Grunow and Niklaus Schiess, who presented the code at the 2016 Chaos Communication Congress, “Red Star resembles how the State is operating. It’s pretty locked down, they focus on integrity a lot and they have mechanisms to track users.”
Written by the Korea Computer Centre, Red Star OS is, as Grunow and Schiess describe, “a full blown operating system where they control most of the code” ensuring its independence from other operating systems. It is based on the Fedora version of Linux, a free and open-source platform. According to Grunow and Schiess, there is an inherent irony in North Korea’s use of Linux because “they are using a system that was built to promote free speech, and they are abusing it” by violating free speech.
Red Star OS, moreover, is designed to look and feel like Apple’s Mac OSX. It is speculated that Apple designs are Kim Jung-un’s personal preference since he’s been photographed near Macs. But it only superficially mimics Apple’s operating system. Indeed, it has far more extensive surveillance and control mechanisms at its disposal, including tracking, deleting, and safeguarding capabilities.
First, Red Star OS’s tracking capabilities trace all documents created, used, and shared on the system, even if offline. These tracking capabilities allow it to watermark, or tag, all documents on a computer or even a USB stick connected to it, and link them permanently to a specific user. Further, any document uploaded to and shared via the system are watermarked.
As the information security researchers Grunow and Schiess explain, “it enables you to keep track of where a document hits Red Star OS for the first time and who opened it in the chain. Basically, it allows the State to track documents.” They further state that “it’s definitely privacy invading. It’s done stealthily and touches files you haven’t even opened.”
Whenever a user opens an app, the tablet itself, without any user prompt, takes a screenshot
Second, Red Star OS’s deleting capabilities allow for the identification of undesirable documents and their modification, erasure, or deletion without permission.
Third, Red Star OS’s safeguarding capabilities permit the system to both defend and protect itself from any unauthorised interference. If a user makes any unauthorised changes to its main functions, such as attempts at disabling its firewall, their computer will display an error message and reboot itself. It is therefore virtually impossible to tamper with the system.
North Korean mobile technologies, such as smartphones and tablets, are specifically designed to act as personalised propaganda platforms and security tools for the government. Although they resemble those available elsewhere, they reflect the government’s paranoid need for control and surveillance over its citizens’ lives.
North Korea initially adopted mobile phones in 2002 but banned them two years later after a suspected assassination attempt on then leader Kim Jong-il that apparently involved a mobile phone bomb. But the government gradually reintroduced mobile technologies over the following years and, in 2008, began operating its own 3G network, called Koryolink, in conjunction with Egypt’s Orascom. Over the past half-decade, in fact, mobile phones have become relatively common in Pyongyang, where capital residents can purchase a range of State-designed and approved devices, such as the Arirang and the Pyongyang 2407 phones, none of which have Wi-Fi or other kinds of internet access.
Although Koryolink reportedly has two million subscribers (mainly in the capital), none of them can use the 3G service let alone make international phone calls.
Koryolink, however, operates a separate 3G network for foreign diplomats, tourists, and some press visitors that provides them access to the global internet. These designated foreigners can also buy special North Korean SIM cards, which can only be used for international phone calls. These designated foreigners can further use their own SIM cards from home, but because there are no roaming arrangements with North Korea, there is no internet access.
North Korea also has several indigenous versions of tablets, such as the recently released Woolim. This tablet has a similar look and feel to Apple’s iPads. It has standard tablet fare, such as e-books featuring government propaganda accounts and stories, educational apps such as foreign language dictionaries, video games like a modified Angry Birds game, and capabilities to transmit North Korean television channels and connect to Kwangmyong, the North Korean internet.
But, unlike iPads, Woolim has many restrictions and surveillance mechanisms. For example, Woolim only permits specific files to be created, used, or played – in other words, users cannot load whatever they want or need onto it. When a user attempts to open a file, the tablet checks its cryptographic signature in order to determine if it is either a file sanctioned by the government or a file generated by the device itself, like a picture the user took with it. If it is neither of these options, the file will not open.
Further, Woolim records its users’ every activity on it in order to keep tabs on what they are doing. For instance, whenever a user opens an app, the tablet itself, without any user prompt, takes a screenshot. These automatic pictures are then archived and made available in another app, none of which can be deleted. As the information security researchers Grunow and Shiess state, these screenshots are documenting your every action.
Manbang, North Korea’s version of Netflix, the popular content-streaming service, further isolates and insulates North Koreans from the outside world by offering an on-demand information diet of government propaganda and Communist ideology. According to a Korean Central News Agency’s special report, Manbang proves North Korea’s “socialist cultural power” that allows its people “to see the country making a leap forward every day and every hour through the materials on Manbang.”
Manbang is accessed through a set-top box that can be attached to a television, both of which much be registered with the government and police. Its functionality is similar to Netflix in that it allows viewers to browse through categories. It provides live streams of five North Korean television channels. It also offers various other features including a digital library of recent television programmes, information about Kim Jong-un’s activities, and a kind of e-reader app with articles from the official newspaper Rodong Sinmun and the Korean Central News Agency.
According to the Korean Central News Agency, Manbang is “elevating the people’s cultural life a step up by allowing them to watch what they want any time they want.” The agency quotes Kim Jong-min, a North Korean State official, explaining how it works: “the information and communications technology is based upon two-way communications. If a view wants to watch, for instance, an animal movie and sends a request to the equipment, it will show the relevant video to the viewer. This is two-way communications.” It is two-way communications, indeed, with users choosing their content and the government recording and archiving every choice.
North Korea’s information landscape helps ensure the country’s isolation and simultaneously helps extend the government’s reach into people’s lives. After all, if North Koreans dare to consume contraband international information of any sort, they can be sentenced to political re-education consisting of two years of hard labour, imprisonment in concentration camps, or execution.
Its oppressive, yet technologically aware, information landscape – is cut off from but nevertheless parallels that of the wider world. It is indeed a strangely different, yet strangely similar, upside-down information dimension.
Marc Kosciejew is a lecturer and former head of department of library, information, and archive science at the University of Malta. In 2007, he toured North Korea and is one of the first English-speakers to publish on its library system.