How Technology Gets the News Out of North Korea 173
itwbennett writes "Kim Dong-cheol is a North Korean with 'a double life,' writes the IDG News Service's Martyn Williams in a story on ITworld. 'In addition to his job as a driver for a company, Kim also works as a clandestine reporter for AsiaPress, a Japanese news agency that's taken advantage of the digital electronics revolution to get reports from inside North Korea,' says Williams. 'When we started training journalists in 2003 or 2004, getting cameras into North Korea was a real problem,' said Jiro Ishimaru, chief editor of the news agency, at a Tokyo news conference on Monday. 'Nowadays, within North Korea you are able to have your pick of Sony, Panasonic or Samsung cameras.' The images they're capturing are 'often startling,' and it 'documents a side of the country the government doesn't want the world to see,' says Williams."
Re:Kim who? (Score:5, Funny)
I sure hope there is no one ACTUALLY named Kim Dong-cheol then.
North Korean secret police: Are you Kim Dong-cheol?
KDC: Yes sir, but not the one who is in this article!
Police: Better safe than sorry, you get 12 years hard labor.
KDC: I'm not a driver for any corporation! I don't have any cameras!
Police: Well then 20 years for embarrassing dear leader!
Re:Kim who? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Chinese cell phones (Score:5, Funny)
If cell phone coverage goes down, they could still use carrier pigeons to send Flash drives to China or South Korea...
Well sir we are talking about a impoverished nation here. Are you sure the pigeons would survived without being hunt down and eaten before it crossed the border?
Re:Kim who? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Kim who? (Score:3, Funny)
So Kim Il Sung is a bit like ... Joseph Smith?
Re:This really is more than I need to know. (Score:3, Funny)
I am hoping this is a red heiring
A communist inheritance?
Re:Samsung? (Score:5, Funny)
...for example their trolley system was allegedly "built in North Korea" despite the fact that it was several decades old and covered in German graffiti.
By "German graffiti" I assume you mean, "German praises to Our Dear Leader by the Western pig-dogs who were so amazed when they visited the best trolley factory in the world that they were moved to paint their awe upon the trolley cars as a never-ending testimony."