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."
Kim who? (Score:1, Insightful)
This really is more than I need to know. (Score:5, Insightful)
Really do we need to know how this is done? I am hoping this is a red heiring and that they are using other methods to get the SD cards out.
Chinese cell phones (Score:5, Insightful)
The interesting part is that they use Chinese cellphone networks, which leak into North Korea at the border, to get the videos out. (The Burmese opposition also does that, connecting to Bengladeshi networks.)
I wonder why China lets that happen, as it would be trivial for them to ban any data coverage in this area and/or report any suspicious activity to the North Korean authorities. Maybe it's a way for them to put some pressure on their North Korean "ally", which has become somewhat of an embarrasment to them lately.
If cell phone coverage goes down, they could still use carrier pigeons to send Flash drives to China or South Korea...
Re:Samsung? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Chinese cell phones (Score:2, Insightful)
I wonder why China lets that happen, as it would be trivial for them to ban any data coverage in this area and/or report any suspicious activity to the North Korean authorities. Maybe it's a way for them to put some pressure on their North Korean "ally", which has become somewhat of an embarrasment to them lately.
Maybe they use it as a cheap and easy way to get their own information out of the country?
Re:Kim who? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:does anyone really care about NK? (Score:4, Insightful)
To answer your question - yes. Lots of us care about North Korea.
It does suck to feel pretty helpless for the most part though there are a number of avenues available to help in small ways. Humans are a varied bunch in a number of ways and while you have one view point, many hold others.
Re:Western spin (Score:3, Insightful)
Starving to death is so under-rated.
And everything you list as being a cause of the problems of North Korea, other than geographic location are due to the dictatorship.
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Chinese cell phones (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Western spin (Score:5, Insightful)
A place with no advertisements, no light pollution, and few cars sounds good to me.
The dictatorship is bad, but the economic situation is caused by bad location in the globe, lack of innovation to improve farming/manufacturing, corruption, and bad trading.
Are you fucking serious?
Let me give you just one example. A doctor goes to NK to treat cataracts using a simple procedure. He cures the blindness of a hundred people in one sitting. When they take the bandages off, the first thing they do when they can see is rush past the doctor to worship the pictures of the Dear Leader and the Great General and thank them for the gift of sight. Of course, that's what they have to do in the presence of the authorities or any cameras whose contents are likely to be viewed by the authorities.
NK is a tin pot hereditary dictatorship, it is a necrocracy with a dead man as its head of state. It is a surreal world that shows what happens when absolute power gets into the hands of an unstable lunatic. Its people are the most oppressed in the modern world.
"Bad location in the globe" my trunks. It's within easy trading distance of Japan on one side and China on the other.
Jesus wept!
Re:Western spin (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:does anyone really care about NK? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, with the "I can't" attitude, you're right. But if you stopped thinking individually, instead more along the lines of "We can't" - then you'd be lying, because there is a lot that we can do together.
The reason why people make these videos and images isn't so that 1 person on the other side of the border can feel sympathy and try to revolutionize everythings - its for massive appeal to as many people as possible, so that a large group of people might undertake humanitarian efforts.
But - I mean, go ahead with that attitude. Does anyone really care about you? I mean, I've hardly interacted with you, but there isn't anything I can do to change your mind, you aren't a priority. In fact - I can't do anything about anything my own country - my one vote is drowned by millions of others, my recycling efforts are negated by others negligance, and even my job is so replacable by someone else that my contributions to society are really nothing.
If you don't feel particularily humanitarian about something - like you don't want to help the North Koreans, that's absolutely fine. Freedom of opinion. But don't parade it under the guise that "I would if I could".
Re:Chinese cell phones (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Chinese cell phones (Score:2, Insightful)
This is correct. China doesn't want a conflict with the US or Japan because they know they will take huge military and economic loses. Trade is what made China strong for hundreds of years and military conflicts with the West made it weak.
However they made a pledge to stand by North Korea decades ago and they will not dishonor themselves by turning their back on North Korea now.
They don't know the DPRK to totally collapse because that would lead to a refuge crisis the likes of which the world hasn't seen since the Second World War ended.
I'm sure the "official" PRC spies from the "Interest Sections" in the PRC embassy have sat phones but unofficial PRC agents and paid informers use this ad hoc cell phone leak to get data out.
Re:does anyone really care about NK? (Score:4, Insightful)
I care.
Millions of people as slaves to a totalitarian monarchy and millions of men under arms destabilizing the entire region.
If there was an opening of the DPRK, following the refugee crisis and 10-20 years of economic hardship for the Republic of Korea to bring the north into Third World status, the United States, Japan, and RoK would all be able to back forces from the brink of war, downsize military spending and remove a nuclear threat from the region.
The US would be able to fold up an Army division, forward Marine base and most of an Air Force alone.
Furthermore it would be one less thing where the US and Japan oppose the Russian Federation and People's Republic of China.
Re:Kim who? (Score:3, Insightful)
The name was the important thing for inspiring the necessary fear. You see, no one would surrender to the Dread Pirate Westley...
Re:Chinese cell phones (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:People appear to be starving in North Korea (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:does anyone really care about NK? (Score:3, Insightful)
No, they fought for what they thought was a better life and were misled and betrayed by their leaders.
Re:Kim who? (Score:3, Insightful)
Still, if the article is factually accurate with the information they give I wouldn't want to be the guy. They've got pictures from 3 different locations that the guy has been including pictures of people he's been in contact with. Now it seems that the pictures are careful to avoid landmarks and identifying features but a good, well equipped intelligence service would probably be able to identify him just based on the pictures and his stated occupation. North Korea's internal intelligence certainly has the practice, whether they have the data and equipment needed to do the analysis I don't know.
Re:I've Seen North Korea (Score:5, Insightful)
When a KGB agent is the good guy, you know the rest of the situation is f*cked up...
Re:Chinese cell phones (Score:5, Insightful)
And that's the China-North Korea situation in a nutshell. I'm on a horse.
Re:Chinese cell phones (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Western spin (Score:5, Insightful)
You know what's worse than advertisements? Not being able to buy anything because there's nothing to buy. No food, no clothes, no nothing. You know what's worse than light pollution? Not being able to turn the lights on at night. You know what's worse than cars and traffic? An ox cart pulled by a malnourished ox that you're seriously considering turning into food this winter, even though the meat's tougher than nails and it means you'll have to pull your plow by hand next spring. But, hey, it's that or starve.
But, hey, that fixie you were riding on before you posted your nonsense on this thread will totally come in handy in the Middle Ages-meets-zombie apocalypse world you have mapped out in your sociopathic head as an "ideal utopia" for your urban hipster douchebaggery. Good luck with that.
Re:Chinese cell phones (Score:1, Insightful)
I doubt that "morals" enter into it when you're talking about the Chinese government.
That's not a particularly realistic view of the Chinese government. Morality is very much at the center of their motivations most of the time. Their view of western governments as largely amoral is closer to the truth. But that's a good thing -- the thing most pernicious for any form of morality is government sponsorship.
Re:Western spin (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:shocking north korea video (Score:1, Insightful)
It's as though they are stuck in the 1950s soviet era. Except for the trickling in of technology from the outside to their wealthy, it's basically a nation frozen in time.
When that time distortion field "pops", reality is going to hit them VERY hard. I'm willing to bet the PTSD will force many into suicide. For all the hell they've been through, I could imagine why.
I genuinely feel sorry for them. Sometimes life is unfair, for others it's just damn cruel!!!