Martyn Williams
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Homepage: http://www.northkoreatech.org
Posts by Martyn Williams
Voice of Korea schedule for winter 2014/2015
Oct 29th
Voice of Korea, North Korea’s international shortwave broadcasting station, adjusted its transmission schedule on October 26 for the winter 2014 and spring 2015 seasons.
The broadcasts follow the same basic line-up each day.
:00 Opening signal, station identification: “This is Voice of Korea” :01 National Anthem :03 Song of General Kim Il Sung :06 Song of General Kim Jong Il :09 News, editorials (approx 15 minutes, but can be extended to full broadcast), followed by music :30 Reminiscences of Great Leader President Kim Il Sung of the century :40 Music and features :50 Editorial, special message (occasional) :55 Frequency information :57 Close
The More >
SiliVaccine – North Korea’s anti-virus scanner
Sep 16th
In a country where most computers aren’t connected to the Internet, an anti-virus scanner might not seem like much of a necessity. But since 2002, programmers in the country have been working on SiliVaccine, a home grown anti-virus application that is now in its fourth version.
I was recently sent a current version that runs on Windows XP and here’s what it looks like.
The splash screen for version 4 shows a copyright date of 2002 to 2011, the latter year likely indicating when this version was first published. The version I received had a virus pattern file — the database used More >
Koryolink subscriptions hit 2.4 million
Sep 8th
Subscriptions to Koryolink, North Korea’s only 3G mobile phone network, have just passed the 2.4 million mark, according to the latest figures from the operator.
The figure represents a significant slowdown in growth in the last year over the previous year and points to the first big spurt in subscriptions being over. The carrier might have to start working harder to continue attracting new users.
At the end of June, the network had just over 2.4 million subscribers, according to Orascom Telecom Media and Technology, the Egyptian company that owns 75 percent of the company.
The last time the company announced subscriber data was in May More >
Koryolink moves to plug censorship loophole
Sep 2nd
North Korea’s sole 3G mobile network operator has moved to plug a potential gap in the country’s considerable national censorship regime.
The loophole could have provided North Koreans with unrestricted access to international phone calls and Internet access and relied on the prepaid SIM cards that have been available to tourists since February 2013.
The cards, purchased upon arrival in Pyongyang, provide visitors with access to a part of the 3G network reserved for foreigners and those in powerful positions.
Typically, North Koreans that can afford a mobile phone can only make domestic phone calls and have no international Internet access from their More >
South Korea’s Daum launches North Korean mapping service
Aug 30th
Daum has launched a North Korean mapping service, becoming the first South Korean portal to offer maps of the country’s northern neighbor.
The maps are based on data from South Korea’s National Geographic Information Institute (NGII) and, according to local media, provide greater coverage of North Korea than Google Maps.
You can check the maps out for yourself on Daum’s mapping site.
The NGII’s data was previously available to South Korean government agencies and went on sale to the public in mid 2013. NGII offered the map, produced at a 1:25,000 scale, for 17,500 won (US$17).
It covers all of North Korea, detailing towns, roads, railways More >
South Korea’s Supreme Court confirms acquittal of Pyongyang retweeter
Aug 29th
South Korea’s top court has upheld the acquittal of a free-speech activist for retweeting North Korean tweets, according to several local media reports.
Park Jung-geun, a Seoul-based photographer, was arrested under the country’s anti-communist National Security Law for a series of tweets posted in late 2010 and early 2011. They included retweets from Uriminzokkiri, a China-based website with close links to the regime in Pyongyang, and some in which Park had substituted his own face in revolutionary imagery (see below).
One of a number of Internet postings by Park Jung-geun for which he was arrested under Seoul’s National Security Law
At his first trial, a district court accepted the More >
A new look at newspapers on KCTV
Aug 27th
Earlier this month, Korean Central Television rolled out updated opening graphics for its 5pm and 8pm evening newscasts.
A closer look at the programming reveals it wasn’t the only part of the newscast that was given a new look.
The newspaper review, which is a staple of the early evening 5pm bulletin, also has a new graphics package and a much lighter musical intro.
The new graphics also give more prominent placement to the names of the country’s four main newspapers:
Rodong Sinmun (로동신문)
Minju Joson (민주조선)
Youth Vanguard (청년전위)
Pyongyang Sinmun (평양신문)
The content of the newspaper is however, not changed. It’s still a rundown of the More >
DPRK takes Ulchi war games protest to UN
Aug 23rd
North Korea has taken its protest of the Ulchi Freedom Guardian war games to the United Nations.
Ja Song Nam, the DPRK’s ambassador to the U.N. sent a letter earlier this week to the president of the Security Council protesting the exercise, which is due to begin this weekend and involves thousands of troops in a large-scale computer simulation of a military action on the Korean peninsula.
Calling them “dangerous joint military exercises,” Ja wrote, “The United States-south [sic] Korea joint military exercises, including the ‘Ulji Freedom Guardian’, are by no means annual or routine exercises of a “defensive nature” but are More >
Ulchi Freedom Guardian means lots of computers
Aug 22nd
As a computer-based war-game, the Ulchi Freedom Guardian exercise that begins this week in South Korea requires lots and lots of computers.
In pictures released Thursday by the U.S. Department of Defense, some of those computers and the complexity of the set-up can be seen. The images and a video show the inside of the Joint Operations Center for the exercise. It was built by the U.S. I Corps and Third Army of South Korea.
Lt. Gen. Stephen Lanza, I Corps Commanding General, is briefed by his staff in the I Corps joint operations center in Camp Yongin, South Korea, during a More >
North Korea proposes expanding work with Russian IT companies
Aug 21st
A North Korean state IT company has approached Russia’s Information and Computer Technologies Industry Association (APKIT) proposing a greater working relationship with Russian IT companies.
The country apparently wants to win business from Russian companies and the Pyongyang Kwangmyong IT Corp. held talks with APKIT in July and August, according to the APKIT.
As part of those talks, the North Korean company proposed a number of areas of collaboration and provided details of the skills possessed by its staff in Pyongyang. Those documents were seen by North Korea Tech.
A portion of a proposal from the Pyongyang Kwangmyong IT Corp. presented to Russia’s APKIT. (Photo: More >
