Martyn Williams
This user hasn't shared any biographical information
Homepage: http://www.northkoreatech.org
Posts by Martyn Williams
High-tech revolution yet to hit North Korea
Oct 9th
PYONGYANG (AFP) – Stressed out by email overload and non-stop mobile calls? You might consider a vacation in North Korea, where your cell phone is seized at the airport and Internet is unavailable.
Full story: AFP News
Northeast Asia Telecommunications Directors’ Meeting
Sep 27th
Pyongyang, September 24 (KCNA) — The 27th meeting of the North-East Asia Telephone and Telecommunications Co., Ltd. Directors’ Board took place in Pyongyang on Friday.
Full Story: KCNA
DPRK concerned about US electronic warfare capability
Sep 20th
The Voice of America has got its hands on a military manual said to have been smuggled from North Korea. The manual, which was apparently published in 2005, reveals Pyongyang’s concern about electronic warfare technology used by the United States and South Korea, reports VOA. The document also indicates North Korea’s military uses radar-absorbing paint and other stealth tactics to conceal its weapons.
VOA has also posted the manual as a document on Scribd.
Full Story: VOA
Phyongchon College of Technology
Sep 15th
Pyongyang, September 14 (KCNA) — In the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, large factories and enterprises and major industrial zones have their own study-while-working networks.
Phyongchon College of Technology, situated in Pyongyang, is one of them.
Full story: KCNA
Kim Jong Il Inspects Manpho Unhwa Factory
Sep 13th
Pyongyang, September 12 (KCNA) — General Secretary Kim Jong Il provided field guidance to the Manpho Unhwa Factory alive with the dynamic drive for pushing back the frontiers of latest science and technology.
Full Story: KCNA
North Korea’s Cyber-warfare Capability
Sep 9th
38 North, the Web site of the US Korea Institute at SAIS has a piece on North Korea’s cyber warfare capabilities.
The article provides some of the background to claims that North Korea has been training computer programmers and hackers in the black arts of cyber warfare. It also looks at some of the obstacles the country faces, such as lack of a stable electricity supply, and concludes:
Absent these developments, we should regard North Korean cyber capabilities in the same light we consider its other forays into advanced military systems—strong interest and ragged, self-made technologies, accompanied by bluster and exaggeration.
Full story: More >
Nosotek’s News Corp. link
Sep 7th
Bloomberg has a well-researched piece on Nosotek, the North Korean computer programming joint-venture that’s been busy developing mobile games.
I spoke to the company back in June when I was writing “The world’s most unusual outsourcing destination” and at the time found a single Nosotek game: Bobby’s Blocks. Bloomberg managed to find several other titles, including some based on the movies “The Big Lebowski” and “Men in Black: Alien Assault.” Through a takeover the games ended up being published by a division of News Corp.
The story also quotes Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies on potential dangers it sees of such More >
Pyongyang gets social
Sep 5th
Uriminzokkiri.com, the closest thing North Korea has to an official home page, got social in July when it joined Twitter and Facebook.
The move generated lots of publicity and helped drive Internet users to follow its tweets and status-updates, but also drew the attention of the governments in Seoul and Washington.
Uriminzokkiri’s moves into social media began a few weeks earlier with the launch of a YouTube channel, but that was largely unnoticed. A few news organizations picked up on the launch including AFP, which provided a sense of the channel’s content.
One English-language video with a duration of five minutes and 56 More >
DPRK Cell-phone dialing codes
Aug 31st
A post on NKEconWatch has some hard-to-find information about cell phone dialing codes in North Korea. The details show how basic communications controls exist based on the type of account and customer.
SUNNET (2G GSM network, from 2002)
+850 193 801 plus 4-digit number (when being called from overseas) 193 801 plus 4-digit number (when calling SUNNET to SUNNET) 193 801 plus 4-digit number (when calling from Pyongyang “381” landlines to SUNNET)
KORYOLINK (3G network, from late 2008)
+850 192 250 numbers are for foreigners +850 192 260 numbers are for locals
Pyongyang “382” landline numbers cannot reach SUNNET cell phones. SUNNET subscribers can call More >
Multipurpose Alarm Developed
Jul 30th
Pyongyang, July 30 (KCNA) — A multipurpose alarm has recently been developed by the Korea Chongchun Trading Company. The invention consists of a main body, a remote controller and heat, gas, infrared ray and magnetism sensors.
Full story: KCNA
