Voice of Korea mid 2013 full schedule
Apr 2nd
Voice of Korea switched to its mid-2013 broadcasting schedule as of March 31. A couple of days ago I published the frequencies for English-language programs based on my own monitoring, and now we have the full plan for all languages.
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 More >
State Space Development Bureau established
Apr 2nd
Signaling that it intends to pursue space exploration and the launch of more satellites, the DPRK’s parliament on Monday voted to establish a State Space Development Bureau.
The Supreme People’s Assembly on Monday also voted into effect a law on space development, reported KCNA without detailing the law.
The news was reported by KCNA but there were few details on the bureau or who would head it. The Korean Committee of Space Technology had previously been the top body on space development and whether it will continue was also not clear.
The decision of the SPA was reported in brief form by the state-run news More >
More attacks pledged on North Korean websites
Apr 1st
People who apparently took part in this weekend’s denial of service attacks against several major North Korean websites have promised there’s more to come.
The attacks hit sites including KCNA, Voice of Korea, the Committee for Cultural Relations with Foreign Nations and Air Koryo. They also targeted the Korean Friendship Association’s site although I wasn’t able to verify whether it went down.
A denial of service attack involves flooding a web server with so much traffic that it becomes overloaded and cannot respond to legitimate requests for pages. It’s different from the site being hacked, although the end result is similar in More >
New Voice of Korea English schedule
Mar 31st
North Korea’s external shortwave radio broadcaster, Voice of Korea, joins many of the world’s international broadcasters in switching to a summer frequency schedule on Sunday.
Shortwave broadcasts change frequencies numerous times during the day to take advantage of atmospheric conditions that help their broadcasts can reach the intended targets. For this reason, it’s important to know when and where a station will appear.
Based on on-air announcements, this is the new schedule for English-language broadcasts that goes into effect on Sunday and will last for roughly the next six months.
All times are in UTC (GMT) and all frequencies in kilohertz.
0400-0500 to North More >
The North-South air traffic control link
Mar 31st
After this week’s decision by North Korea to stop answering a military hotline between border control posts at the Kaesong Industrial Zone, there remains just one known link through which North and South Koreans can still directly speak: an air traffic control connection between Seoul and Pyongyang.
The connection, a vital safety link for air traffic overflying the two countries, was first opened in 1998 when the DPRK opened its airspace to overflying aircraft. Before then, aircraft had to fly around the country and that meant longer flights and higher fuel consumption. Opening North Korean airspace was estimated to bring savings More >
#OpNorthKorea brings more attacks on DPRK websites
Mar 30th
A new round of attacks against North Korean websites began Saturday, causing several to become unavailable.
The attacks appear to be part of a loosely coordinated effort by hackers to target North Korean sites after the country’s state-run media said relations with South Korea were “at a state of war.”
As of 3pm Korean time (0600 UTC) on Saturday, attempts to contact the Naenara, Korean Central News Agency, Air Koryo and Voice of Korea all failed.
The sites were hit with an apparent DDoS (distributed denial of service) attack in which the web servers are flooded with so much junk traffic from hackers More >
South Korean sites hit by cyber attacks
Mar 27th
Several South Korean websites that specialize in reporting on North Korean issues were hit by cyber attackers on Tuesday, they said late the same day.
Daily NK and Free North Korea Radio both confirmed the attacks in articles posted on their sites. They were said to begin at 2pm local time (0500 UTC) and resulted in the sites being unavailable for some time.
“The attack was aimed at databases and was designed to blow away the entire system. Based on this, we can say that their target was clearly pre-ordained and the aim was to completely incapacitate it,” the Daily NK said More >
Mobile Internet service reportedly stopped for tourists
Mar 27th
Well, that didn’t last for long. Short-term tourists entering the DPRK can no longer get mobile Internet service, according to Koryo Tours.
“3G access is no longer available for tourists to the DPRK. Sim cards can still be purchased to make international calls but no internet access is available,” the Beijing-based North Korean tourism specialist said in a short notice on its website.
After requiring for years visitors to give up their cell phones as the entered the country, North Korea changed its policy in February and began allowing the devices in. Coinciding with the change, Koryolink started offering prepaid SIM cards More >
Voice of Korea dumps own player, adopts Flash
Mar 26th
The website of Voice of Korea, the DPRK’s international shortwave radio service, has dumped its proprietary software player.
The site previously required use of the player by users to hear its audio clips posted online (see, right), but that’s not now the case.
Users can now listen with Flash, and that opens the audio up for the first time to Mac and Linux users. It also means that Windows users who were uneasy about downloading a North Korean software package onto their computers can now listen to the audio.
Users don’t have to download the linked Flash package. Flash can be downloaded from More >
More IPs found in hacking probe, but they might mean nothing
Mar 26th
Investigators looking into last week’s cyber attack on South Korean banks and broadcasters have reportedly found more IP (Internet Protocol) addresses linked to the attacks, but one security expert I spoke to said that might mean nothing.
The National Police Agency said it has traced some of the malicious code to addresses in the United States and three European countries, according to Yonhap. No further details were released by the NPA.
The news comes after investigators last week publicly announced a Chinese address as linked to the attack, but then withdrew the accusation a day later. It turned out the address was correct and, when More >
