Posts tagged South Korea
Seoul eyes harsher crackdown on “pro-NK” websites
Oct 14th
South Korean prosecutors are launching a crackdown on websites and users judged to be posting “pro-North Korean” material, according to several local press reports.
The action comes as regulators judge the amount of such material available to South Korean citizens has “mushroomed to a risky level,” according to prosecutors quoted by Yonhap News said.
North Korea’s state-run media outlets have spent the last year launching several propaganda-filled sites that report on aspects of life in the country and extol the benefits of the country’s political system and its leaders. The outlets have also expanded onto social media with Twitter, Facebook and YouTube channels.
The ease with More >
South Korea’s online blocking sharply rose in 2010
Sep 18th
The number of requests by South Korean police for the deletion of Internet content alleged to be pro-North Korean has soared in the past two years, according to a report in the Dong-A Ilbo.
Police submitted 80,449 requests to the Korea Communications Standards Commission for the removal of online postings in 2010. That compares to 14,430 in 2009 and just 1,793 in 2008 and represents a 45-fold increase over the last two years, the newspaper said.
The annual deletions of North Korean content were pretty constant during the middle of the last decade at between 1,000 and 1,500 per year. They began More >
Group plans satellite TV to North Korea
Sep 14th
A private South Korean group is planning to raise US$46 million to fund the launch of a satellite TV station aimed at North Korea, according to a report by VOA News.
Unification TV, which could be on the air as early as next year, plans to beam South Korean dramas and other entertainment programs, according to the report. It will be launched by Korean Peninsula Vision and Unification.
The chairman of the operation, Bong Doo-wan, told VOA that broadcasting will be the best way to quickly achieve the ethnic unification that is desired by the South Korean public.
Bong is probably right that More >
Report: Stronger GPS jammer developed
Sep 9th
North Korea has developed a powerful jammer that can disrupt GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite signals over a range of “more than 100 kilometers,” according to a South Korean government report, Yonhap News said Tuesday.
News of the jamming equipment was included in a report submitted to South Korea’s parliamentary committee on defense this week, the news agency said.
The South Korean capital lies about 50 kilometers from the border region so a jammer with such range could disrupt or wipe out GPS signals in Seoul and the surrounding area. The city and region up to the border is littered with military More >
Koryo Tours hits out at South Korean web block
Aug 1st
Koryo Tours, the Beijing-based travel agent that specializes in tours of North Korea, says South Korea has “over reacted” in blocking its website since the beginning of this year.
The websites koryotours.com and koryogroup.com have been unavailable from South Korean Internet connections since January 26 this year, apparently a casualty of South Korea’s campaign to stop its citizens from seeing North Korean content.
“This came as a complete surprise – we had not been notified in advance or asked to explain particular content, nor notified afterwards and given an explanation,” the company said in a statement.
Koryo Tours said it arranged a meeting with the More >
DPRK denies cyber attack on Nonghyup Bank
May 11th
The DPRK has made its first comment on allegations that it was behind a cyber attack on a large South Korean bank and, not surprisingly, has denied any involvement.
Last week South Korean prosecutors said they had found evidence that North Korea was behind the April attack, which brought chaos to the computer system and ATM network of Nonghyup Bank for several days. It was one of the most disruptive cyber attacks to-date on the South Korean financial system.
Prosecutors made the allegations after examining the laptop of an IBM employee working at the bank. The laptop was apparently used as a More >
North last, South falling in press freedom
May 5th
North Korea remains the country with the least press freedom in the world, according to the 2011 Press Freedom index from Washington, D.C., based Freedom House. The news isn’t a surprise to anyone that follows North Korea closely. There is a complete lack of independent media, official media is highly censored, and the government actively blocks foreign media from penetrating the country.
What’s perhaps more interesting is a drop in the rank of neighboring South Korea.
The survey ranks countries on 23 questions, assigning scores that are combined to provide a total. The total runs from 0 (best) to 100 (worst) and countries More >
Software engineer could have spied for North
May 3rd
South Korean authorities are investigating whether a software engineer with links to North Korea stole government data and passed it to the country, according to several reports from Seoul.
The reports say the man allegedly stole information between 2005 and 2010 while working for a computer company tasked with developing software and systems for the South Korean government, reported The Associated Press from Seoul.
The man, who has not been identified, was convicted in 2002 of posting pro-North Korean information on websites, said the AP.
Despite that conviction, he was allowed to join a project working on the Korean Joint Command and Control More >
North Korea behind Internet attacks, says South
Apr 9th
South Korea’s National Police Agency says North Korea was behind cyber attacks that targeted 30 major websites between March 3 and 5, according to local news reports.
Websites such as the presidential office and Financial Services Commission were brought down by the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack.
A DDoS attack involves flooding a server with so many requests that it becomes clogged and cannot operate. This is typically done by harnessing a vast network of computers to send the traffic simultaneously and continuously.
Rather than buy and build the computers, hackers usually build this network by infecting PCs with illicit software. At More >
Report: DPRK again jams GPS signals
Mar 7th
North Korea attempted to jam GPS (global positioning system) satellite navigation signals in South Korea on Friday afternoon, according to a Yonhap News report that cited an unnamed South Korean defense official.
Jamming is the act of broadcasting a signal on the same channel as the intended target service so as to confuse or interfere with reception.
The report said GPS disruption was recorded in some devices in the capital Seoul and two cities closer to the border, Incheon and Paju.
One report said the disruption caused some cell phones to show the wrong time. No more details were provided, but that would More >
