Websites
DPRK’s Elderly Care Fund online
May 25th
A website for North Korea’s Elderly Care Fund is now online.
The site, available in Korean and English, introduces the organization and its aims.
The fund was recently established, according to a KCNA report from January this year.
It reported money for the organization will come from “the institution for protecting the aged and those donated by international organizations, charity organizations and overseas compatriots and others.” The new website is already reporting on an €800,000 project with the European Union to help the elderly in the DPRK.
The site also has a photo of what appears to be computer tuition for the elderly. The More >
Voice of Korea website due Friday
Apr 14th
North Korea’s international broadcasting service, The Voice of Korea, will launch a website on Friday, according to a domestic radio report transcribed by BBC Monitoring. (The site has launched a day early. See below for update.)
The site is due to open on Friday, which is Kim Il Sung’s birthday, and will be available at http://www.vok.rep.kp .
The report didn’t detail what the website would carry, but judging from comments and emails I receive concerning the frequency schedule, daily recordings of the station’s programming would be appreciated by its listeners. The shortwave signal is sometimes difficult to hear.
Voice of Korea broadcasts in Arabic, More >
KCNA significantly increasing output
Mar 4th
The Korean Central News Agency has significantly increased its online output in the last few months as it continues to expand its new website.
The website, available at kcna.kp (except in South Korea where it’s blocked), first appeared in October 2010 and is KCNA’s first official home on the web. KCNA news was previously available via Korea News Service in Tokyo, but the new site appears to be run directly from Pyongyang.
When it launched, it carried KCNA’s English and Spanish language output and some photos. A refresh of the site in December added Korean, but this simply brought it level with the More >
Rodong Sinmun launches website
Feb 17th
Rodong Sinmun, the official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Worker’s Party of Korea and one of the most important propaganda tools of the DPRK government, has launched a website.
The site was first reported on Thursday although appears to have been officially launched a day earlier on Feb. 16, which was Kim Jong Il’s 69th birthday. DNS (domain name system) records for the site, at www.rodong.rep.kp, which are required for public access to the server, first appeared on Feb. 16.
The website appears to contain the full text of each day’s newspaper and stories back to Jan. 1, 2011. Each More >
Website appears for LRIT maritime system
Feb 16th
North Korea appears to have taken the first steps towards putting a data center online for the maritime Long Range Identification and Tracking (LRIT) system.
The LRIT system was created by the International Maritime Organization in May 2006 and requires passenger and cargo ships automatically report their identity and location at least four times a day. LRIT aids in the global identification and tracking of ships and is part of the shipping industry’s answer to piracy.
In the last few days a website has appeared within North Korea’s IP address space that carriers the single English-language message: “Welcome to LRIT National Data Center More >
KCNA confirms website, new address
Jan 22nd
Korea Central News Agency confirmed for the first time on Saturday that a recently launched website carrying its news is the agency’s official site.
KCNA news has been available on the Internet for several years via a handful of sites, but all have been run by third parties outside the country.
On Saturday, the agency posted a notice in its daily news mentioning the site:
“The Korean Central News Agency would like to express thanks to all the visitors to its website. The KCNA has the honor to inform the visitors that its website address has been changed: IP address 175.45.176.58.”
North Korea Tech More >
KCNA switches IP addresses
Jan 21st
The recently-launched website of the Korea Central News Agency has jumped to a new IP address. This move explains some of the downtime the site has suffered in the last few days.
The site can now be accessed at http://175.45.176.58. The DNS records haven’t been updated yet, so the star.edu.kp domain name doesn’t work at time of writing. It still points to the old address.
South Korea’s Internet firewall has also not yet been updated, so the site is currently accessible from South Korea. It had previously been blocked by Seoul.
The North Korean Website List has been updated with this information.
More > KCNA refreshes its website
Dec 4th
The Korean Central News Agency website that appears to be hosted from inside North Korea has been given a redesign. The new page has a fresher feel and makes much more use of pictures than the previous site, which was first discovered in early October.
Also new is the addition of Korean-language articles to the previously-available English and Spanish news.
The front page includes an image, the day’s headlines and links to seven category menus. I had problems with some of the links and the menus when accessed via Firefox, but they function with Internet Explorer.
It still has to be accessed via an More >
Naenara is back
Oct 28th
North Korea’s Naenara website is back. The site went offline around early September when the dot-kp domain name space went down.
Naenara is run by Pyongyang’s Korea Computer Center and offers news, photos, shopping, tourism information and MP3 files from North Korea.
It’s running inside North Korea’s recently-activated domestic IP address space, but isn’t working perfectly. Some of the links point to dot-kp addresses, which are still not working. It’s worth keeping an eye on.
You can find it at http://175.45.176.14/en/
South Korea now blocking new KCNA site
Oct 21st
South Korea has begun blocking domestic access to the recently launched KCNA website that operates from North Korea’s IP space. Internet users trying to access the site now get redirected to the National Police Agency’s static warning page.
The move isn’t a surprise. The writing was on the wall for the website as soon as it started getting reported in South Korean media.
I checked this afternoon and the government hasn’t blocked the entire IP address range. Right now it looks like it’s just affecting the single KCNA website.
Here’s my story: PC World
