North Korea’s top leader Kim Jong-un (in black) watches a firing contest by the military’s artillery units in this photo released by the North’s newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Jan. 5, 2016. As is customary, the reports did not specify when Kim viewed the contest, but it is presumed to be his first military-related field guidance of the new year. (Yonhap)
Another day and another strange story involving North Korea; this time two doctors strangely killed in Cambodia:
Even by the standards of news about North Korea, this story is bizarre: Two North Korean doctors working in Cambodia died over the weekend, apparently after they got so drunk that their wives, also doctors, injected them with some mystery liquid to counteract the alcohol. Both men then had heart attacks, according to a report in the Phnom Penh Post. [Washington Post]
These photos carried by North Korea’s ruling party newspaper Rodong Sinmun on Dec. 29, 2015, show the country’s leader Kim Jong-un at a commendations ceremony for fishermen. According to the report, Kim lauded the exemplary fishermen and fisheries officials for their remarkable successes. (Yonhap)
Here is a look at North Korea’s computer operating system for their Intranet software. It looks like the NSA will have a very difficult time ever snooping on the North Koreans based on how their Intranet and Red Star software is designed:
North Korea’s homegrown computer operating system mirrors its political one, according to two German researchers who have delved into the code: a go-it-alone approach, a high degree of paranoia and invasive snooping on users.
Their research, the deepest yet into the secretive state’s Red Star OS, illustrates the challenges Pyongyang faces in trying to embrace the benefits of computing and the internet while keeping a tight grip on ideas and culture.
The researchers, Florian Grunow and Niklaus Schiess of German IT security company ERNW GmbH, spoke to Reuters before presenting their findings to the Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg on Sunday, a gathering of hackers and security researchers.
The operating system is not just the pale copy of western ones that many have assumed, they concluded after downloading the software from a website outside North Korea and exploring the code in detail,
“(Late leader) Kim Jong Il said North Korea should develop a system of their own,” said Grunow. “This is what they’ve done.”
North Korea, whose rudimentary intranet system does not connect to the outside internet but allows access to state media and some officially approved websites, has been developing its own operating system for more than a decade.
This latest version, written around 2013, is based on a version of Linux called Fedora and has eschewed the previous version’s Windows XP feel for Apple’s OSX — perhaps a nod to leader Kim Jong Un, who like his father has been photographed near Macs.
But under the hood there’s a lot that’s unique, including its own version of encrypting files. “This is a full blown operation system where they control most of the code,” said Grunow.
This, the researchers say, suggests North Korea wants to avoid any code that might be compromised by intelligence agencies.
“Maybe this is a bit fear-driven,” said Grunow. “They may want to be independent of other operating systems because they fear back doors” which might allow others to spy on them. [Reuters]
Via a reader tip comes the below news that a close aid of Kim Jong-un has died in a car accident. Considering Kim Jong-il’s recent track record it makes me wonder if this was really an accident or not? However, the North Korean state media “closest comrade-in-arms and steadfast revolutionary comrade” and he was given a state funeral. If Kim Jong-un wanted Kim Yang-gon dead maybe he is now doing it in a way that doesn’t bring negative international media attention? Either that or it really was just a car accident:
A senior North Korean ruling party official and a top aide to leader Kim Jong Un has died in a car accident, the state news agency reported on Wednesday, in the latest event to hit the close circle of deputies of the country’s leader.
Kim Yang Gon, who was a secretary of the Workers’ Party and the head of its United Front Department, the unit that handles the North’s ties with South Korea, was Kim Jong Un’s “closest comrade, a solid revolutionary partner,” KCNA said.
Kim as the top official managing ties with the South was part of a high-level delegation that held talks in August after the rival states exchanged artillery fire, raising tensions to one of its highest points in recent years.
Those talks produced an agreement that ended the standoff and for the two sides to work to hold more discussions to improve ties.
KCNA said Kim died on Tuesday in an automobile accident at the age of 73. It gave no details of the accident. [Reuters]
The North Koreans continue to tinker with their road mobile ICBM which is their primary strategic deterrent against the United States:
Design changes to a North Korean missile capable of reaching the U.S. mainland should increase its reliability but are likely to delay deployment for at least five years, according to a Washington, D.C.-based think tank.
The KN-08 intercontinental ballistic missile, which was publicly displayed during an October military parade, has been shortened and simplified, according to 38 North, a website run by Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies that monitors North Korean activities. A blunt warhead that is more likely to survive re-entry replaces a narrow, pointed design, and the missile’s three stages have been reduced to two.
“The underlying technology is mostly the same — a blend of North Korean engineering and Cold War leftovers from the Soviet Union — but the structural design has been substantially improved,” the report said Tuesday. “There is reason to suspect that the new structural technology was illicitly obtained from Ukrainian sources.”
The new KN-08 would have a range similar to its predecessor — about 5,600 miles, enough to reach the U.S. West Coast — with an estimated success rate of 50 percent to 60 percent, the report said. The previous model’s rate was estimated at 30 percent to 40 percent.
“The new design is simpler and more reliable, and thus a more credible threat,” 38 North said. [Stars & Stripes]
Does a 90% tax on a $100 a month salary make someone a slave?:
More than 2,500 North Korean workers have been forced to work in Mongolia and Poland under poor working conditions with their human rights being violated, a South Korean civic group said Wednesday.
About 1,800 North Korean workers are being forced to work mainly in Mongolia’s construction sector or in sewing factories while around 800 North Koreans are employed in Poland in the shipbuilding and construction sectors, according to the Database Center for North Korean Human Rights.
Marzuki Darusman, U.N. special rapporteur on the human rights situation in North Korea, said in his report that more than 50,000 North Koreans have been forced to work abroad, mainly in China and Russia, as the North seeks to earn hard currency.
The civic group said Mongolia has had close ties with North Korea for a long time and a distinctive geographical location bordering Russia and China where thousands of North Koreans are forced to labor.
Poland had friendly relations with North Korea during the era of the former Soviet Union and it is known as one of two European Union nations including Malta that has hired North Korean workers.
The agency said that North Korean workers in the two countries have repatriated about 90 percent of their salary to North Korea while earning less than $100 per month while working around 12 hours per day. [Yonhap]
A reunified Korean peninsula is a big if, but if it did happen one thing is for sure that USFK’s role in South Korea would undoubtedly change if not end all together. That is what former CIA analyst Sue Mi Terry writes about in a paper discussed in the below National Interest article. I for one think that the ROK would want to keep USFK intact with less troops on the ground as a hedge against any Chinese adventurism on the peninsula:
Last week Kim Jong-un marked the fourth anniversary of his succession to leadership and his father’s death in North Korea. The leadership transition reignited discussion among North Korea watchers over how and whether the regime would be able to survive. Two years later, Kim had his uncle, Jang Song-thaek, executed for treason, sparking another round of speculation over whether the execution reflected a step toward consolidation of power under or was evidence of infighting that might lead to a leadership vacuum in Pyongyang. Because North Korea’s totalitarian system requires isolation to perpetuate political control yet is increasingly penetrated by markets and information, speculation about North Korea’s collapse will persist, and outside observers will judge that Kim is playing a losing hand.
For this reason, policy wonks continue to discuss whether North Korea might collapse and what challenges might emerge out of such a scenario. Nevertheless, seldom discussed is how a unified Korea might behave or how the U.S.-South Korea alliance might or might not adapt, change or even dissolve as a result of unification. Answers to these questions, of course, are speculative and are difficult to conceptualize, but Sue Mi Terry, managing director for Korea at BowerGroupAsia and former CIA analyst, seeks to tackle them straight on in her discussion paper, “Unified Korea and the Future of the U.S.-South Korea Alliance.”
Starting with the most likely scenario that unification will occur with South Korea absorbing the North without a devastating war, Terry argues that a unified Korea would face three possible strategic choices: continuing the alliance with the United States in some form, becoming an independent regional power and tilting toward China. A multilateral security arrangement or a collective security mechanism is unlikely to materialize as an option. [The National Interest]
