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Secret State of North Korea [video]

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Re: Secret State of North Korea [video]

#81

Post by dzink »

tptacek wrote: post #2

There's some amazing footage in this; at one point, someone with a hidden camera visits a Potemkin department store in Pyongyang and tries to buy a dress, and then some beer, only to be told that all the merchandise on display is for display only.

We had those in Bulgaria for a number of years before the fall of communism. They were restricted to use only by foreigners buying with foreign currency and locals could only gawk, but never buy. As a child I remember seeing Kinder Surprise eggs and Ritter Sport chocolates, and watching ads for Hot Wheels toys and paint-by number sets I could never play with. It scars you for life.

Years later I saw paint by number sets at a store as an adult and then bought two and spend a weekend doing just that, because I had been dreaming of doing it for years. Ritter Sport is everywhere in the US now, but when I see it, I'm just reminded of the misery of a childhood behind the iron curtain. It's gonna be a loooong transition for the victims of the Kim regime.

Re: Secret State of North Korea [video]

#82

Post by bvi »

reuven wrote: post #59
simias wrote: post #53

Blocked outside of the USA it seems. For a video about smuggled footage out of North Korea I find it a bit ironic. Quite frankly I find those regional restrictions as big a threat to the internet as all the net neutrality issues discussed lately. The internet shouldn't have borders.

You can use Unlocator ( http://unlocator.com/ ) to get around it. I've been using this for a number of months, and highly recommend it. (And for now, at least, it's free!) This is a practical workaround for what I agree is a stupid policy.

If you're on Firefox, just download Media Hint (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-hint/)

Re: Secret State of North Korea [video]

#83

Post by herdrick »

ddeck wrote: post #46
jlgaddis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

I presume they're on display to give the appearance of easy availability of a wide range of products (the store is apparently featured on TV programs), but not for sale because there is in fact no availability due to trade restrictions.

Trade restrictions? The issue is that NK is grindingly poor.

Re: Secret State of North Korea [video]

#84

Post by jlgaddis »

ddeck wrote: post #46
jlgaddis wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why?

I presume they're on display to give the appearance of easy availability of a wide range of products (the store is apparently featured on TV programs), but not for sale because there is in fact no availability due to trade restrictions.

Thank you very much.

Re: Secret State of North Korea [video]

#85

Post by lhl »

broolstoryco wrote: post #58
msane wrote: post #48

All they need are data-phones and sims. Soon they will have the ability to communicate with less risk and in "town square" web venues like twitter and forums. I think it's a hard counter to the situation there. Collapse in under 5 years.

i think you underestimate the degree of control the state has (data-phones? what data? what network?), as well as the extent of brainwashing of the population

According to this report, NK's 3G network is about to hit 2M subscribers (almost 10% of the population): http://www.northkoreatech.org/2013/04/26/koryolink-nears-2-m...

It mentions offering (NK-only) web browsing and most people have dumbphones, but there is a network there. I think it'd be pretty suicidal to conspire using that though as I'm sure it's monitored.

I think there's probably a lot more dissent than you're assuming, but agin, it'd be suicidal to express it if one of your neighbors would just rat you out.

Apparently, smuggling in Chinese and increasingly South Korean smart phones is already quite common: http://newfocusintl.com/chinese-mobile-phone-dominates-north... http://www.rfa.org/english/news/korea/smartphones-1114201318...

I posted earlier about this, but it seems that these phones would be pretty valuable as media playing devices - preload kiwix w/ KR wikipedia etc - it'd allow you to much more easily/discretely distribute/exchange microSD cards.

Some sort of mesh protocol could be incredibly effective in allow communication while maintaining anonymity. But any sort of message passing/communication would have to be designed under the assumption that it's being monitored.

Re: Secret State of North Korea [video]

#86

Post by msane »

lhl wrote: post #54
msane wrote: post #48

All they need are data-phones and sims. Soon they will have the ability to communicate with less risk and in "town square" web venues like twitter and forums. I think it's a hard counter to the situation there. Collapse in under 5 years.

One of the things that occurred to me was that flooding the market with cheap Android tablets/smartphones would be pretty interesting. Even more interesting would be if they came w/ Chinese/South Korean sim cards w/ data plans - I assume that if you're close enough to the border you'd be able to get reception and you wouldn't have to worry so much about your data being intercepted on the NK network (I doubt they'd pr…

Exactly what I was thinking, in terms of population size, price-point per data-device, at least in that I see it as inevitable that they will saturate a critical amount of the population soon, if just through luxury smuggling. It's only a matter of time as the devices are getting cheaper and they are already entering at an exponential rate. Cellular service is extremely powerful on its own, data service is... "liberating".

I think it needs little prompting at this point it is bound to happen organically.

Re: Secret State of North Korea [video]

#87

Post by herdrick »

dzink wrote: post #81
tptacek wrote: post #2

There's some amazing footage in this; at one point, someone with a hidden camera visits a Potemkin department store in Pyongyang and tries to buy a dress, and then some beer, only to be told that all the merchandise on display is for display only.

We had those in Bulgaria for a number of years before the fall of communism. They were restricted to use only by foreigners buying with foreign currency and locals could only gawk, but never buy. As a child I remember seeing Kinder Surprise eggs and Ritter Sport chocolates, and watching ads for Hot Wheels toys and paint-by number sets I could never play with. It scars you for life. Years later I saw paint by number s…

Actually, this is something else. Those foreigner-only, hard-currency-only ones are sad enough, but this is much worse. There is no store. It's just playacting.

Re: Secret State of North Korea [video]

#88

Post by msane »

broolstoryco wrote: post #58
msane wrote: post #48

All they need are data-phones and sims. Soon they will have the ability to communicate with less risk and in "town square" web venues like twitter and forums. I think it's a hard counter to the situation there. Collapse in under 5 years.

i think you underestimate the degree of control the state has (data-phones? what data? what network?), as well as the extent of brainwashing of the population

I don't underestimate it at all. The state does not have control of the airwaves, with SK and CN and the rest of Asia right there.

What's being discussed is cellular/wireless data networks from outside NK penetrating in. It is currently happening. Linking up to smuggled data devices which have prices on a race to 0.

Re: Secret State of North Korea [video]

#89

Post by eevilspock »

I'm not claiming that the United States or other capitalist countries are as bad off as North Korea. I'd no doubt put North Korea in my top 10 places not to live. But I'd like to point out that many of the scenes of poverty and a privileged elite could also be filmed in the United States. For example, see the five part Desani series on a homeless child in New York: http://www.nytimes.com/projects/2013/invisible-child/#/?chap...

Re: Secret State of North Korea [video]

#90

Post by tptacek »

steveklabnik wrote: post #80
tptacek wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. What other North Korean state messages do you believe to be, at root, basically true and honest?

The state-run media actually puts out their daily articles in English, they're pretty interesting to actually read. Here's an example, from today: http://rodong.rep.kp/en/index.php?strPageID=SF01_02_01&newsI... > Above all, one must learn to see through the true nature of the freedom > and democracy of the Western style. In a word, it is a sham democracy > and sham freedom. They are but a fig-leaf to cover up the rea…

The Nazis also had some mean things to say about the US, too.
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