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Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

mydiplomaticlife.com

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Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#101
post #53

I'll preface this by saying that I can't support this with a source, so take it with a grain of salt. An acquaintance of mine knew someone who worked in that German embassy. Apparently, the extreme isolation of North Korea also made it extremely difficult to have any kind of opsec inside the embassy. Since anything could only be brought in through diplomatic pouches it created an attack vector of one. A few days afte…

Even in the US, nothing is technically stopping you from walking into a SCIF with a phone most of the time. We used the honor system.

I would almost automatically assume that any SCIF in a foreign country was compromised to some degree.

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#105

As a korean (south), the article is amazingly interesting and the fact there is british embassy is quite shoking to me. How the best ally of USA 's embassy exists there. Also feels very sad for north korean people under the worst dictator..

why shocking? If you dont want to directly admit existence of some entity, you can use one of your allies to do the talking for you

Having a channel of communication is important even if indirect.

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#106
post #9

The post never mentions a date, but this must have been around 2000-2004, since that is when the UK embassy was established. [1] Some things have probably changed since then. A fascinating read regardless. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_Kingdom,...

Meanwhile instead of some fancy building, their embassy over here is... Well, a little more domestic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_North_Korea,_London

It's like the mom and pop shop around the corner.

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#108
post #96
post #9

The post never mentions a date, but this must have been around 2000-2004, since that is when the UK embassy was established. [1] Some things have probably changed since then. A fascinating read regardless. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_Kingdom,...

Curious if anyone knows of any more recent descriptions about what life is like in North Korea, like in the last 5-10 years. Most things I've read including this article are decades old. How much have things changed there in terms of technology, food security etc?

https://youtu.be/2BO83Ig-E8E?si=WK1Gp62Hbx0624Wx

Documentary about getting s haircut in North Korea

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#109
post #96
post #9

The post never mentions a date, but this must have been around 2000-2004, since that is when the UK embassy was established. [1] Some things have probably changed since then. A fascinating read regardless. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embassy_of_the_United_Kingdom,...

Curious if anyone knows of any more recent descriptions about what life is like in North Korea, like in the last 5-10 years. Most things I've read including this article are decades old. How much have things changed there in terms of technology, food security etc?

this is a group from Brazil (so portuguese - you can use yt's autotranslate) who supports and studies NK - they have visited and on this live they show the pictures/videos and talk about life there, food, etc.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQNQWwXA6_0

Re: Three years in North Korea as a foreigner (2021)

#110
> There were a handful of shops that catered for foreigners. All transactions had to be in Euros as possession of local currency by foreigners was forbidden

This stood out to me in the article, as most countries incentivize foreign visitors to use local currencies to boost its strength. However, NK seems to have long ago come to terms it's currency will never hold value, so perhaps they instill this rule to boost their counterfeit money operations, or reserves of foreign currency.

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