Teaching open-source software in North Korea
izbicki.me
izbicki.me
This tells me there's a lot we don't know about NK. Lots of people seem to assume maximum oppression/censorship by default, when the reality might be more nuanced.
I was born in the USSR. No we did not think that the media was propaganda. At least most of the people I knew. And USSR's own propaganda was so cheesy that it was not believable to normal people. My parents were scientists and I also studied in university and had become scientist myself. So my experience might be somewhat not all encompassing because of the environment.
What I do find now is that the amount of corporate, media and government propaganda in the west is insane and is as cheesy as the one of former USSR.
Also the amount of venom and paranoia in this thread is depressing.
Indeed. And it's gone on long enough (on TV) that now it's hit the re-runs. "24" in particular did not age well ...
As an American it's very depressing.
Did they think that would work?
... problem is, it may not help convince you that Stalinism / "Actually existing Socialism" is the answer. (In case you don't recognize this term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_socialism)
Of course, this sort of unfiltered access is still extremely restricted: these are the children of the elite, the literally hereditary elite caste (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Songbun), who are investments for the state for being sent abroad for the hacking campaigns (https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-02-07/inside-ki...) or for the domestic surveillance apparatus. (Someone is developing all of the clever ways they have to restrict and monitor smartphones: https://www.gwern.net/docs/technology/2017-kretchun.pdf And it'll keep going. 'Reducing traffic jams' my arse. But at least we have more 'transparency' now...)
They are granted access for that purpose, and they know their families' welfare and positions are hostage, and are in no hurry to jeopardize their charmed lives in Pyongyang. You don't live in Pyongyang, be taught English, go through university there through to a master's, without absolutely impeccable credentials and a lot to lose. It is unsurprising that they rarely 'abuse' that privilege. (Think of the closed cities in the USSR, or shopping at the foreign-currency stores, or travel abroad.)
Think of people living in rural Appalachia (a place I’m from). Most don’t think about how “good” life could be outside of that area where job opportunities are more plentiful and standard of living is higher. There’s a very strong party allegiance that’s almost religious. Caring about other countries extends to knowing just the names of some major economies and not much more. Unlike NK, they’re completely free people, but they’re happy enough being there with many never going more than a few miles from their home town or researching what the outside world is like. Most people there just don’t care. And I’m not implying it’s bad, just not an uncommon mindset.
https://docs.github.com/en/github/site-policy/github-and-tra...
Intentional violations of these sanctions can be punished with prison time.
This isn’t normal, but everyone’s talking about it like it’s normal.
Anyway! Carry on. :)
Surely Github would have blocked the range of north korean IP addresses if it was illegal?
I'm afraid you'd simply get wound up in their own national policy and need to peep through keyholes.
Pretty wild on github to see national policy kinks worm their way through the system. What happens if it's hosted in a neutral country?
I remember that when the Github rules related to US sanctions were first posted there was a lot of backlash here on HN from Iranian developers and it must have been 2017~2018.
Doesn't mean it wasn't illegal before but at least Github didn't seem to be enforcing it.
Also the class was likely at PUST (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyongyang_University_of_Scienc...) which is operated with US funds and likely had clearance to teach that sort of material.
He's also known for the WikiScanner.
More details here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/jasonbrett/2020/01/11/internet-...
His personal home page http://virgil.gr/
This is just FUD.
The same applies to foundations, though some of them seem to have adopted similar tactics as the North Korean party anyway.
It took the EU multiple years to setup a facility so they could provide euros to Iran without falling afoul of US sanctions during the Trump admin.
Not exactly false
They do however rapidly need to build out and further expand their cyber power because it's one of the few winning strategies they have at the moment and has allowed them to become one of the big players in that space.
Those networks may be "unfiltered" but they are monitored. This entire thing is a giant loyalty test to the party.
You need a way to filter out the "true believers" from everyone who could pose a threat to the future stability of the regime. But nobody who works in or around this space would see anything other than a giant counterintelligence operation happening under the guise of "unfiltered" internet access.
You are completely correct about your suspicion about primarily furthering the objectives of the state.
I am always saddened by the naive do-gooders who don't get this, and devote energy to making the world a worse place when they implicitly think they are doing the opposite.
I see here hidden false assumption that helping North Korea is making lives of North Koreans less miserable.
The main cause of all problems for North Koreans is this totalitarian regime and those who support it. They suffer from that! Not from your actions. So destabilising the country is attacking the core of their problem and thus helping North Korea people. Supporting the regime is prolonging their sufferings. This regime should fall inevitably and there is no other way to help people of North Korea people so the only question is when and how.
Please! No more of this line of reasoning, it has caused suffering and damage time and time again.
Don't recommend that others endure that which you and your loved ones are not willing to endure. Before claiming a country must be blockaded, starved and bombed into submission "for its own good", consider whether you would welcome that blockade, destabilization and bombs if they were falling on your roof and possibly killing your loved ones.
First of all I didn't speak about bombs falling on the heads of civilians because only heartless crazy individual would recommend that.
>Before claiming a country must be blockaded, starved and bombed into submission "for its own good"
Second I didn't speak about starving either.
But certain blockade and destabilization of oppressive regime is more then welcome because such regime should fall.
I never understood why everybody would be in favor of stopping some killer but if that killer or group of killers put some funny clothes and call themselves 'country' everybody kind of ok with them having millions of hostages.
>Don't recommend that others endure that which you and your loved ones are not willing to endure.
I was in Crimea already occupied by Russia during electricity blockade. Was I happy? I have suffered from it but I was welcoming it with both hands. Unfortunately it was not enough to return freedom and rights to Crimea and people living there so I would welcome something that would.
>Please! No more of this line of reasoning, it has caused suffering and damage time and time again.
Since I lived in the ussr and saw this evil empire with my own eyes you will see nothing but exactly this line of reasoning from me.
I cannot understand why ussr was allowed to exist for so long. Why people of the free world were closing their eyes to the crimes of this regime. Why it was not suffocated sooner.
I cannot understand why today people of the free world are ok with turtures in the middle of the Europe. I am talking about Belarus dictator where real people have spoken loudly what the want. Why real help didn't come to them? Why military help didn't come to Ukraine when Russia have occupied Crimea and later on two regions. Why it didn't come to democratic Georgia when Russia attacked them?
I cannot understand why Ukraine's young democracy is not in NATO or under full protection of NATO. I do not understand why free world doesn't stop Russia attacking their neigbours and taking away rights and freedoms of people.
I cannot understand why regimes like in Russia, North Korea, Iran and so on are allowed to exist at all and why they are allowed to torture people under their control and perhaps I never will. So Please! Don't even ask.
If you're trying to talk someone into something, sure. But if all you really mean to do is get someone's compliance where you want it and silence otherwise, I would think a realistic threat of thuggery trumps education an overwhelming majority of the time. I also wouldn't be surprised if education was limited to those that were considered "reliable", with vested interests in perpetuating the system.
I would recommend that you educate yourself on what North Korea actually is and how deeply oppressive it is.
Anyone in North Korea who has access to a computer is in the highest caste in their system. You are born into this caste, and it's based on the interviews that were done of North Korean people in the 1950s. Families were classified into hostile, wavering, or supporters of the communist revolution. These classifications were made primarily on the basis of occupation and other factors that were indicators of whether they were in a higher economic class or were more of a proletariat.
In short the only people who are going to learn anything about software North Korea are part of the class that is oppressing most of the nation. Another thing that you certainly aren't aware of is the fact that people in the lowest caste are literally prevented from traveling into any of the North Korean cities and are relegated to a portion in the Northeast and aren't even allowed to be anywhere near a border where they could potentially escape into China or SK.
Stating that something is shortsighted should be based on some knowledge of the nation you are talking about.
Giving power without changing values is helping the worst kind of people to be stronger. It can fireback and it does. The worst censorship practices of China are now trying ot make it's way to the West.
It's not the same, I'm not suggesting it is, but I do see parallels with Saudi Arabia (I bring it up because I've lived there). And while the guy at the top is as unsavoury as it gets I do think the presence of Westerners has been a positive influence and the few steps we've seen to let women drive, cinemas open, etc. I'd put down in small part to that presence influencing the general population. And in another perhaps not so small part down to the internet. And that's a country we sell proper weapons to, not just machine learning classes.
I get that there's a fairly direct line that can be drawn to negative consequences in engaging with such states, but these things are inherently messy and there's a long game to play here.
Giving teaching to oppressing elite is not breaking barriers with ordinary people. It's making those barriers between elite and ordinary people even stronger. Your only hope is to 'smuggle' good ideas and books about freedom values, democracy and even more valuable the truth about what is going on.
I remember that when Fortran compilers were sold on CD-ROM that the packaging of Digital Visual Fortran said the compiler was not for resale to North Korea and maybe Iran.
Now Fortran, C, and C++ compilers that would be used in modeling nuclear bombs are open source, and I don't think people in any country can be stopped from accessing them, as a practical matter.
A lot of difference between rogue nuclear state, and a member of the club.
The best that can be achieved now is that they can't kill people in DC, which I'm not sure is worth so much to people in Tokyo that you can get them to sign on to your sanctions regime.
In any case, the OP was obviously talking about which technology should be denied for the purpose of it not being directly used to construct a bomb. To reply "we should deny them money" is quite beside the point.