Information Technology and Control in the DPRK

Abstract

In the Hermit Kingdom, information is a crucial resource. Its possession represents access to resource and weapons development techniques, but more importantly, information is what separates North Korean society from the rest of the world. Since the state’s inception, meager rations of information combined with hearty doses of propaganda have kept the populace starved with respect to knowledge of the rest of the world’s progress, which has quickly surpassed their own in the past two decades. Why, then, has the current regime dared implement 21st century communications systems such as internet technology if such a move would increase the possibility of an information risk?