Meanwhile, in North Korea...

I was surfing the web reading North Korean English news sites to see what they're talking about and I find this,

USB Sticks Producing Security Threat

www.dailynk.com...

The North Korean authorities have launched a fresh attack on the viewing of foreign media, according to sources. The move reportedly comes in response to rising incidences of USB sticks being used to view dramas on Chinese-made DVD players with USB ports.

Good lord, they're concerned about what their population is watching? Chinese dramas? They're not allowed to watch something made in CHINA? The land of censorship?! What kind of bizarro world do we live in?

With the exception of the poorest groups in North Korean society, a great many families now own Chinese DVD players of this type, which many use to watch dramas from abroad.

A source from Hamheung in South Hamkyung Province told Daily NK on the 11th, “The Ministry of Public Security has issued orders calling for us to step up control over DVD players with a USB function.” He added, “If DVD players without a verification sticker from the security forces are found to be in use, even their TVs are being seized.”

According to multiple inside sources, while people do still watch films and dramas from abroad in DVD format, their usage is easier to uncover, causing the format to lose popularity particularly now that USBs, which are easier to conceal, have become more common in the country.

Wait what? Calling for a step up in control of DVD players? I cannot even fathom what it is like to live in this crazy oppressed land.

Therefore, security agents are supposed to be rendering the USB function on Chinese players unusable by removing internal circuits or making it physically impossible to insert USB sticks into them, before placing a verification sticker on the body of the machine that signifies that it is legal for domestic use.

However, according to the source, “Some households own multiple DVD players so that they can hide one from the authorities and present the other. Other houses are just waiting for the crackdown to loosen up so that they can carry on as before.”

“Local government cadres are telling public meetings that ‘you must open your door to the agents even when they come at night’. Once state TV finishes for the night, they enter homes and check whether TVs are warm, and if they are then they go looking for DVD players,” he added.

security agents

security agents

security agents

‘you must open your door to the agents even when they come at night

‘you must open your door to the agents even when they come at night

‘you must open your door to the agents even when they come at night

they come at night



Then there's this gem of an article,

5 Die as Soldier Opens Fire over Food

www.dailynk.com...

Go on...

A number of soldiers with the Border Guards in North Hamkyung Province were recently killed in a shooting incident near the border, Daily NK has learned.

A provincial source explained on the 2nd, "On the 25th of last month a soldier shot and killed five company commanders with the Musan County Border Guards. The soldier fled but was arrested on the border and sent back."

So a NoKo soldier opened fire on his own?

According to the source, the soldier had received a particularly meagre quantity of food for dinner that day, so, having done his guard duty, returned to the mess in secret and stole more. However, he was caught and received a beating from the cadre in charge of food supplies and other senior personnel. The soldier reportedly snapped at this point, responding with his weapon.

Amazing that the entire country is starving, even their military. Well, maybe not the lil fat man who has a loud mouth. North Korea is dependent on China to supply them food, which apparently ain't enough.

"The commanders there are now in a state of high tension, fearing they may face censure for the shootings. The atmosphere on-base is difficult," the source said, explaining, “In past cases like this, the soldier was shot there and then and his or her family were sent to a re-education facility, while the unit was dismantled and its commanders were demoted or given a period of revolutionzation [put on probation]."

The soldier ends up being killed for killing his own, makes sense, but then their family is sent away to reeducation camp?

Denis Rodman went to this country

So yeah, there ya go, crazy town, straight from the horses mouth.

Originally posted by Swills
Wait what? Calling for a step up in control of DVD players? I cannot even fathom what it is like to live in this crazy oppressed land.

You don't think that information or knowledge is being censored or withheld in 'western' countries?

It's all a matter of perspective, if you had grown up in a regime like North Korea's you wouldn't know that everything you know about life and the rest of the world goes through the filter of the controlling powers.

Now apply that to your own life.
How can you know what you don't know?

reply to post by creatives


I agree there is censorship of sorts going on all over the world but lets be honest, it's pretty damn obvious in North Korea and China.

reply to post by Swills


It's only 'obvious' because of your perspective. i.e. you haven't grown up under the censorship that they have in those countries, so from your perspective you can easily see the information that is being withheld.

Believe me there is just as much information being withheld in western countries. He who prints the books and runs the schools/education system controls the way we think, and the information that we have access to.

I've had to sign so many NDA's is various places I've worked over the years.

reply to post by creatives


Yeah, yeah, yeah, I get what you're saying but the fact is I can read foreign media's websites and watch their movies and tv shows if I cared too AND I don't ever have to worry about my local security agents knocking on my door at any time of day or night to inspect my DVD player. So perspective or not, whatever the case may be, I don't live in that environment.

reply to post by Swills


That's the point I'm making, you do live in that environment.
You just can't 'see' that you are.

reply to post by creatives


Yeah, no. Sorry, no one is knocking on my door to make sure I don't own foreign media. But I'm not gonna keep going back and forth with you about this so agree to kind of agree and then disagree.

Originally posted by creatives
reply to post by Swills

 

That's the point I'm making, you do live in that environment.
You just can't 'see' that you are.

Yeah sure, I gots full access to tor, no one is censoring anything, just because things are not promoted and put on national TV does not mean its censored, in order to really be considered censored it needs to be completely unavailable which is the case in NK.

Its no different than our msm only telling us bs, which effectively means censorship.

I read a story a few years ago about NK cutting off the power and searching homes for VHS &DVD's foreign programs and movies.
Those tapes and dvds get stuck in their recorders, no power.

reply to post by SSimon


That's great and really ties into the article posted in the OP. Tbh, we've all heard terrible things about NoKo but for all I knew it could have mostly been BS, and the things we hear about NoKo makes it sound like the worst place on Earth. But here we are reading their own news outlets and seeing with our own eyes what they're capable of.

reply to post by VoidHawk


Yeah exactly, not only the MSM but the Gov't and all the Big Businesses, major Universities/Museums, and oh yeah, who could forget the Vatican.

We the people are no strangers to secrets being kept from us but life really really really really really sucks in NoKo. I have major issues with the US state I live in and federal gov't but thank god I live in the USA, or any other western nation, or almost anything besides NoKo. I think I'd rather live in Iran as a Jew than be a citizen of bizzarro land.

reply to post by benrl


The thing is, I agree with him there is censorship in every nation on this planet but it all varies and NoKo is one the extremes.