As North Koreans use phones, state finds new ways to censor

North Koreans have gained unprecedented connectedness with greater access to media and devices like cellphones over Kim Jong Un's five-year rule.

But private citizens' embrace of a state-controlled network has opened the way to unparalleled state censorship and surveillance in the long-isolated, totalitarian country.

A US-government-funded report, released today, said technology is giving North Korean authorities "more modern forms of control" as they step up efforts to stop foreign content creeping in.

"North Korea not only demonstrates technological sophistication but also has the ability to dictate what devices their citizens use, and they have complete control over hardware and software that essentially no other country does," said Nat Kretchun, co-author of the report by the consulting group Intermedia.

While the global explosion of network communications and internet use over the past two decades has provided surveillance opportunities for both authoritarian and democratic governments, North Korea's case is unique.

The communist government prohibits public access to the World Wide Web. Outside media trickles in, but with significant challenges.

The state's stranglehold over the flow of information was first subverted during a famine in the 1990s when informal markets emerged and citizens began trading with each other.

For the past decade or more, outside digital devices and content have flowed into North Korea across the border from China, enabling people to watch forbidden content, typically South Korean and Chinese soap operas.

The Intermedia report, which is based on interviews with North Korean defectors, refugees and travelers, found more such information making its way in over the past five years, notwithstanding Kim's intensified efforts to stop it. He took power after his father's death in late 2011 and has cracked down on smuggling and illicit viewing of foreign media.

Nearly every segment of society, from the elite in Pyongyang to farmers in inland areas, has access at least to televisions and DVD players, the report found. North Koreans have shifted toward using thumb drives instead of compact discs as they can hold more content and are easier to hide and share.