Details of a Linux based operating system called Red Star has emerged and it’s available in North Korea.
The information comes from a Russian blogger known as Mikhail, who posted screen shots of Red Star online on his blog.
No it’s not often we get to hear about what’s happening in highly secretive North Korea but it’s no secret that online content is heavily censored in the regime, and very few people even have access to the internet. So what have we learned about Red Star?
Well the North Korean government site is the default home page, no surprises there. It also runs an email system known as “Pigeon” and has Firefox as its primary browser although it’s a modified version of Firefox that has been branded “My Country” (in Korean of course).
The start up music is a Korean folk song and the calendar uses a system that has day one starting when the state founder, Kim Il-sung was born, so basically 2010 is year 99.
Other features on the operating system include an audio and video player, a couple of games and an office application. The whole thing takes around 15 minutes to install.
Mikhail says he bought the Red Star operating system off the street in Pyongyang for around $5 when he was studying in North Korea but he doesn’t think Red Star will be widely distributed there.
According to South Korea Science and Technology Policy Institute, the operating system software allows the North Korean government to keep an eye on what users are doing and monitor their citizen’s internet use and basically “to control North Korea’s own information security system”.
“Due to few applicable programmes available, Red Star will not even by easily distributed in North Korea” said the STPI.
The operating system is reportedly part of North Korea’s plans to advance its own computer technology, based on its “Juche” self-reliance philosophy.
The US government has banned the uploading and downloading of open source code to certain countries, one of which is of course North Korea.
Any snippets of info coming out of North Korea will be of great interest to others, particularly to the US and South Korea.
A series of cyber attacks against South Korea and the US last year appear to have originated from North Korea.
