[liberationtech] North Korea Cracks Down "Knowledge Smugglers"

[Tomasz Rola]

On Sat, 5 Jan 2013, Andreas Bader wrote:

> On 01/04/2013 09:56 PM, Nadim Kobeissi wrote:
> I would like to share this truly fascinating article:
> http://www.salon.com/2012/12/31/north_korea_cracks_down_on_knowledge_smugglers/
>
> From the article: "We must extend the fight against the enemy's
> ideological and cultural infiltration," Kim said in an October speech
> at the headquarters of his immensely powerful internal security
> service. Kim, who became North Korea's supreme leader after the death
> of his father a year ago, called upon his vast security network to
> "ruthlessly crush those hostile elements."
>
> Seeing this idea of "knowledge smugglers" accepted so openly by the
> North Korean government really justifies a private train of thought
> I've been considering for a year.
>
> I think no matter how hard we try, we keep underestimating just how
> powerful culture can be in determining foreign politics -- and just how
> important the television and radio were, and the Internet is now, in
> communicating this culture. This, of course, is likely why so many
> political entities are interested in liberation technology.
>
> This is amazing stuff and I hope you'll read the article.

The article is quite interesting indeed. This reminded me of one story 
which happened some 30 years ago. Translation is a bit crappy but I hope 
you can make some sense of it:

http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pl&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fm.onet.pl%2Fwiadomosci%2Cmex2t

My first post here, so hello. I am interested in ways technology interacts 
with various aspects of life, both small and large scale.

Regards,
Tomasz Rola

--
** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature.      **
** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home    **
** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened...      **
**                                                                 **
** Tomasz Rola          mailto:tomasz_rola at bigfoot.com             **