KGRI Working Papers
No. 4

THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY INDUSTRY IN
NORTH KOREA

Version 1.0
February 2019

Koichiro Komiyama 1

Keio University Global Research Institute© Copyright 2019 Koichiro Komiyama
Research Fellow, Keio University Global Research Institute1E-mail: komiyama@keio.jp

THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
INDUSTRY IN NORTH KOREA
Koichiro Komiyama

Research Fellow, Keio University Global Research Institute
PhD Program, Graduate School of Media and Governance, Keio University

1 I NTRODUCTION
The damage caused by a computer virus known as “WannaCry” in May 2017sent shockwaves throughout the world. After infecting a computer, the WannaCry
virus encrypts the files on the computers in order to render them inaccessible until
a ransom demand in bitcoin currency is paid. This novel cyberattack techniquecame under close scrutiny, and in June 2018 the United States government
charged a North Korean government affiliated company and an employee withresponsibility. 1 North Korean offensive cyber capability has been floating aroundespecially since Sony Picture Entertainment was compromised in 2014.
This study was made to estimate the offensive cyber capability and capacity,a taskwhich is fundamentally difficult. There are more than 45 countries that aresuspected to have offensive cyber capabilities (GIP, 2019). All of them employ avariety of concealment techniques designed to maintain strategic superiority overtheir opponents. Furthermore, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea(Hereinafter “North Korea”) is known as “one of the hardest intelligence targets
in the world” (Jun, 2015: IV) and “estimates on what capability is in existence areakin to playing Blind Man’s Buff” (Feakin, 2013: 64).
This paper describes the history of the development of the North Korean
information technology (IT) industry since the 1980s in an attempt to identify the
background issues that can be used as a first step toward understanding thecurrent IT-related threats. IT development is not necessarily linked directly to1

offensive cyber capability. Nevertheless, a country without any IT technology at
all cannot develop the ability to launch cyberattacks. Thus, IT technology can bethought of as the soil from which offensive cyber capability grows.
This paper focuses on the development of IT technology in North Korea, an issue
that has garnered little attention in the context of North Korean regional studies. 2
We argue that Kim Jong-Il, the second “Supreme Leader” of North Korea, did notadvance a government IT policy purely in order to develop the country’s nuclear
missile capabilities. His goal was to establish a nation that was completely selfsufficient in all aspects of the technology, including hardware and software. In
seeking out this goal, North Korea’s IT industry archived number of notablesuccesses,

Such

as:

throughtrial

semiconductor

production,

hardwaretechnologies were accumulated; a nation-wide communications infrastructure wasestablished even in a serious economic crisis, and many highly skilled workers
were trained. However, these efforts failed to create an industry that would
contribute to the domestic economy. As a result, there was a surplus of engineers.
The argument made in this paper is that this surplus of highly-trained engineers
may have caused increases in cyberattacks and other activities that led toincreasing instability in the region.
This paper is structured as follows: section 2 is a description of the path North
Korea took starting in the 1980s that may have led to its establishment as an IT
technology player. This section point out that North Korea secretly shifted its
policy goals from hardware to software. To do so, this paper describes how
development was influenced by international politics through an examination of
the creation of a massive fiber optic cable network, the Internet, and cellular
networks. Section 3 is a discussion of North Korea’s future.
This paper describes the enormous role that Kim Jong-Il played and develops
discussion of the issues the country faces in the current era of Kim Jong-Un’s ruleby focusing on the following three area: 1) relaxation of controls on freedom ofspeech, 2) overseas expansion, and 3) strengthening relations with China.

22 I NFORMATION AND T ELECOMMUNICATIONS IN
N ORTH K OREA
2-1 N ORTH K OREAN I NFORMATION T ECHNOLOGYI NITIATIVES
Since the 1970s the objective of North Korean IT policies has been to create adomestic computer network that would serve as the basis of this larger goal:
establishing itself as an economic and military power through IT technology.
The North Korean IT initiatives are believed to have started in earnest in
1984, around the time of Kim Il-Sung’s visits to the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe. Kim Il-Sung saw the IT-related developments being made in Eastern
Europe, and the following year he began sending exchange students to the Soviet
Union and Eastern Europe in order to import those technologies (Vladimir, 2003).
In 1987 the third Seven-Year Plan was launched; one of its major initiatives was“the computerization of industry.” Here, the use of the term “computerization”
referred to the rationalization of the infrastructures of daily life through the useof IT in factories, on farms, and in other areas.
The operation plan that was designed to realize the targets of the third SevenYear Plan was part of the first Science and Technology Development Three-Year
Plan that was drawn up the following year (1988). This plan listed as its goals theindustrialization of the production of large-scale integrated (LSI) circuits andadvanced semiconductor production, as well as the computerization of the major
economic sectors.
The second Science and Technology Development Plan was put into effect. In
addition to continuing with the industrialization of LSI production and theautomation of all economic fields covered by the plan, it also indicated as one ofits goals the production and development of computers. Thus, documents approvedby the Workers’ Party of Korea began mentioning IT technology in the latter halfof the 1980s. However, before then, underground initiatives were already underway. Below I trace the progress of three fields: semiconductor manufacturing,
software development, and the creation of an IT network.

32-2 T HE C HALLENGE OF S EMICONDUCTOR P RODUCTION
In Japan, semiconductors were referred to as “the rice of industry,”
acknowledging the semiconductor’s importance as one of the main pillars ofJapan’s economic growth. The United States, South Korea, China, and Taiwan all
had similar policies on the development of the semiconductor industry in theireconomies. For a time, North Korea also dreamed of becoming a semiconductor
powerhouse.
In 1979 the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) began operating in
Pyongyang, which allowed North Korea to receive the same UN support that otherdeveloping nations enjoyed. At this time, North Korea requested that an
integrated circuit (IC) factory be built. This was a massive project to construct an
IC plant and related processing facilities and train semiconductor engineers.
Companies located in Western countries hesitated to bid on this project due toconcerns that it would be in violation of the Coordinating Committee forMultilateral Export Controls (COCOM). As a result, a company with strong ties to
the government of India won the contract. In the winter of 1986, ownership of theplant constructed by the Indian company was transferred to North Korea.
Previous studies reported that this plant succeeded in producing small-scale
IC (Mansourov, 2005). However, despite the fact that semiconductor production
managed to get under way, it ended without ever producing any economic benefit(NTI, 2003). The UNDP Project Report noted that steady production was madedifficult by, among other things, the North Korean engineers’ language skill,which hindered communication with the Indian engineers, and the instability ofthe electric power supply. 3 But these could hardly have been the only reasons.
Another is the fact that the semiconductor business cannot be completely
restricted to a single country. Equipment and raw materials need to be procured
from overseas, and a market for the mass consumption is essential. While North
Korean semiconductor production may have succeeded on a technical level, as abusiness it was a failure.
It is not clear when North Korean authorities recognized that geographic andenvironmental restrictions made the semiconductor business difficult. In January42001 Kim Jong-Il visited the Pudong New Area in Shanghai, China. During his
tour of the area, he visited a Japanese company engaged in the manufacture ofsemiconductors there (Mansourov, 2011: 28). Five years later, in April 2006, heannounced at the fourth session of the 11th Supreme People’s Assembly (SPA) a
long-term vision called “A Scientific and Technological Major Power.” This laidout a policy of software development that was described as “making advances toimprove programing technology and create an information network that reaches
every part of the country and, at the same time, make North Korea into a major
software developer.” Unlike the Science and Technology Development Three-Year
Plan mentioned above, this document did not place significant expectations on the
manufacture of semiconductors. Thus, it can be inferred that at some time between
2001 and 2006 a policy change was quietly made to abandon the semiconductor
manufacturing business. Although North Korea has Printed Circuit Board
facilities (Ministry of Unification, 2019), they still heavily rely on foreign market
to procure electronic parts such as analog/digital ICs, ASICs, Memory and CPUs.

2-3 T HE C HALLENGE OF O FFSHORE S OFTWARED EVELOPMENT
The previous section outlined how the plan to earn foreign currency throughthe manufacture of semiconductors was quietly replaced with a plan to turn the
country into a major software developer.
It is not difficult to begin developing software in the context of the IT industry.
Unlike the manufacturing of hardware, software development does not require alarge-scale facility, and it does not require the import of raw materials, making
storage and other tasks unnecessary. To put it in the simplest possible terms, one
can launch a software development business with only a few highly skilledprogrammers. North Korea used India’s experience as a roadmap as it strove to
become a “near-shore software development center” that could take software
outsourcing orders from neighboring countries such as Japan, China, and South
Korea.

2-3-1 D EVEL OPM E NT OF D OMES TIC S OFT WA RE A ND THE
S UBC ONTR ACT ING B USINESS5In July 1986 the Pyongyang Program Center (also known as the Pyongyang
Information Center, or PIC) was established (Mansourov, 2005 and Vladimir,
2003). During this period, a government organization known as the IT Bureau wasalso created (Ministry of Unification, 2019), and with that the North Korean
software technology initiatives formally began. The PIC developed Windows-based
software such as word-processor for the Korean language and Korean-language
input method. A PIC brochure produced soon after the PIC was founded statedthat it was “the organization with the most computers in North Korea” (Vladimir,
2003). The PIC procured computers and software mainly from Japan and otherneighboring countries, and could have served as the supplier of this equipment tothe city of Pyongyang.
In 1988, two years after the PIC’s founding, the head of the PIC went toJapan, where he inspected their newly founded office. Gradually, the facet of thesoftware development business aimed at the Japanese market, began to expand.
In 1993, the software development business consisted of software for publishing,hotel reservation management, container management at ports, and insurance
management, as well as other types of software that were worth total sales of USD
200,000 for the year (Vladimir, 2003). One of the companies that the PIC did work
for was a Japanese automobile company. The UNDP provided financial support to
the PIC totaling USD 690,000 for “the use of IT and automated production in the
management of North Korean domestic industries.” A previous study indicatedthat that money had no apparent effect on North Korea’s domestic industries
during that time, and that the PIC used that money to obtain foreign currency
through its software development subcontracting business (Mansourov, 2005: 80).
A few years after the PIC was founded, the Korean Computer Center (KCC)
was established as part of the first Science and Technology Development ThreeYear Plan that was mentioned above. The establishment of KCC was ordered in1990 directly by Kim Jong-Il. In 1996, the KCC was formally promoted to aministry-level organization. To this day KCC is consistently recognized as a key
player in the IT field.

6

The KCC is well-known for having developed the Red Star OS, its own
Linux-based operating system distribution. It has also developed software for theboard games go and shogi (Japanese chess) . These programs are among the mosttechnologically sophisticated in the world, as shown by the go program’s ability tocapture first prize in the World Computer Go Championships held in Japan in
1998.
In June 2000 South Korean president Kim Dae-Jung and Kim Jong-Il held
an inter-Korean summit. At that summit, South Korea promised to provide
increased economic assistance to the North, a pledge that resulted in greatly
improved relations between the two countries. During this time, North Korea
received support from the South in a variety of ways. One of these was theestablishment of the Korean Computer/Samsung Software Joint Cooperative
Development Center in Beijing, China, which resulted from a March 2000 joint
venture agreement between the KCC and the South Korean company Samsung
Electronics (Lee, 2001). One of the tasks undertaken by the Joint Development
Center was the development of software for use in mobile phones.
The KCC has a strong relationship with Japan as well. It established an
associated company in Japan sometime between 1996 and 1997. In June 2017 theUnited States Treasury Department denounced the fact that the KCC engaged inarms-related transactions despite being the target of United Nations sanctions.
In September of that same year, North Korea was the target of additional
unilateral economic sanctions by the United States under Executive Order 13810. 4

2-3-2 S EC UR ITY S OF TWAR E
Among the many types of software developed by North Korean companies
were those related to the field of cybersecurity, including encryption software andvirus detection software. The knowledge required to develop software in this field
is nearly identical to the knowledge required to launch cyberattacks. Therefore,
an understanding of their efforts in this field is essential to understanding North
Korea’s offensive cyber capability.
According to Tija (2006), the Kwangmyong IT Center, a KCC-relatedorganization, was founded no later than 2006. The Kwangmyong IT Center7

specialized in networks and security, and it was engaged in the development ofvirus detection software, data encryption software, data recovery, and fingerprint
authentication software. A company known as STS Tech-Service was also involvedin the development of software in this area. The virus detection software wascelebrated in North Korea for having been produced domestically with the help ofboth the Kwangmyong IT Center and STS. However, according to a specialist who
analyzed the copy of this software, it was nothing more than a pirated version ofa virus detection software produced by a major manufacturer outside of North
Korea. Thus, it could hardly be called an example of North Korean domestic
technology (Lechtik and Kajiloti, 2018).
What becomes clear through an examination of the history of softwaredevelopment 5 in North Korea is the high level of skill possessed by North Korean
engineers. They were strong when a competition is about superiority or inferiorityof the algorithms. In the latter half of the 2000s, North Korean Go and Shogi
programs were recognized as being among the best in the world, but this did not
result in success in overseas markets.

2-4 E STABLISHMENT OF A C OMMUNICATIONS N ETWORK
Foreigners who have visited Pyongyang within the last few years often
mention their surprise at the widespread use of mobile phones. This surprise islikely due to the deep-rooted assumption that in North Korea it is impossible touse mobile phones or access the Internet. In this section, I will describe how
cellular network has spread not only within Pyongyang but also in provincial cities.
I will also describe how the country manages to remain closed off to the outside
world while maintaining a domestic network that allows Intranet access.

2-4-1 F IBE R O PT IC C A BLE S A ND T EL EPH ONES THAT L INKU RBA N A R EAS
The aforementioned First Science and Technology Development Three-Year
Plan (1998) is the document that marked the start of the national IT initiative. It
indicates that its goal is the creation of a communications network: “The creationof a computer network spearheaded by KCC.”

8In August 1990 the laying of a fiber optic cable that linked Pyongyang tothree major cities was completed with assistance from the UNDP (Mansourov,
2011: 8). North Korea not only requested UNDP assistance related to the layingof the fiber optic cable network but also requested that the cable be manufactured
domestically. This request was granted, and two years later, construction of the
Pyongyang Fiber Optic Cable Plant was completed. This provided the country witha domestic cable production system. Thereafter, North Korea expanded the area
covered by its fiber optic cable network. During this expansion, the city of
Hamhung (September 1995), the city of Sinuiju (February 1998), the major citiesof the region north of Pyongyang (March 2000), and the city of Nampo (2001) were
all connected to Pyongyang via fiber optic cable. Experts believe that in the early
2000s, over 50 cities and provinces were connected via fiber optic cable.
In August 1993, during the effort to lay fiber optic cable throughout thecountry, Kim Jong-Il sent a document titled “Work as Fast as Possible toModernize Telecommunications” to the National Information and Communication
Conference. Around 1994-1995, it was a period referred to as the “Arduous March,”as North Korea experienced massive loss of life due to famine and flooding. And
that did not stop fiber cable installation. Other than this national level network
installation, another regional/local construction project took place (Choi, 2016).
The fiber optic cable network was further expanded to copper network thatlinked businesses and private homes. According to a report that North Korea filedwith the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the total number of
telephone lines in 1998 was 1.1 million (Vladimir, 2013).
As part of the creation of the domestic telephone network, international
telephone lines were introduced, in the following manner. Relations between
North Korea and the rest of the world worsened after North Korea’s announcementthat it was pulling out of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in March 1993,
and after its test launch of its Rodong-1 missile. The following year, in June 1994,
discussions were held between former US president Jimmy Carter and Kim IlSung, and in October of that year, the so-called Agreed Framework between the
United States and North Korea was signed. These developments led to an easing9

of tensions between the United States and North Korea. In January 1995 the US
State Department gave US communications companies permission to provide
services to North Korea. It was unclear whether this approval was included in the
Framework, but AT&T received government authorization to begin, in April 1995,
providing commercial long-distance service to North Korea. As a result, it became
possible to place international telephone calls to North Korea.
Observation of the process by which international telephone service wasachieved in North Korea shows that network interconnectedness between nations
is greatly impacted by international politics.

2-4-2 T HE I NTE RNET
The Internet in North Korea is infamous for being closed off to the outside
world. There is a network called “Kwangmyong” that research and governmentorganizations use domestically, and reportedly this network is disconnected fromthe Internet. Access to the Internet is not widely spread, however the engineers
in 1990s finished all the technical preparation for it. In 1994 Kim Chaek
University of Technology succeeded in accessing an Australian network. In 1996
the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) launched its website. In 1995 an opticalcable linking North Korea with the rest of the world connected the Rason Special
Economic Zone to Hunchun, China, through a joint venture between North Korea
and Thailand. In terms of the technology, it seems that the Internet technology
available in the West in the mid-1990s was being utilized within North Korea.
Since then and to this day, North Korean engineers have been waiting for an orderfrom their supreme leaders to connect the domestic network to the rest of theworld.
This isolated status is probably seen as necessary for maintaining domestic
control. As the country entered the 2000s, keeping its IT technology completely
isolated became increasingly difficult. In the Chinese city of Shenyang, in (ornear) a hotel funded by North Korea, is an Internet server under North Korean
control. This server plays a lone point of access to the outside world. Email andother services are operated at this location. 6 And a very few in North Korea buying

10

sneakers from an online shop, enjoying online game and trying to mine crypto
currencies (Recorded Future, 2017).

2-4-3 T HE M OBIL E P H ONE N ETWOR K
In North Korea, buying and selling on the black market, as well as viewing
foreign TV programs or listening to foreign radio programs, had long been strictly
controlled. These controls began to loosen in the mid-1990s with the advent ofwidespread famine. Decreased levels of loyalty led to a decline in the number ofcitizens who reported on other citizens. According to A Quiet Opening: North

Koreans in a Changing Media Environment (Kretchun and Kim, 2012), starting in
2000, citizens began to sense more connections among themselves, and the wallsthat kept out the outside world were no longer so impermeable. This was mainly
due to the mobile phones that citizens possessed.
Second-Generation Mobile Phone Service (up to 2004)
In January 2001 Kim Jong-Il returned home from his tour of the Pudong
region of Shanghai, China. He then directed the Science Education Division tolead an IT revolution and create a mobile phone network in the Pyongyang areaby the 90th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-Sung in April 2002. Thus, in 2002
a joint venture with a Thai company began providing mobile phone service. This
network utilized digital signals known as the “second-generation mobile system”(2G). They chose GSM over CDMA. One reason for this choice was that the North
Koreans did not want to use a system that was compatible with the CDMA systemused in South Korea. 7 Another reason was that the export of CDMA networks to
North Korea was prohibited by the US Trading with the Enemy Act and theWassenaar Arrangement (Mansourov, 2011: 18). The mobile phone service thatwas launched in 2002 was not widely utilized by the citizens of North Korea, andservice was discontinued in May 2004. This discontinuation of service wasprompted by a rumor that an April 2004 train explosion was caused by a mobile
phone used as a triggering device. 8
Third-Generation Mobile Phone Service (as of 2018)
Subsequently, in 2008, the Egyptian firm Orascom 9 and the North Korean
firm Korea Post and Telecommunications Corporation (KPTC) put up financing in11

a ratio of 75% to 25% to fund a joint venture known as Koryo Link. Koryo Link
was the company that established a 3G mobile telephone network with official
government approval. The fact that 3G service started around the same time inboth North Korea and China suggests that there was technical cooperation
between the two countries. According to data released by Orascom in 2012, thecompany had over 1 million phone contracts in North Korea, which isapproximately 5% of the population.
No later than 2015, a new mobile phone company known as Star Network
started providing cellular service. Currently, this company is in competition with
Orascom within North Korea. A survey of North Korean defectors 10 indicated thatapproximately 70% had mobile phones prior to their defection. This indicates the
speed with which mobile phones became commonplace in North Korea. There arealso indications that among young people, having a mobile phone confers a certain
degree of status. It is impossible to make international calls or access the Internet
using mobile phones, and therefore citizens use short message services (SMS) to
stay in touch with each other.
According to a 2015 questionnaire survey of North Korean defectors andpeople who traveled to North Korea, the systematic censorship of communications
became even stricter once Kim Jong-Un took power. One way the government dealt
with the transmission of “illegal contents” in North Korea was by updating, in thelatter half of 2013, the Android operating system used with mobile phones andtablets, introducing a signature system (Grunow and Schiess, 2017). Devices withthis version of Android operating system were only able to handle governmentapproved apps, and users could only view files that were approved by thegovernment.
North Korea takes three measures to strictly control the flow of information
domestically.

One

is

blocking

Internet

communications

throughperiodic

disconnections, another is restricting the use of contents considered inappropriate
through the use of a signature system, and the third is traditional government
surveillance.

12

A look back at the path North Korea took toward establishing its
communications networks serves as a reminder of just how dependent network
connections are upon international politics. One example of this is the sudden
initiation of international voice-calling services immediately after the Agreed
Framework between the United States and North Korea was signed. Networks are
not established simply on the basis of repeated successes achieved by the domestic
political system alone.

2-5 T RAINING IT P ERSONNEL
New technologies require personnel who can develop and promote them. 11
Kim Jong-Il declared 1999 the “Year of Science,” and he included it among themost important goals of the country, stating “the three pillars of our strong andprosperous nation are our ideology, our arms (military power), and our scienceand technology.” In order to honor the Supreme Leader’s expressed sentiment thatscience and technology were equal in importance to the ideology that formed thebasis of the North Korean Juche idea and the military power that the country
viewed as its “lifeline,” education would have to be improved.
First, institutions of higher education improved their information andcommunications technology curriculums. In North Korea — where, as a generalrule, Internet access is impossible, it is difficult to acquire personal computers,
and permission to possess a computer must be applied for (Ishimaru and Lee,2012) — it was impossible for individuals to learn programing techniques bystudying on their own, unlike in other countries where this practice iscommonplace.
In 1997 the Computer Information Center was established at Kim Chaek
University of Technology, and computer education began in middle and highschools the following year. In 1999 the College of Computer Science wasestablished within Kim Il-Sung University. Kim Il-Sung University is considered
the “gateway” to an executive position in the Workers’ Party of Korea. This marked
the first time that a college had been established within the prestigious Kim IlSung University, and the fact that a college focused on computer education
underscores the importance that was placed on that field of study. In the same13

year, a programing course was begun at the Kim Chaek University of Technology.
In 2001 “computer prodigy training squads” were set up at four locations in
Pyongyang, including Mangyongdae Children's Palace. These “squads” provided
special education to particularly gifted children.
Mirim University 12 , or Automation University, is known as a center of special
education for gifted children. In the 1980s, during a period of increasingly close
relations with the Soviet Union, North Korea asked the Soviets to help it establish
a facility to train officers for electronic warfare. In 1984 Mirim University was
founded with support from the Soviet Department of Defense via Frunze Military
Academy (Yoon, 2001). Mirim University is a five-year university that trains
commanding officers who participate in information warfare. According to Jang
Se-Yul, who defected to South Korea in 2007, 100 out of the more than 5,000
applicants are selected each year to study at the university in order to master avariety of operating systems and programing languages. In addition to pure IT,
there are also majors in study areas such as “cyberwarfare simulations.”
On the basis of the time period when these educational institutions were
founded and the number of matriculated students, it is possible to estimate thenumber of graduates up to the year 2018. These estimates are shown in Figure 1.
Even if only three universities are considered, it can be estimated thatapproximately 7,000 highly skilled IT engineers were deployed by 2018.
IT engineers received a variety of privileges, such as the potential for alarge salary and permission to live in central Pyongyang. Another driver ischulsin-songbun . This ascribed status affects access to higher education or seniorrole in North Korean society. In the IT and others, chulsin-songbun does not affectmuch. Academic performance weights more. The fact that applicants did not need
to be from good songbun family, made becoming an engineer an attractive career
choice for young, gifted students.

University (academic
dept.)

Year offounding

Period ofstudy

No. of students
per school year

Estimated no.
of graduates

Mirim University

1984

5 years

100

2,900

14

Kim Chaek Univ. of Tech.
(Department of
Programming, Computer
Information Center,
Kangdong Campus)

1990

5 yearsand 6
months180 (estimatedto be one-tenthof the total) 1 3

2,160

Kim Il-Sung University(College of Computer
Science)1999

Unknown

150–200(estimated to be
one-tenth of thetotal)

2,250–3,000

Figure 1: Estimated number of personnel educated in the field of IT technology
in North Korea

In comparison with other fields evaluated above, personnel training in thisfield proceeded smoothly. The government authorities needed engineers in thefield of IT, and thus talented young people committed to the challenge of this new
field. However, there were side effect to rapid personnel training. This will be
discussed in detail in Part 3-2, “Problems Remaining for Kim Jong-Un.”

3 F ROM K IM J ONG -I L TO K IM J ONG -U N
3-1 P ROBLEMS L EFT B EHIND BY K IM J ONG -I L
In the previous section, we reviewed the process by which IT technology got
its start in North Korea. In this section, we will discuss the involvement ofSupreme Leader Kim Jong-Il in this process. Then we develop a discussion on
several points with a potential influence on IT governmental policy and cybersecurity in North Korea, as well as the issue of cyberwarfare.
There are many anecdotes that seem to support the idea that Kim Jong-Il had
a personal interest in IT. I am not arguing here that the national leader’s interestin computers was the main propelling force behind the IT policies of North Korea.
However, it must be recognized that Kim Jong-Il did indeed serve as a majordecision-maker in the field of information and communications. As mentioned in
Section 2 above, initiatives that were made as preparations for use far into the
future, such as the IC plant and the fiber optic cable network, were begun during
Kim Jong-Il’s rise to power as the successor to his father, Kim Il-Sung. In the
1980s North Korea suffered from a lack of basic necessities, such as clothing, food,15

and shelter. Even under these circumstances, Kim Jong-Il was anticipating thecoming information age. The evidence for this is the fact that projects such as thelaying of fiber optic cable were continued even during the “Arduous March.” (TheSouth Korean Ministry of Unification estimates that from 1995 to 1997, between
700,000 and 800,000 people died annually.)
Another example is the fact that Kim Jong-Il went on inspection tours of the
IT industry throughout China. These were not junket. During his four trips toChina, he toured facilities in the communications equipment industry, such as
semiconductor

manufacturing

plants,PBX manufacturing plants, software

research labs, fiber optic cable companies, and military satellite communications
facilities as well as home appliance (e.g., television) manufacturing facilities,
facilities developing software for the financial sector, and SIM card and otherplants in the smart card manufacturing industry. These visits led to concrete
results, such as the construction of a television factory in North Korea by aChinese-North Korean joint venture after Kim Jong-Il’s visited the Chinese
electrical appliance manufacturing plant. 14 In May 2011, six months before his
death, Kim Jong-Il visited an IT company and a home appliance company locatedin the southeast of China. Even shortly before his death, he continued to take astrong interest in the development of IT in North Korea.
Kim Jong-Il was not held in as high esteem as Kim Il-Sung, who was known
among the citizens of North Korea as the “Great Father of Nation.” One reason forthis was Kim Jong-Il’s enthusiasm for public projects such as statues andmonuments, which seemed to indicate that he was uninterested in directly
improve the people’s daily lives. His policy of focusing on the field of IT as aninvestment for the future – which is argued in this paper – may serve as one of
the best examples of this. The following three points were indicated as the“Revolutionary Heritage of Kim Jong-Il” at his funeral in December 2011: (1)nuclear weapons and satellites, (2) an industrial revolution for the new century,and (3) the mental and spiritual strength of the North Korean people. The
abundance of highly skilled software engineers and a network that connected theentire nation were the legacy of Kim Jong-Il.

16

3-2 P ROBLEMS R EMAINING FOR K IM J ONG -U N
In April 2012, Kim Jong-Un delivered a speech at the military parade
commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Kim Il-Sung. It was the firstspeech he delivered as the Supreme Leader of the country. There, he urged thatno changes be made to the nation’s military-first policies, saying, “All aspects ofthe military have to be improved” (Hiraiwa, 2013). Without a doubt, the main
issues he faced were the military’s ability including cyber security. I would like todevelop my argument on issues in the field of IT by including some elements that
contain predictions for the future.

3-2-1 R ELAX ING R EST RIC TIONS ON F RE E DOM OF S PEE CH
In order for the authorities to maintain the system in North Korea, it isnecessary to restrict freedom of speech. However, a certain degree of freedom
would contribute to the economy and is essential to the country’s further
development. The Go software developed in North Korea that was mentioned in
Section 2 illustrates this perfectly. While their rivals were utilizing cloudtechnology via Internet networks and thereby utilized an enormous amount ofmachine learning to improve performance, North Korea was left behind (Ha, 2017).
There were, however, clear signs of increased openness. I have alreadydiscussed the provision of mobile phone services to foreign-affiliated companies.
By 2016 there were 26 economic development regions in North Korea that accepted
foreign investment from countries such as China and South Korea. At theselocations, “international telecommunications” were guaranteed by law. It wasrecognized that networks were essential to economic development, and therefore
approval for networks began to be granted in limited areas. In other socialist
countries such as China and Vietnam, the loosening of restrictions on freedom ofspeech and economic development went hand in hand. It is highly likely that North
Korea used the experiences of these countries as a guide for its own forays intoloosening restrictions on freedom of speech. Currently, debate is focused on when
and to what degree the restrictions on freedom of speech should be loosened.

3-2-2 T HE S P RE AD OF IT T ECH NOL OGY O V ER SEAS

17

The economic sanctions imposed on North Korea by the UN and westerncountries as a result of North Korea’s repeated nuclear test are becoming
increasingly strict. These circumstances have naturally had an effect on IT. In
February 2017, a panel of experts on the United Nations Security Council
Committee on North Korean Sanctions concluded that a Malaysian corporategroup was actually a front for the North Korean Reconnaissance General Bureau(RGB). In January 2018, an IT company that was a Chinese-North Korean joint
venture was removed from the corporate registry by the Chinese government. A
former member of an expert panel indicated that the economic sanctions werehardly comprehensive (Furukawa, 2017), but that they had likely made it
increasingly difficult for North Korean overseas IT bases of operations to remain
openly active.
As one way to avoid the effects of the economic sanctions, North Korea
recommended that individuals go abroad to work. A report by the Organization for
Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) estimated that over 50,000 North
Korean workers were working in 16 countries, mainly in Europe, and that they
were sending amounts of money back to North Korea that totaled between USD
1.2 and 2.3 billion. 15
As mentioned in Section 2-5, starting in the latter half of the 1990s, there
was a surplus pool of personnel in North Korea who had been educated in the fieldof IT technology. However, it became difficult to send these people to workoverseas once the economic sanctions took effect. One factor that should not be
overlooked is that these people were sent abroad to defraud people out of money
through cyberattacks 16 and engage in cyberattacks against nations for economic
gain.

3-2-3 S TR ONGER R EL ATIONS WITH C HINA A ND THE
B RE A KA WAY FR OM D EPE NDE NC E
After Kim Jong-Un took power, Jang Song-Thaek, who was Kim Jong-Un’suncle and who served as an important intermediary between North Korea andChina, was purged. After this event, relations between China and North Korea
soured. In December 2017 Wang Yang, a member of the Chinese Politburo18

Standing Committee, stated in a discussion with a Japanese Diet member:“Previously, (North) Korea was a country with which we had a friendship that wassealed in blood. Now, we have an adversarial relationship.” One view, put forth
by Nakazawa (2018), is that “China completely lost face as a result of North
Korea’s repeated nuclear tests.” However, others see the situation as Takesada(2014) expresses it: “Rather than a deterioration in the relationship between
China and North Korea, [it is a situation in which] North Korea is correcting its
position of over-dependency on China.”
This situation changed at the start of 2018. Kim Jong-Un participated inthree summit meetings between North Korea and China, including one that washeld during his first visit to Beijing. It is possible that cooperation in cyber fields
will begin. One point worth noting is the renewal of the Sino-North Korean Mutual
Aid and Cooperation Friendship Treaty, which is scheduled to occur in 2021. This
treaty was first signed in 1961 and is automatically renewed every twenty years.
It has been renewed twice to date. An “automatic mutual defense clause” (statingthat when one partner is attacked and involved in a war, the other partner must
provide military support) is included in this treaty. This clause forms the basis
for the alliance between China and North Korea. When the treaty was renewed in
2001, cyber security had yet to be seen as a problem, and thus there was ostensibly
no discussion at the time over how the clause would be interpreted in the event ofa cyberattack. Over the last dozen or so years, multiple nations, NATO, and others
have indicated that they believe collective defense is applicable to a cyberattack.
Perhaps the respective militaries of China and North Korea will examine a SinoNorth Korean cooperation proposal on cyberattacks and cyber-defense as part ofthe process of renewing the treaty in 2021.
Although it may seem paradoxical, Kim Jong-Un believes that avoiding
dependence on China is as important as strengthening relations between China
and North Korea. In September 2012 North Korea and Iran entered into a scienceand technology accord (Torbati, 2012). In the latter half of 2017, North Korea
began connecting with the overseas Internet via Russia. It is likely that North

19

Korea will continue to expand its cooperation with more and more countries inmuch the same way.

4 C ONCLUSION
In 2013, Kim Jong-Il reportedly addressed his military commanders with thefollowing words: “If warfare was about bullets and oil until now, warfare in thetwenty-first century is about information. 17 ” The South Korean intelligenceagencies have reported that Kim Jong-Il views his country’s cyber abilities as his“Magic Weapon” (Song, 2014). Kim has made other statements expressing the viewthat cyberattacks and cyber defense are major issues. The problem is determining
which of those cyber-related issues North Korea views as its top priority.
North Korea is still viewed as a high-tech country, but viewed as a country ofclosed networks. However, as stated in Section 2, the country has been steadily
working

since

the

1980s

on

domestic

projectssuchassemiconductor

manufacturing, software development, and the development of fiber optic cable
networks.
Further, as indicated in Section 3, North Korean IT engineers have been
provided with incentives to expand their bases in foreign countries. In order forinternational economic sanctions against North Korea to have an effect, more
effort is required from neighboring countries such as Japan and China.
The outside world still thinks of North Korea primarily as a country that has
suffered oppressive rule and famine, and as a developing country in which
information from the outside world is completely excluded. However, North Korea
has succeeded in developing nuclear technologies as well as ICBMs. In fact, it isa dynamic technological country that has become a de facto nuclear-weapons state.
The world must accept those abilities for what they are, and face themappropriately if it wishes to ensure the security of the region and cyberspace.

20

Acknowledgement
I would like to thank Jinhyun Cho for his constructive comments and Hikaru Koike forproviding me an access to Korean language literatures.

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Notes
1 Approved on June 8, 2018. According to the indictment made public on September 7 ofthat year, WannaCry was involved in the improper transfer of payments from foreign
currency accounts at the Bangladesh Central Bank and the hacking of Sony Pictures
Entertainment, which were launched from a base of operations at the Korean Expo Joint
Venture Company in Dalian, China.

2 Tsutsumi (2016) and others have published outstanding discussions of the shift toward

computerized numerical control (CNC) (a technology that uses computers to control the
production of industrial goods), which took place at nearly the same time as IT technology
was being developed. Therefore, this paper was limited to IT technology alone, as it has
not previously been treated in detail.

3 The

UNDP’s Project Closing Report is unavailable, because it is classified. Mansourov(2005) obtained information on the successful production of small amounts of IC before
this information was classified.

4 US

unilateral sanctions were imposed because of ICBM tests on July 3 and 28 of theprevious year and nuclear tests on September 3. The industries targeted by the sanctions
included “IT technology.” KCC is among the targets listed on the Specially DesignatedNationals and Blocked Persons List (SDN) of the US Office of Foreign Assets Control(OFAC).

5 An order of the Supreme People's Assembly in June 2003 enacted the “Computer Software

Protection Act.” There is a record of the enactment of the “Software Industry Act” of June
2004. At this writing, there are no known materials that show the details of these laws. I
look forward to the time when they are publicized by researchers who understand Korean.

6 In

an August 2018 interview, an anonymous official of an ASEAN member states who
was stationed in Pyongyang told the author of this paper: “Connecting to the Internet isextremely expensive, because it has to be done via a dial-up connection using aninternational call to an Internet service provider in China. Therefore, it is popular topurchase satellite mobile phones.”
7 In June 2002 a conference was held with government officials from both North and South

Korea, as well as a telecommunications carrier. One issue discussed was the method to be
used for mobile telephones in North Korea. According to Park (2015), a scenario in which
the North and South would use the same method was considered.

8 The use of a mobile phone as a detonator was mentioned by Mansourov (2011), Ishimaru

and Lee (2012), and Yamaguchi (2013). Although the author of this paper was not able toconfirm the details.

23

9 The head of Orascom visited North Korea on many occasions, and there are photographswith this person with Kim Jong-Il and Jang Song-Thaek. See p. 18 of Mansourov (2011).

1 0 Kretchunand Lee (2015) wrote of the use of the Internet by citizens in North Korea
based on a questionnaire survey of 350 defectors, refugees, and travelers that was
conducted in 2015 as well as 35 interviews conducted in May and June 2016.

1 1 This paragraph mainly describes higher education in the IT area. According to Ministryof Unification (2019), mandatory computer education for junior high school students began
in 1998. Followed by several institutionalization of education.

1 2 In 1984 it was referred to alternately as the Mirim Training School, the Kim Il Military

Academy, and the University of Automation, but in the interest of consistency, I am using“Mirim University” throughout this paper.
Author of this paper recognize numbers on the table requires further reviews. For
example, South Korean Ministry of Unification estimates 10% of 12500 students at Kim
Chaek Univ. of Tech. attend the computer-related department(s).

13

1 4 Kim Jong-Un also visited Beijing under extreme secrecy in March 2018. On the day after

his discussion with Xi Jinping, he traveled to Zhongguancun, which is known as “theSilicon Valley of China.” He toured an exhibition of projects created by students at the
Chinese Academy of Sciences. In contrast to Kim Jong-Il’s tour that he “looked for what
he wanted to see,” it seems likely that Kim Jong-Un’s tour was that he “was shown what
China wanted to show.”

1 5 See Ono (2017). The money sent back to North Korea was not limited to that earned byworkers in the field of IT. According to Yamaguchi (2013), the newspaper Chosun Ilbo
reported that “50,000 workers are sent to 40 countries throughout the world, and theyearn nearly USD 300 million per year.” Although there are discrepancies among thevarious dollar amounts reported, this figure can serve as a general reference.
1 6 Some of the engineers whose activities were restricted had already used cloud-sourcing

services such as Freelancer.com and Guru.com, and they converted their skills into cashwithout revealing their identities. See p. 2 of Berger et al. (2018).

1 7 See Kindle location 2206 of Sanger (2018). Kim Jong-Il also “used to say modern warfare

is electronic warfare”, according to Mansourov (2014: 4).

24