The DMZ as Digital Divide: ICT and Communication in Korean Unification

In an earlier post this morning I mused about the implications of cloud computing for international and national security, and suggested that "the growth of cyberspace is emerging as perhaps the single most important factor in, among other things, Korean unification." Shortly after publishing the post, I became aware of some new resources relating to the topic.

First, The Walter Shorenstein Asia-Pacific Research Center at Stanford University earlier this year published a report entitled U.S.-DPRK Educational Exchanges: Assessment and Future Strategy.  Fortunately, the Stanford volume can be downloaded in PDF format, so I encourage you to use the preceding hyperlink to do so and read it.  Unfortunately, the Stanford volume devotes far to little attention to the exceedingly important role of information and communications technology (ICT) in Korean unification.  For evidence of this, readers may wish to read prior posts on this blog about this important topic at this link, or search for "unification" or "DMZ."

A second resource is the web site of The National Committee on North Korea. As noted in its mission statement, it "...advances, promotes and facilitates engagement between citizens of the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. It works to reduce tensions and promote peace on the Korean Peninsula and improve the well being of the citizens of the DPRK. Through cooperation on concrete activities addressing specific problems, NCNK seeks to enhance broad-based understanding and mutual trust. NCNK supports transitions enabling the DPRK to become a full participant in the community of nations.
The National Committee's principles of engagement focus on addressing urgent humanitarian needs, implementing long-term development, building sustained partnerships, fostering mutual understanding, and helping to avoid conflict on the Korean Peninsula."


Although pleased to see the above new resources, I am disappointed at the lack of a more comprehensive discussion of the role of ICT and communication in Korean unification.  It is such an obvious factor, especially in 2011 with the unfolding "Arab Spring" and international commentary on the role of digital, mobile and social media in it.  Even back in 1995, when my book on The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea was published, it demanded a full chapter (Chapter 9: "Toward One World: Beyond all Barriers": Communications and National Reunification).  Since that time, I have followed the topic mainly through posts on this blog.  Among them, my 2008 post about Johann Galtung's perspective on unification, and in 2009, Andrei Lankov's thoughts on the matter, deserve reading.

In conclusion, I would simply underscore the obvious for further research, theorizing, publication and discussion of the role of ICT and communication in Korean unification.

Thoughts on North Korea, Cloud Computing and Cyber War

Several articles jumped off the computer screen at me this morning as I reviewed my Google alerts and read the morning papers.  One was the Chosun Ilbo article noting that Korea University has established a cyber defense course at its Graduate School of Information Security. It noted that cyber terrorists of the future will need to be even more sophisticated than they are now as South Korea is set to establish its first academic program dedicated to training military officials specializing in countering cyber warfare.

The main focus of the program at Korea University will be threats from North Korea, the Ministry of National Defense said on Thursday as it announced the plan.  Coincidentally, The Korea Times carried an opinion article entitled "Defending Cyberspace."  That piece contains some rather sobering, if they are accurate, assessments of the capabilities of North Korean hackers.  I would simply note that South Korea's heavy dependence on Microsoft Windows and the associated security risks are a well documented phenomenon, referred to by many as Korea's "Microsoft monoculture."   Over and above that, the extremely rapid diffusion of smart phones and tablets in the South Korean market is creating a whole new space for potential security threats.

The above articles already had me musing about possibilities when I ran across Roger Strukhoff's blog piece entitled "The Geopolitical Context of Cloud Computing."   The article starts by noting that cloud computing is a global phenomenon and exists within a very serious geopolitical context. The technology is not discrete from government policy, and technology marketers must be exquisitely aware of this. The highest profile example is Google's ongoing sparring with the Chinese government. But in a way, we're all Google and we should understand why.
The author makes the following point about the most immediate effect of the information revolution on politics.
...the geopolitical actions of government leaders in Beijing, Washington, and dozens of other national capitals has a direct, immediate effect on the technology industry today.
As the onset of World War I demonstrated, a provocative event in the relatively modest outpost of Sarajevo unleashed simmering tensions among the great powers of the age, resulting in tens of millions of deaths in the two wars that followed.
Today's geopolitical landscape is at least as fraught with tripwires as that of 1914. In almost 100 years, all of our technology has not made us humans any more peaceful or cooperative.
Strukhoff's full piece is worth reading.

I am formulating an argument that the growth of cyberspace is emerging as perhaps the single most important factor in, among other things, Korean unification.   Comments welcome and you can watch for more on this topic in future poses.

North Korean Defectors to Visit U.S. on Government-sponsored WEST program

Yonhap reports that a group of five North Korean defectors currently enrolled in South Korean colleges will visit the United States on a US government-sponsored programme reserved, until now, for South Korean students only, a government official said today.The five North Korean defectors will likely head for the United States next month, according to the official from Seoul's Unification Ministry."The US Embassy in South Korea and the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology selected the five students in April for the West programme," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.Under the student exchange program, South Korean students can visit the United States for up to 18 months -- five months of mandatory language programmes plus internships up to one year long at US companies, followed by one month reserved for free travels.Thousands of students have visited or are visiting the United States under the programme since its launch in early 2009, but no one originally from North Korea had been offered the chance until now. "We believe the programme will help North Korean defectors get wider experience and better prepare for their future employment," the ministry official said."The ministry will consider extending the programme to more North Korean defectors," he said, adding there are currently about 850 college students here who defected from North Korea.

How Widespread is Mobile Phone Use in North Korea?

The English online version of The Chosun Ilbo this morning has a short, but fascinating article, entitled "How Widespread is Mobile Phone Use in North Korea?"  As readers of this blog will know, I've been following not only the extent of mobile phone usage in North Korea, but also its implications, in posts over the past several years.  According to The Chosun Ilbo article, the mobile phone penetration rate in North Korea is only about 1.3 percent, far lower than South Korea's 103.9 percent, but the average usage time amounts to 300 minutes, more or less the level of South Korea's. Hwang Sung-jin of the Korea Information Society Development Institute, said this is because of brisk usage among high-ranking North Korean officials.  The article also quotes Suk Ho-ick of KT, the chairman of the IT Unification Forum, on North Korea's efforts to control the use of mobile phones.

Mobile Phone Use in North Korea Increasing and Diversifying

Media reports, including one in The Joongang Daily, indicate that mobile phone usage in North Korea is up 50 percent, year on year.   The development and use of mobile telephony is a topic that I've followed somewhat closely in this blog (see earlier posts).  There are many interesting aspects to the development.  Use of Chinese mobile services along North Korea's border with China highlights the dilemma that the North faces in trying to keep information from its people.  Continued restrictions on the use of mobile phones and other digital devices has the effect of restricting economic growth and development, while expansion of services multiplies the ways North Korean citizens can receive and share information about the outside world.  Gigaom has an interesting article, based on some recent research, about how Twitter could help unleash world peace.

According to figures released by South Korean officials, the number of mobile phone users in North Korea has increased to 450,000 and South Korea's Vice Unification Minister believes, probably correctly, that this indicates not only growth in numbers but also a diversification of users, after the early usage was largely limited to elites.  This diversification, in turn, could signal the growth of a tech-savvy generation in North Korea.  If that happens, one can only speculate about the future role of digital media in political change within North Korea.  The matter becomes especially interesting with the current rapid decrease in cost, accompanied by increase in computing and communication power of a growing array of smart phones!

North Korea's Digital Underground

The Atlantic is carrying a very interesting article on the efforts of outside news organizations to gather and disseminate information from inside North Korea.  These developments have obvious implications for the future unification of Korea.   I recommend it to you.

Euromonitor on Global Digital Divide: From Korea to Kenya

The Euromonitor blog has a new report on the global digital divide with the accompanying graphic. (click to see full size version).  The measure represented in this graphic is the proportion of households in each country that possess broadband internet-enabled computers.  Nearly all South Korean households do, compared with only about two-thirds of those in the United States.  The report also notes the following main points.

• Access to and use of broadband internet has significant social, economic and political implications.


• While developed economies continue to have a higher rate of broadband internet penetration than developing ones, growth rates are significantly higher in developing regions.

Notably, the report does not deal with the current explosive growth of mobile broadband services via so-called "smart phones."  However, addition of this important factor would only seem to underscore the main points noted above.

Orascom Comments on Investment in North Korea's Mobile Network

I commented late last month on the meeting that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il had with Naguib Sawiris, Chairman and CEO of Orascom Telecom.  Today an interesting article in The Sydney Morning Herald by Eric Ellis, gives some insight into how Sawiris views his company's investment in North Korea.  Ellis interviewed Sawiris in Egypt in early January.

Orascom, the article noted, is a classic example of a company where the sum of the parts is greater than the whole.
Like North Korea, where the value of the Koryolink JV "is either zero, or $5 billion. If there is reunification, then I will be the incumbent of North Korea, and my value will be something like [South Korean carriers] SK Telecom or Korea Telecom," Sawiris said.
"If there is a war and they unify after the war, it is still the same, depending on who wins, of course. And if they take the asset, then it is worth zero. There is no between value [in North Korea] because who will buy? No one else has the relationship that we are building there."

An Interesting Bit of Information about North Korean Telecommunications

Bits and pieces of information are about all that one receives about the state of telecommunications networks in North Korea.   However, it was very interesting to read that North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has recently met with and hosted a dinner for Naguib Sawiris, Chairman and CEO of Orascom Telecom, which has been providing mobile phone service in the North in cooperation with a local company since 2008.  The official North Korean news agency, according to channelnewsasia.com reported that Kim "warmly welcomed his DPRK (North Korea) visit taking place at a time when Orascom's investment is making successful progress in different fields of the DPRK, including telecommunications." Orascom said last year that mobile phone subscriptions in North Korea had more than quadrupled in the space of a year -- to 301,199 by the end of September 2010 from 69,261 a year earlier.

North and South Korea Skirmish in Cyberspace

As reported by Yonhap News, in a story that is likely to get wide international exposure, hackers (reportedly South Korean) have breached North Korea's official Twitter and YouTube accounts.  Moreover, as The Washington Post noted, they did so on the birthday of heir apparent, Kim Jong Eun.  North Korea's use of Twitter and YouTube was noted in earlier posts and today's news is just the latest evidence that the two nations are taking their conflict into the realm of cyberspace.

Put on the North's YouTube account as early as Friday, a two-minute-long animation depicted Kim Jong-un as a ruthless killer driving a sports car and teasing his father to buy him fancy birthday gifts. On Twitter, the North's account -- which normally carried tweets praising Kim Jong-il and denouncing South Korea and the United States -- sent out feeds that called on North Koreans to rise against the Kim dynasty and put an end to poverty.

The high-tech war of nerves involving South Korean hackers, if confirmed, could indicate a new phase in the long running rivalry between North and South Korea.  Yonhap reported that one South Korean user wrote on Nate, another internet portal, that "we have done what our defense ministry was unable to do."  Others hailed the hacking as retaliation for North Korea's recent artillery attack on a South Korean island in the West Sea.

North Korea's Internet Strategy

According to reports, North Korea's dot-kp top-level domain could be returning to the internet after being offline for months.  A few domain names registered under dot-kp became unavailable beginning in the third quarter of 2010 when the domain name servers responsible for them went offline.  The exact nature of the months-long outage remains unclear, but on Monday the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) pointed the domain to new servers in a first step toward bringing it back online.

Dot-kp was first assigned in 2007 to Korea Computer Center Europe, a Berlin-based offshoot of the Korea Computer Center in Pyongyang. KCC Europe operated the domain and several North Korean-related websites from servers in Germany until last year, when all went offline at about the same time. E-mail messages and phone calls to KCC Europe and Holtermann have gone unanswered. The new servers do not yet appear to be online, but IANA's records now point to North Korean Internet addresses. The servers carry the "kptc.kp" name, which is probably a reference to Korea Posts and Telecommunications Corp., the country's official telecommunications carrier.

These developments will bear watching as North Korea's overall strategy for use of the internet develops.

Digitally-Divided Korea

Another matter that this blog will continue to follow in 2011 is that of Korea's digital divides.   The most obvious and poignant of these, of course, is national division itself.  Because Korea was divided before the revolution in digital communications started to gather steam, the present digital divide between North and South Korea is unequalled in magnitude, scope or implications anywhere else in the world.

Western scholars and journalists have, unfortunately, been slow to recognize the extent and impact of the digital divide between North and South Korea.   I've recently been reading the important book by Pippa Norris entitled Digital Divide:  Civic Engagement, Information Poverty and the Internet Worldwide.  (see portions here on Google books)  While her book makes note of Korea here and there, it utterly fails to even describe what South Korea had already accomplished by the year it was published, 2001.  Figure 3.2 in the paperback edition of the book is a bar graph depicting the "percentage of population online by nation" in 2000.  The very top bar, unfortunately, is not labeled, and the second bar represents Sweden, followed by Norway, Iceland and so forth.   I believe the top bar represents South Korea, because in 2000 its internet penetration was number one in the world, by some margin over the Scandinavian countries that caught it a few years later.

The pattern of attention to Korea needs to change, and a December 29 article in The Economist provides some evidence that this change may be starting.  Entitled "Parallel Economies," it compares the challenge of Korean reunification with that of German reunification.  As shown in the accompanying graphic (click to see a full-size version), the economic divide between the two nations has grown to alarming proportions.  If the Korea's reunified, the South Korean government would face a stark choice.  It could try to fill the gap in living standards between North and South through handouts, public investments and subsidies, or it could brace itself for heavy migration, as poor northerners moved to the South in search of higher wages.

Although The Economist focuses on the economics of the matter, what this blog finds interesting is the crucial role played by digital media in these matters.  After all, it is through the new media that residents in the northern half of Korea find out about the South and vice-versa.  

There is some evidence emerging that the government of North Korea has recognized the central role of information technology and digital media.  As reported by the North Korea Tech blog, the KCNA, North Korea's official news agency, has just launched video news.

The Digital Divide Concept as Applied to Korea

These days I've been looking more closely at the origins and different uses of the concept of digital divide.    As readers of this blog will know from prior posts, I believe the concept has particular relevance to present circumstances on the Korean peninsula and to prospective unification of the country.

Popular and scholarly use of the term "digital divide" roughly coincided with the large-scale adoption of the internet in the 1990s.  It is a multidimensional concept that has been used to refer to almost any aspect of access to and use of information using the internet and digital information processing devices.  The concept has been used to describe divergence in digital development between and among nations, differential access to information within nations, and also differences in how well different groups of people use information to participate in public affairs (the so-called democratic divide).  Those three approaches were outlined by Pippa Norris of Harvard in her 2001 book.

The digital divide has also been conceptualized in relation to the classic S-curve in the diffusion of innovations.  The accompanying graphic (click to see full size version), used in an ITU presentation by Choi and Lee,  illustrates the framework suggested by Molnar.

Korea's national division and its demilitarized zone originally took the form of an armistice that ended hostilities in the Korean War.  Both occurred decades before the digital revolution and arrival of the internet.  However, as I have argued on occasion, the latter developments have increased the significance of the DMZ as a digital divide, while decreasing its importance as a purely military demarcation line.

While searching for scholarly material on the digital divide, I ran across a fascinating book entitled Bytes and Bullets:  Information Technology Revolution on the Korean Peninsula.  It was published in 2005 based on an earlier conference hosted by the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, a U.S. Department of Defense Center in Honolulu.  The good news is that all nineteen chapters of the book are available in PDF format on the internet at this link.   Although much of the book deals with the digitization of defense in South Korea and some "guesses" about the role of IT in North Korea's defense modernization and in its economic development generally, the book and the conference represent the single most thorough treatment of this topic that I've yet located.   The introductory chapter, by Alexander Mansourov, outlines the scope of concerns treated in the book, and Chapter 18 by Scott Snyder, offers some interesting speculation on the digital divide on the Korean peninsula and the possible role of the IT sector in North-South reconciliation.

Comments are welcome, especially if you're aware of any more recent studies dealing with this topic.

President Lee: South Korean Reunification Drawing Near

President Lee Myung Bak, on a tour of Southeast Asian nations, has stated that although "North Korea now remains one of the most belligerent nations in the World... it is a fact that the two Koreas will have to coexist peacefully and in the end realize reunification."  As reported by the Washington Post, and widely in the international press, Lee made the comments on two different occasions.   In a speech on Thursday night, Lee said that North Koreans have become increasingly aware that the South is better off. He did not elaborate on how their knowledge had expanded, but he said it was "an important change that no one can stop."

Although President Lee did not elaborate on how and why North Korean's knowledge of the South is increasing, readers of this blog will know from earlier posts that the information revolution and the availability of ever-smaller and more powerful digital devices (cameras, DVD players, smart phones.....) is at the heart of the matter.

In August, President Lee said South Korea should prepare for reunification by studying the possibility of adopting a reunification tax aimed at raising money for the costs of integration.
Lee proposed a three-stage reunification process in which the two Koreas would first form a "peace community" involving denuclearization of the peninsula, then an "economic community" for cross-border economic integration, and eventually a "community of the Korean nation" with no institutional barriers between them.  In a recent interview, the President noted that "ultimately, the foundation for reunification will be laid when North Korea becomes economically independent."

Korea's DMZ as a Digital Divide: Examining the Implications

In one of the earliest posts on this blog, back in late 2007, I noted the significance of Korea's DMZ as a digital divide.  Although much of the news about Korea these days is about the recent North Korean shelling of Yongpyeong Island or its nuclear program, there are some valuable bits of news here and there about the digital divide between the two Koreas, which deserves much more attention.

Stuart Fox has an interesting article about "The Technological Hassles of a Potential Korean Reunification," which draws heavily on interviews with faculty from Syracuse University, which continues an ongoing IT-related exchange program with Kimchaek University in Pyongyang.  The article contains some informed speculation on what might happen when the world's most digitally networked nation, South Korea, moves toward unification with one of the least digitally networked countries in the world, North Korea.    I would add that the implications of the current, growing ICT infrastructure disparity between North and South Korea is a topic that deserves not only more attention in the news, but also more serious and in-depth research.  For example, there is speculation in the article that unification might enable North Korea to leapfrog by quickly building new mobile networks.  To what extent is this really the case?  What of the need for terrestrial fiber optic networks that have taken South Korea decades to build?  An argument might be made that such a decades-long investment in fiber infrastructure will be necessary for full parity in communications infrastructure and for true and complete unification.

I also ran across the North Korea Tech blog, which contains regular posts on the development of the ICT sector in North Korea.  It is authored by Martyn Williams, Tokyo Bureau Chief for IDG News Service.

Back in the early 1990s when I was researching and writing The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea, it was already apparent that there were two broad aspects to Korean national division, from a communication perspective.  The first of these was the growing infrastructure disparity between North and South.   The second was that of the political implications of free flow of information in and out of North Korea.  Both are important, but these days the second area is getting more attention as cameras, phones and other electronic devices are becoming smaller, more mobile and more powerful, just as the internet and cloud computing become the norm for many.  In the current era it is literally impossible for any country to completely control the flow of information to and from its citizens.

Korea's North-South Digital Divide: Cracks in an Orwellian Paradise

The overarching political problem in Korea today, the continuing tragedy of national division, also makes the digital divide between North and South the largest such divide existing in any country or bordering countries in the world.  I've been interested in national division as a digital divide for a long time, at least since my 1995 book, The Telecommunications Revolution in Korea was published, and have posted on it in this blog.

There are at least two major aspects to the North-South digital divide in Korea.  The first is the growing disparity in digital communications infrastructure between the two countries.  The growing infrastructure disparity has many implications, including important ones for the cost of unification.  The second aspect of the digital divide on the Korean peninsula is the vast political or democratic divide that has developed.

Andrei Lankov, an astute observer of North Korean affairs, devotes an article in The Korea Times  to an exploration of how the government in North Korea has attempted to insulate its population from outside information.  He tells an interesting part of the tragic story, and it is worth reading.

Growth of Mobile Phone Service in North Korea

According to a report in Business Week, mobile phone subscriptions in North Korea have surged by 400 percent over the twelve month period ending in September of 2010, reaching a total of 301,199 subscribers.  Of course, this increase is due in part to the low level of subscribers a year earlier (reportedly just slightly over 69,000 as of September 2009).  Cairo-based Orascom Telecom said its advanced 3G telephone service network now covered 75 percent of the population.  It reaches a total of 12 main cities, 42 small cities, and 22 highways and railways.  Orascom plans to extend coverage to over 90 percent of the population by year's end.

Analysts had predicted that mobile service would be limited to North Korea's political elite and the capital city of Pyongyang.  However, Orascom reported a steady increase in voice and SMS usage over the past three quarters.  The company has 26 direct and indirect sales outlets in eight North Korean cities.

The Korea Discount: Information Age Politics in Korea

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the outbreak of the Korean war and the division of the peninsula into North and South Korea. Over the past six decades, the South has developed into a technologically advanced country and is one of the world's leading exporters. On a day-to-day basis, people living in South Korea don't think much about the possible outbreak of war, even after the recent Cheonan incident. However, the world's mainstream media--television, newspapers, magazines and the business press--continue to frame the Korean situation in terms of national division and the threat of war on the peninsula. Nowhere is this more evident than in the continued widespread application and acceptance of the so-called "Korea Discount."
As reported in the Joongang Daily this morning, the global rating agency Standard and Poors reports that uncertainty surrounding North Korea’s power transfer is weighing on South Korea’s sovereign credit rating because of the possibility of war and the potential for huge unification costs.  “Significant uncertainties remain from a possible succession in the near future in North Korea,” Standard & Poor’s (S&P) said. “We continue to view instability as an important constraint on the creditworthiness of South Korea.”

The credit rating agency said the South Korean presidential council estimated earlier this year that sudden unification could cost the country $2.14 trillion by 2040 and raise government debt to 147 percent of gross domestic product (GPD) in that year, compared with the government’s estimate of 36 percent by the end of this year.
It would be interesting to see an estimate of how much the "Korea Discount" has cost South Korea over recent decades in lost foreign direct investment or other costs directly related to its application.

Moreover, the Korea discount is really only information that estimates the probability of future conflict or economic burdens on the Korean peninsula. As such, it illustrates the power of information, created by the mainstream and financial media and disseminated instantly via the internet. From a certain perspective, one might say that the most stable thing on the Korean peninsula for almost sixty years now has been the nation's division.  How does one really estimate the possibility of a peaceful or gradual unification of Korea versus a sudden, disruptive one?  The nature of the "Korea discount" and its real, empirical meaning and value deserve much more attention in era of information age politics.
Perhaps some of you who occasionally read this blog can shed more light on the topic. Comments are welcome.

North Korea's Software Industry

Although the digital divide between North and South Korea may be the largest in the world by many measures.  However, as with most generalizations, there are exceptions to the rule.  In the case of North Korea, one of these may be found, somewhat surprisingly, in the are of software and programming.  Bloomberg reports that programmers for North Korea's General Federation of Science and Technology developed a 2007 mobile phone bowling game based on the 1998 film "The Big Lebowski," starring Jeff Bridges, as well as "Men in Black: Alien Assault."

North Korea's growing software industry is championed by Kim Jong Il and contracting with North Korean companies is legal under United Nations sanctions unless they are linked to the arms trade.  Volker Eloesser, a founder of Pyongyang-based Nosotek, notes that the technological education of graduates from North Korean universities has become significantly better.  North Korea’s information technology push began in the 1980s as the government sought to bolster the faltering economy.

Today Nosotek advertises itself as "the first western IT venture in DPRK (North Korea).  Its web site expands upon this as follows:

• In DPRK, software engineers are selected from the mathematics elite and learn programming from the ground-up, such as assembler to C#, but also Linux kernel and Visual Basic macros. 


• Among them, Nosotek has attracted the cream of local talent as the only company in Pyongyang offering western working conditions and Internet access. 


• In addition to the accessible skill level Nosotek was set-up in DPRK because IP secrecy and minimum employee churn rate are structurally guaranteed.<
  Nosotek sells direct access to its 50+ programmers jointly managed by western and local managers. 


• Services can be invoiced through a Hong Kong or Chinese company. 


• Benefit from North Korea's opening, outsource to Nosotek.

From the government's point of view, the activities of such companies as Nosotek is no doubt appreciated since they generate foreign exchange.  However, as noted by Andrei Lankov, a North Korean expert based in Seoul, "These activities help to fund the regime, but at the same time they bring knowledge of the outside world to people who could affect change."  The dilemma facing North Korea, a subject of earlier posts (and also this one), seems to be growing and not diminishing.

North Korea using Twitter and YouTube

The New York Times carried an interesting article today on how North Korea is using Twitter and YouTube to bolster its propaganda efforts.  During the last month, a series of video clips have been posted to YouTube, brimming with vitriol and satire against leaders in South Korea or in the U.S.  During the past week, North Korea also began operating a Twitter account under the name uriminzok or "our nation."

A spokesman for the National Unification Ministry in Seoul said “It is clear that these accounts carry the same propaganda as the North’s official news media, but we have not been able to find out who operates them."
The two Koreas agreed to stop their psychological war after their first summit meeting in 2000, but the situation has changed following the sinking of a South Korean warship in the West Sea earlier this year.