More on North Korea's Digital Dilemma

The Economist has published an excellent piece on "succession in North Korea" that helps to underscore some of the points made in my earlier post.  It notes that there are now hundreds of thousands of mobile-phone users on the regime’s network, with international calls for some. Near the border with China, North Koreans can use Chinese mobile networks to call South Korea, either directly or by paying brokers to put them through. DVDs on sale on the black market show what life in the outside world, especially South Korea, is like.

The Economist notes that "Growing understanding of North Korea’s economic backwardness seems likely to breed hunger for change.
It is hard to see how the economy could be modernised without abruptly destroying the state’s paternalistic ruling mythology. Much of the dark interior of North Korea is bereft not only of consumer goods but also of trustworthy information, on anything from prices to politics. Although an increasing number of people, especially in the border areas, are aware of the vast disparity between capitalist South Korea and their own workers’ paradise, defectors say many still do not fully grasp how wide that chasm is. As one defector puts it, explaining why his relatives cling to their belief in the Kim family state when he sends them cash from South Korea: “There is a gap between what you know and what you believe.”

Continuing from the article, "Perhaps the most confounding aspect of North Korea is that, however much it has depended on Chinese investment and Western aid since the collapse of the Soviet Union, the outside world cannot do much to influence its internal dynamics. So deprived are its people of both external and internal sources of information that the regime has been able to assert control. So dependent are they on its favour that North Koreans have become accustomed to policing themselves.  Yet the country that Mr Kim inherits is not as unchanging as it appears. Mobile phones, cross-border profiteering, corruption and inequality have all flourished. The failed currency reforms led to unprecedented public anger."

Samsung Electronics Market Cap and North Korea's GDP

Today the Korea Joongang Daily and other media are reporting that Samsung Electronics has become the fifth most valuable firm among its market peers, according to market capitalization.The total market cap of the world’s second-largest mobile phone maker stood at $136.9 billion as of last Friday, only trailing Apple, Microsoft, IBM and Google, according to the data compiled by local financial sources.
Samsung’s market cap surpassed that of Oracle, the world’s No. 2 software firm, by $5.9 billion.


Today also happens to be the day on which North Korea is observing the funeral ceremony for its former leader, Kim Jong Il.  To put the size of Samsung Electronics in some perspective, it is interesting to note that the most recent estimates suggest that North Korea's gross domestic produce in 2010 was just over $26 billion.  In other words, Samsung Electronics has a value over five times that of the North Korean economy.

South Korea dropping real-name internet ID system

The Korea Times carried a report today about progress in overhauling the online ID system.  Until now, Korea has been one of the few countries in the world to require real-name identification in order to sign up for internet services.
The country’s top portals and game companies plan to stop requesting resident registration numbers to subscribe to their sites. They will also delete the registration number data of the users they have. The country took the first step toward this end in the wake of serious privacy infringements and phishing crimes here.
Nexon, the top online game company, announced Wednesday that it won’t store the users’ resident registration numbers. It follows the same decision by Naver and Daum, the country’s top portals. NCsoft, another giant online game company and Nate have already announced this course of action.
Unlike in other countries, large websites here have demanded people’s resident registration number to be able to sign up.
The request stemmed from the real name system on the Internet adopted by the government in July 2007. The easiest way for websites to confirm whether subscribers were using their real names was to request their resident number and see if it matched.