When the world was given a glimpse of the previously unseen North Korean "internet" we didn't know what to expect, and some still don't understand what the hell they were looking at.
It was easy enough to tell the Air Koryo site is meant for travel and another site featured pics of food, but beyond that the screenshots people shared didn't really tell us much about these sites.
WhoIsHostingThis? put together a fairly exhaustive guide to Kim-Jung Un's private section of cyberspace for those who are interested, revealing the facts and figures behind the North Korean internet.
According to their research there are only 1,024 IP addresses (Los Angeles has approximately 15,000 IP addresses) and only about 18 different websites appear to be active, including:
- Korean Central News Agency: this was the first website to launch in North Korea. It came online using a Korean server in October 2010, and uses Star Joint Venture’s IP block. It was previously served from a Japanese datacenter.
- Air Koryo: the North Korean state airline. The country is thought to have a handful of commercial airports, with the primary one being Pyongyang Sunan International.
- Korean Cookery Website: a site full of Korean recipes, aimed at housewives.
- Friend: a network for North Korean citizens to swap ebooks and make connections. This website shares a server with the official government site.
- National Unity: a Korean language website, aimed at citizens of surrounding countries (including South Korea).
Maybe if we all send Outstanding Leader Kim-Jong Un a friend request on Friend we can end the global madness, I bet he shares lots of kitty videos!
Read Everything We Know About North Korea's Bizarre Internet here