Sam - September 26, 2016
Website leak crashes all of North Korea’s websites
A recent leak of North Korea’s websites has caused all 28 of the secretive state’s government run websites to stop functioning.
The websites, each of which ends in the countries .kp address, cover a range of topics from recipes and North Korean film to social networks.
The websites crash has been caused after a GitHub website user uploaded the address of each of the countries websites.
The network seemed to struggle with the unexpectedly high amount of traffic after the leak, which has caused the sites to be down ever since.
While most of the websites were known before the leak, the GitHub user was able to take advantage of a mistake that allowed curious users to find all websites that use the .kp ending and as such, all of North Korea’s websites.
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To put this into context Germany has sixteen million websites that end in .de while even the computer game Grand Theft Auto Five outdoes North Korea with a total of 83 websites available to view on the game’s internet.
Of course, due to the secretive nature of the communist state, use of the real internet in North Korea is incredibly rare.
Most people in the country with internet access can only use sites on the Kwangmyong intranet. This is a closed off intranet that allows access to government approved sites that likely numbers in the thousands.
The sites that were leaked by the GitHub user are therefore most likely to be a type of propaganda for the North Korean government.
If the sites ever get back online, here a few of the highlights:
http://cooks.org.kp : Ever wanted to find out what North Korean cuisine is like? This website has a range of recipes that will allow you to try your hand at North Korean food in your own home.
http://korfilm.com.kp: Find out what is hot in the world of film! This is the website for North Korean films and the Pyeongyang International film festival.
http://naenara.com.jp : This is the official government website. Check it out for the latest news and tourism details.
http://sdprk.org.kr : A website dedicated to North Korean sport. The country has a surprising number of good athletes so this could be worth a look.
