DPRK Red Star... Taking the "Open" out of Open Source

Tom DWC

Tom DWC

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After reading this article this morning I decided to try and find a copy of DPRK Red Star, the state issued OS used in North Korea. (It's amazing what distractions I'll come up with when procrastinating!)

Anyway I managed to download a fairly recent version and I thought I'd share it, because it's quite interesting and slightly hilarious.

It's basically a highly modified version of Linux.

The Install Screen... this took quite a bit of random clicking to get past...

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Notice the 101 next to the system date and time... as explained in the article this is "the number of years since the birth of Kim Il-sung, the country's former leader whose political theories define policy decisions." Only in North Korea! :D

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Overall it's pretty basic but standard and surprisingly usable. Though some of the icons seem to be "borrowed" from XP or Vista respectively. Not to mention the re-branding and blatant ripoffs of other software.

When I opened the web browser it appeared to be a list of offline links to what I can only assume was state controlled propaganda. Much more like a local intranet than the internet we know. But unlike in North Korea, once past the homepage the net was actually accessible.

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All in all I thought it was worth a look? :)
 
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W

Wozza63

Biblical Poster
Was trying to use google translate image recognition to translate it, didnt work very well :/

Wanna post some pics of the browser and other programs?

This is quite amusing though
 
mishra

mishra

Rising Star
Don't wanna say anything. I wouldn't be surprised if it comes with some sort of monitoring software build-in. So that in the background it's sending everything you do back to Workers Party of Korea. I wouldn't trust anything that has been issued by NK government tbh...
 
steaky360

steaky360

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Moderator
mishra said:
Don't wanna say anything. I wouldn't be surprised if it comes with some sort of monitoring software build-in. So that in the background it's sending everything you do back to Workers Party of Korea. I wouldn't trust anything that has been issued by NK government tbh...
Click to expand...

I think we'll be ok though. It's unlikely they'd send a search party out to the UK haha!
 
Tom DWC

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
Aha don't worry, without their ISP to enforce the protocols etc. it's basically just an outdated, not really all that good Linux Distro. And when you're running something inside a virtual machine it's isolated from your main system so it can't cause any damage even if there was a keylogger or a virus.

But yeah even if they did know someone in the UK was running it I don't think there would be much they could do about it!
 
mishra

mishra

Rising Star
Tom DWC said:
And when you're running something inside a virtual machine it's isolated from your main system so it can't cause any damage even if there was a keylogger or a virus.
Click to expand...

It could if you logged in to gmail, facebook , etc...and they would instantly gained your login details. Tbh I doubt very much there is any keylogger or any other software that runs in the background, but hey ho you never know
 
Tom DWC

Tom DWC

Moderator
Moderator
mishra said:
It could if you logged in to gmail, facebook , etc...and they would instantly gained your login details. Tbh I doubt very much there is any keylogger or any other software that runs in the background, but hey ho you never know
Click to expand...

Theoretically, but I can't see why they'd ever have such systems given that the people of N. Korea basically aren't allowed any real net access. They probably will in future though, because I'm sure they will at some point or another!

But I take your point. :)
 
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