North Korea is back on the internet after an extended outage which happened after a cyber-security beef with the United States. At of this writing, there were no comments from officials in Pyongyang.
Experts in the United States and South Korea confirmed the internet restoration. There were a few analysts who reported that the nation’s entire internet access was completely cut off for a time. China denies any involvement with the internet shutdown. Hua Chunying, a representative of China’s Foreign Ministry, added, “These reports themselves are extremely irresponsible, unprofessional and misleading.”
North Korea’s limits on the internet
China’s permanent spokesperson within the United Nations called for all sides to stop to avoid escalating tension with North Korea after the Security council decided to prioritize the North’s human rights. In a strange paradox, North Korean officials prevent their nation’s citizens from accessing the internet, although it is one of the most tech-friendly countries. Officials recently told embassies in Pyongyang they could not access Wi-Fi networks inside the building.
North Korea does offer a limited intranet offering access to state-controlled news websites. Although many of the nation’s citizens were not likely to even notice the outage, the few who check daily news sources likely noticed the outage.
Outage remains a mystery
According to South Korean officials, the two main news sources, Rodong Sinmun and North Korea Central News Agency, were back up by Tuesday. Story highlights from the websites include the glorification of the Kim family. Earlier the United States claimed it would launch a response to the Sony Pictures hack. Officials have yet to respond on whether or the U.S. was involved in North Korea’s internet outage.
Most of the mainstream websites are back on the internet but still appear to be a little unstable. This has prompted analysts to suggest a cyber-attack or tech issues could be part of the problem.
