Execution due to fraudulent discovery ... North Korea, huge budget for wiretapping mobile phones

One of the things that North Korea's chairman Kim Jong-un hates most is "information leaks and domestic inflows."

You want to control the flow of information at your convenience and keep your people "ignorant".

(Reference article: What is the path chosen by a North Korean female college student who could not withstand torture ...)

An example of this failure is the idolization of Kim Jong Un's mother, Taka Young Hee. This was because information that was really inconvenient for North Korea, such as "High Young-hee was born in Osaka," flowed into North Korea and spread from Japan.

(Reference article: A strange bloodline connecting Kim Jong Un and Osaka)

Recently, Kim Jong-un has been nervous about calling from a Chinese carrier's mobile phone in the China-North Korea border area. North Korean authorities are spending huge budgets on that control.

The Daily NK insider, who is familiar with the North Korean affairs, said that the Ministry of State Security (secret police) official said that the North Korean authorities purchased a mobile phone wiretapping device and a radio jammer from China in May this year. He reported that he spent 15 million yuan (about 254 million yen) on it.

The imported equipment will be installed in Ryanggang, Hyesan, and North Pyongan, Sinuiju, facing the border with China, and should be in operation by this time, sources said. Stated.

North Korean defectors who smuggle various goods from China, North Korean defectors who depart and contact families living in South Korea, and remittance brokers who help remittances are struggling to upgrade their equipment.

According to the Daily NK inside sources in Ryanggang, the new radio wiretapping device introduced locally is so high-performance that it can catch mobile calls of 4 km square. A trader was advised by an acquaintance's guard (secret police) that he should be quiet after being shown the contents of the eavesdropped call.

The conventional radio wave detector was a mechanism to locate the caller around the mobile phone base station in China. The new type of radio wiretapping device can grasp not only the position but also the contents of the call, which increases the risk for those who use mobile phones.

It's also a painful story for those involved in foreign currency earners who are using mobile phones of Chinese carriers with the permission of the authorities. Until now, I had a part of my profits and kickbacks in my pocket, but when I was tapped, I couldn't do it to my heart's content. On the other hand, some traders say that they just want to scare them, and that it doesn't matter if they are careful.

Some people use messenger apps with enhanced security, saying voice calls are dangerous. Sources did not mention the specific name, but it seems that they are using Signal and Telegram, which have a high reputation in terms of security, instead of LINE, which is major in Japan, and KakaoTalk, which is major in South Korea.

(Reference article: LINE and cacao become "loopholes" ... North Korea's information control is flawed)

"This year, unlike before, the number of contacts with foreign countries is increasing. The atmosphere of North-South relations is improving, and some residents are expecting the atmosphere to change further. What we do is crack down on information from the outside and strengthen the monitoring of residents who are treating "impure molecules". "(Source)

We also analyzed that there are the following backgrounds.

"There are a lot of crackdowns during the year-end and New Year holidays, so there are many crackdowns. The intention is to crack down on illegal activities and earn money for New Year's events."

On the other hand, there is also information that a Ministry of State Security official who was found to be fraudulent in connection with the introduction of these devices was executed. "Several people involved who were found to have bought a cheap machine and put on the difference were executed, and other personnel repurchased a high-performance machine," a source said.

He was blinded by the huge budget and took part in it, but due to the poor performance of the newly introduced equipment, censorship (inspector general) was entered at the top, leading to detection and execution.

Over-control can be an international issue.

In 2015, in Changbai Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province, China, the mobile phone could not be used due to the interference radio waves emitted by the North Korean authorities to the mobile phones, and the prefectural authorities protested the Ryanggang authorities and the interference radio waves. Has evolved into a situation that demands that it be interrupted.