Kim Bowled for Murdoch's Dollars With Korean Games
source: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-06/kim-jong-il-bowls-for-murdoch-dollars-with-video-ga...
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"North Korean leader Kim Jong Il has found an unlikely ally to help raise cash for his impoverished regime: The Dude, the pot-smoking underachiever played by Jeff Bridges in the movie “The Big Lebowski.”
Programmers from North Korea’s General Federation of Science and Technology developed a 2007 mobile-phone bowling game based on the 1998 film, as well as “Men in Black: Alien Assault,” according to two executives at Nosotek Joint Venture Company, which markets software from North Korea for foreign clients. Both games were published by a unit of News Corp., the New York-based media company, a spokeswoman for the unit said.
They represent a growing software industry championed by Kim that is boosting the economy of one of the poorest countries in the world and raising the technological skills of workers. Contracting with North Korean companies is legal under United Nations sanctions unless they are linked to the arms trade.
“From the government’s point of view, foreign currency is the main reason to nurture and support these activities,” said Andrei Lankov, an academic specializing in North Korea at Seoul- based Kookmin University. “These activities help to fund the regime, but at the same time they bring knowledge of the outside world to people who could effect change.”
The technological education of graduates from North Korean universities has “become significantly better,” Volker Eloesser, a founder of Pyongyang-based Nosotek, said in an e- mail. Companies with “hundreds or even thousands of staff each” operate in North Korea, he said.
Double-Edged Sword
Better trained programmers may also bolster the regime’s cyberwarfare capabilities, said Kim Heung Kwang, who taught computer science at universities in the north for 19 years before defecting to South Korea in 2004. South Korea’s presidential office said July 28 the nation had received intelligence that North Korea may plan an Internet-based attack.
Won Sei Hoon, director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, told lawmakers last October that North Korea’s postal ministry was responsible for cyber attacks in July 2009 on dozens of websites in South Korea and the U.S.
President Barack Obama widened U.S. financial sanctions on North Korea on Aug. 30, freezing assets of North Korean officials, companies and government agencies suspected of “illicit and deceptive activities” that support the regime’s weapons industry."
Read the full article linked below:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-06/kim-jong-il-bowls-for-murdoch-dollars-w...
Picture Link:
http://kotaku.com/5631690/cyberwarfare-north-korea-rupert-murdoch-and-the-big-le...
Programmers from North Korea’s General Federation of Science and Technology developed a 2007 mobile-phone bowling game based on the 1998 film, as well as “Men in Black: Alien Assault,” according to two executives at Nosotek Joint Venture Company, which markets software from North Korea for foreign clients. Both games were published by a unit of News Corp., the New York-based media company, a spokeswoman for the unit said.
They represent a growing software industry championed by Kim that is boosting the economy of one of the poorest countries in the world and raising the technological skills of workers. Contracting with North Korean companies is legal under United Nations sanctions unless they are linked to the arms trade.
“From the government’s point of view, foreign currency is the main reason to nurture and support these activities,” said Andrei Lankov, an academic specializing in North Korea at Seoul- based Kookmin University. “These activities help to fund the regime, but at the same time they bring knowledge of the outside world to people who could effect change.”
The technological education of graduates from North Korean universities has “become significantly better,” Volker Eloesser, a founder of Pyongyang-based Nosotek, said in an e- mail. Companies with “hundreds or even thousands of staff each” operate in North Korea, he said.
Double-Edged Sword
Better trained programmers may also bolster the regime’s cyberwarfare capabilities, said Kim Heung Kwang, who taught computer science at universities in the north for 19 years before defecting to South Korea in 2004. South Korea’s presidential office said July 28 the nation had received intelligence that North Korea may plan an Internet-based attack.
Won Sei Hoon, director of South Korea’s National Intelligence Service, told lawmakers last October that North Korea’s postal ministry was responsible for cyber attacks in July 2009 on dozens of websites in South Korea and the U.S.
President Barack Obama widened U.S. financial sanctions on North Korea on Aug. 30, freezing assets of North Korean officials, companies and government agencies suspected of “illicit and deceptive activities” that support the regime’s weapons industry."
Read the full article linked below:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-06/kim-jong-il-bowls-for-murdoch-dollars-w...
Picture Link:
http://kotaku.com/5631690/cyberwarfare-north-korea-rupert-murdoch-and-the-big-le...
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- tags:
- Video Games, North Korea, Cell Phones, Mobile Phones, 6 more
