Google recently revealed a new project that
could pose a threat to the regime of Kim Jong Eun. “Project Loon” [http://www.google.com/loon/]
uses superpressured helium balloons to provide networked wireless Internet
services to inaccessible areas. Last summer Google tested the project in New
Zealand, but says that some of the primary beneficiaries could be citizens of
closed countries, a category that includes North Korea.
The balloons float 20km up in the
stratosphere, where they move with the wind to form a network transmitting a
signal that people on the surface can pick up via a special antenna. The balloons
are self-contained: high enough not to be damaged by daily weather phenomena or
aviation, they run on solar power, and each can survive for 100+ days due to
their rugged construction.
If the project were to have a decisive
effect on the people of North Korea, Google would thus be remembered as one of the
leading protagonists in bringing and end to the Kim dynasty. Of course, there
is no evidence whatsoever that this is their intention. Rather, Google pursues
radical innovations for their own sake, and takes large, future-orientated gambles;
changing the world is a byproduct.
Ironically, one of many things that already make Kim Jong
Eun rather uncomfortable is the flying of leaflets into the North suspended
beneath far more primitive balloons. The far-reaching power of these
anti-regime leaflets should not be underplayed, and nor should their
cost:effect ratio. As such, the North Korean regime reacts sensitively to the
launching of such leaflets, and cites them as one cause of worsening
North-South relations.
However, they are limited in the sense that
is hard for them to physically reach people in interior regions of the country,
including Pyongyang.
What if Project Loon were to transmit similar
content? This would resolve the distance issue at a stroke. The people of North Korea could
be receiving many, many leaflets, always unseen. And if the North were to shoot
down the balloons, would the problem disappear? The internet-beaming
solar-powered balloons are cheap to produce, whereas the cost of shooting them
down one by one would be huge. As a result, the regime would be rendered
helpless in the face of web-based leaflets raining down upon its head.
Google CEO Eric Schmidt visited North Korea
in January 2013, whereupon he criticized the restrictions placed on the
Internet in the country. The North Korean side appeared to ignore him. We know
not whether Google had North Korea in mind as it pushed forward with its balloon
project thereafter. Either way, the power elite in Pyongyang is evidently at
pains to disaffirm the value of innovation, and does not recognize the signs of
change coming right under their own noses.
* This Guest Column is an abridged version of one that appeared in Korean on January 23rd. Opinions expressed in Guest Columns are not necessarily those of Daily NK.
