About 10% of university students in Pyongyang use the circumvention program “Garakji” to get around the security systems North Korean authorities install on smartphones, Daily NK has learned.
A source in Pyongyang told Daily NK on Friday that about 10 out of 100 university students in the capital use Garakji.
In the case of Wonsan, Gangwon Province, about 15 out of 100 members of the Socialist Patriotic Youth League use it.
Garakji lets smartphone users open content from the outside world deemed illegal by the North Korean authorities, but without leaving a record.
North Koreans sell or lend the program only to people they know, refusing to deal it to strangers. They appear to be sharing it on the sly only with “people they know” to avoid tipping off the authorities that they are dealing and distributing illegal software, the source said.
“Because Garakji is shared and distributed entirely through personal networks and acquaintances, there’s no separate user’s manual,” he explained, adding, “The directions are conveyed entirely through word of mouth.”
“Bidulgi,” another circumvention program currently in circulation in North Korea, reportedly has a separate instruction manual.
Daily NK’s source said that Pyongyang is the “distribution source and supply base” of the Garakji program.
This is to say, Pyongyang was where the program first began circulating. Based on the source’s account, it appears university students studying or living in Pyongyang are giving the program to their relatives or acquaintances in areas outside the capital city.
It is also possible that the program was developed at a research lab in Pyongyang and secretly spread to the provinces by the very people involved in its creation.
The source claimed that the “Red Star Research Institute” first developed Garakji in July of last year, with research labs at Kim Il Sung University and Kim Chaek University of Technology adding later improvements.
The Red Star Research Institute is affiliated to the Korea Computer Center, North Korea’s top software development body. Leading universities such as Kim Il Sung University and Kim Chaek University of Technology also have Red Star Research Institutes of their own, which appear related to the one affiliated with the Korea Computer Center.
In short, the Red Star Research Institute of the Korea Computer Center may have created Garakji and distributed it to related institutions. In the process, the program came to be improved, sold and distributed.
Meanwhile, another circumvention program — this one called “Nalgae” — is circulating in North Korea as well. The source said the program has been spreading since early May.
“They say it works better and faster than Garakji, and it’s simpler, too, though I’ve never used it,” he said.
North Korean authorities are constantly trying to track and eliminate circumvention programs, yet new programs continue to appear. This situation suggests that North Koreans are continuing to consume content from the outside world away from the prying eyes of the authorities.
