North Korea plans to carry out a nationwide update of its mobile phone operating system at the end of the year, Daily NK has learned.
North Korea is promoting the update by claiming it will improve mobile phone performance, but a source in the country told Daily NK that the real goal is to prevent the spread of “anti-socialist and non-socialist phenomena.”
A Daily NK source in North Korea said Wednesday that the authorities plan to carry out the operating system update in December.
“This is to achieve the direction of this year’s general plan for security-related activities and decisions from February’s review of activities aimed at countering anti-socialist and non-socialist phenomena,” he said.
Based on his account, the authorities claim that if people update their phones to the new state-developed operating system, their phones will experience improved speed and performance.
“However, the authorities have not explained exactly how this will happen,” he added.
Basically, the authorities are encouraging people to actively take part in the nationwide update, pointing to how updating their phone’s operating system will boost performance.
North Korea is particularly concerned about getting users of older phone models to update their systems.
“Phones that came out three to five years ago must upgrade to the new operating system or have their apps inspected,” said the source.
The latest phone models have already fixed the vulnerabilities of the existing operating system or apply more stringent security policies.
Accordingly, many North Koreans using older phones avoid updating them, even utilizing circumvention programs to enjoy content from the outside world deemed illegal by the authorities.
This is why many North Koreans are not especially pleased about the update order.
“People can’t put down their mobile phones because life is too inconvenient without them,” said the source. “People find it annoying and frustrating to have the state scrutinize their phones so closely.
“Some people even say that if this is socialism, it would be better to go back to feudalism,” he continued, adding, “Most people, however, are in a darned-if-you-do, darned-if-you-don’t situation.”
Many North Koreans are also unhappy that they must pay to update their phone’s operating system, although the authorities have yet to decide on a price for December’s update.
The source said since the update has yet to begin, the authorities have yet to issue instructions regarding the price.
The source also reported that North Korea is crafting plans to deploy enforcement and security personnel to busy streets in front of train stations and other similar areas to conduct random inspections of people’s mobile phones.
The authorities plan to confiscate phones that have not been updated to the latest operating system with grace period whatsoever.
Daily NK reported in July that North Korea ordered all mobile phone users and registered computer owners to update certain programs by the end of August. North Korean authorities plan to use the update to inspect whether users have installed illegally developed and distributed security circumvention programs on their phones.
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