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Google recently revealed a new project that The balloons float 20km up in the If the project were to have a decisive Ironically, one of many things that already make Kim Jong However, they are limited in the sense that What if Project Loon were to transmit similar Google CEO Eric Schmidt visited North Korea * 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.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Google recently revealed a new project that could pose a threat to the regime of Kim Jong Eun. \u201cProject Loon\u201d [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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":25867,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wikipediapreview_detectlinks":true,"footnotes":""},"categories":[644],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25865","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-analysis-and-opinion"],"yoast_head":"\n
\ncould pose a threat to the regime of Kim Jong Eun. \u201cProject Loon\u201d [http:\/\/www.google.com\/loon\/]
\nuses superpressured helium balloons to provide networked wireless Internet
\nservices to inaccessible areas. Last summer Google tested the project in New
\nZealand, but says that some of the primary beneficiaries could be citizens of
\nclosed countries, a category that includes North Korea.
\nstratosphere, where they move with the wind to form a network transmitting a
\nsignal that people on the surface can pick up via a special antenna. The balloons
\nare self-contained: high enough not to be damaged by daily weather phenomena or
\naviation, they run on solar power, and each can survive for 100+ days due to
\ntheir rugged construction.
\neffect on the people of North Korea, Google would thus be remembered as one of the
\nleading protagonists in bringing and end to the Kim dynasty. Of course, there
\nis no evidence whatsoever that this is their intention. Rather, Google pursues
\nradical innovations for their own sake, and takes large, future-orientated gambles;
\nchanging the world is a byproduct.
\nEun rather uncomfortable is the flying of leaflets into the North suspended
\nbeneath far more primitive balloons. The far-reaching power of these
\nanti-regime leaflets should not be underplayed, and nor should their
\ncost:effect ratio. As such, the North Korean regime reacts sensitively to the
\nlaunching of such leaflets, and cites them as one cause of worsening
\nNorth-South relations.
\nis hard for them to physically reach people in interior regions of the country,
\nincluding Pyongyang.
\ncontent? This would resolve the distance issue at a stroke. The people of North Korea could
\nbe receiving many, many leaflets, always unseen. And if the North were to shoot
\ndown the balloons, would the problem disappear? The internet-beaming
\nsolar-powered balloons are cheap to produce, whereas the cost of shooting them
\ndown one by one would be huge. As a result, the regime would be rendered
\nhelpless in the face of web-based leaflets raining down upon its head.
\nin January 2013, whereupon he criticized the restrictions placed on the
\nInternet in the country. The North Korean side appeared to ignore him. We know
\nnot whether Google had North Korea in mind as it pushed forward with its balloon
\nproject thereafter. Either way, the power elite in Pyongyang is evidently at
\npains to disaffirm the value of innovation, and does not recognize the signs of
\nchange coming right under their own noses.