hankyoreh

a North Korean government organization.

North Korea and South Korea are playing a fierce game of “hide and seek” on Twitter. The South Korean government blocked the Twitter site supposedly run by North Korea’s Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland.

North Korea has responded by using a variety of techniques to get around this.

The Korea Communications Standards Commission (KOCSC), in accordance with requests from relevant agencies, blocked access by local users to the site twitter.com/uriminzok on Thursday, applying the National Security Law.

Accordingly, the site has been officially blocked since Thursday evening. Users of Twitter applications such as Parangsae and Seesmic, could still read it even after the measure. Since 75 percent of Twitter users access Twitter through these programs, the KCSC measure is having little effect. In fact, even after the authorities officially blocked access to the site, the number of followers continued to increase. As of Friday afternoon, they were more than 9,200. Most were Koreans.

Particularly noteworthy is that North Korea’s methods are growing more sophisticated. In fact, the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland used the URLs from Uriminzokkiri just as they were when it first opened the Twitter account on Aug. 12, but from Aug. 18 it began using Twitter-use TinyURLs, and since the site was blocked, it has connected its posts to Facebook.

Its Facebook page has yet to be blocked. In particular, North Korea has been syndicating its Facebook content via RSS since Friday. It is also sharing videos via its Youtube account, which likewise has yet to be blocked.

The authorities are also showing more concern. The emergency blocking measure taken by the KCSC targets only the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (http). It does not close off new paths set up by North Korea. As it is possible for users to access the blocked Twitter site via HTTP Secure (https), the authorities have become even more agonized.

Meanwhile, in an article published by the Christian Science Monitor, Michael Breen, who has written a biography of Kim Jong-il, said, “It shows they do not trust their own people.” Breen also said, “Citizens should be allowed to make up their minds about dictatorship.”

Andrew Salmon, a Korea expert who has written a book on the British soldiers who fought during the Korean War, remarked that it was “ridiculous” that the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland’s Twitter site was blocked.

Please direct questions or comments to [englishhani@hani.co.kr]