00:00Okay, so after watching this video on a North Korean smartphone, I got very curious.
00:05In fact, I started researching everything about this mysterious country.
00:08And as I was searching more, I came across this leaked version of a full-flesh North Korean operating system.
00:14It's called the Red Star OS and it's developed by North Korea's official government.
00:18And I have it installed on this laptop right here.
00:21Now, the moment I installed it, my first reaction was like, it's pretty much like an older version of Mac OS.
00:26But after using it extensively over the last few days, I must tell you that I'm completely shocked.
00:31It's nothing like a Mac or a Windows OS.
00:33It's a different species altogether.
00:35It's heavily restricted and full of surveillance.
00:37I'll come to that in a bit.
00:39But first, this is how it looks and feels.
00:41On first look, it obviously feels heavily inspired from a Mac.
00:44But it's actually a Linux distro, which is customized fully by the government.
00:47And oh, setting this up was not at all simple.
00:50Everything was in Korean.
00:51So we were basically using Google Lens translator after each step.
00:55And once it was all set, we changed it to the English language using a terminal command.
00:59On the home screen, you'll see a Mac OS-like menu bar at the top.
01:02But the Apple logo is replaced by a star icon.
01:04And there's also this red flag on the right, which by the way is not clickable.
01:07It's just there.
01:08You also get this dock at the bottom with all the system apps.
01:11And when you take your cursor on the dock, it magnifies the same way as it does on a Mac.
01:15And for the rest of the screen, there's absolutely nothing.
01:18Not even a single icon or a shortcut.
01:20It's just clean as stuff.
01:21The Finder app also looks the same as Mac, but it's renamed as K-Finder.
01:25And the same goes for Calendar and Photos app as well.
01:28And yeah, this OS is actually quite lightweight and the system requirements are also very minimal.
01:33Okay, so here comes the first and probably the most shocking thing about this OS.
01:38You see this icon?
01:39It's actually North Korea's own browser, the Naya Nira browser.
01:42Now, the beauty of this browser is that it doesn't let you connect to the internet.
01:46This browser that is meant for you to browse the internet doesn't even let you do that.
01:50Now, you must be wondering if that's the case, why does it even exist?
01:54Well, there is a reason.
01:55See, the North Korean government want to keep their people isolated from the rest of the world.
01:59And to do that, they have blocked the internet completely for everyone in the country.
02:04And as an alternative, they have brought their own private internet called Quangmayong.
02:08And in Quangmayong, people can only access the content that is approved by the government.
02:12There are these government-approved news articles, there's basic email, messaging, educational libraries, and their local movies and shows.
02:18And that's about it.
02:20There's nothing beyond that.
02:21And they not only control the stuff that you watch, they also lock your entire traffic history from the browser,
02:26the keywords that are being typed on your laptop, and they even have access-level controls with the government.
02:30And if you're wondering about the incognito mode, well, it doesn't exist.
02:34So, because of this highly controlled and restricted internet, North Korean people still does not have any social media app.
02:40And a lot of usual things like online payments, e-commerce, only started happening very recently.
02:45So, that's the thing about internet, I mean, internet.
02:47But if you think that you can just turn off the Wi-Fi and do whatever you want and the government won't know,
02:52the marshal is still watching you, let me show you how.
02:54This right here is the Sogwang Office app.
02:56It's basically pre-branded open office where you can run Excel, Word, or PowerPoint.
03:00But the shocking thing here is that every document that you save has a watermarking
03:04that registers your computer's unique ID, the OS serial number, the timestamp, the hardware info, and also the complete user account details.
03:11And if you think that you can just remove the watermark, well, you can't because this is hidden deep inside the file structure.
03:18It's not visible in the document.
03:19So, basically, you cannot do anything about it.
03:22Also, let's say I send a document to someone.
03:25He opens the document and then send it to someone else.
03:27The next person also opens it on his laptop and send it to someone else.
03:31And it keeps on going like this to hundreds of people.
03:33Now, every time the file is opened in any laptop, it'll store all the information of that laptop in a hidden watermark.
03:40And it will be done every single time.
03:42So, no matter how far the document has traveled, their government officials will always know.
03:46And the entire watermarking is done in such a way that they can easily track back to the source of the doc.
03:51By the way, it's not just with docs.
03:53There's always some tracking ID attached to any forms of media, be it photos, videos, basically any file.
03:59For documents, it's a hidden watermark, aka tracking ID.
04:02And for images, it inserts a custom exif block.
04:04So, yeah, their government is always watching.
04:07I'm sure you must be thinking about disabling this tracking ID, right?
04:10Actually, two German scientists also thought the same and they even tried removing this tracking.
04:14But whenever they did it, the OS simply crashed or did not boot at all.
04:18So, there's absolutely no way to bypass this.
04:20See, out of all the things that I used on this OS, there's only one place where I found some sort of freedom.
04:26And that is...
04:27Choosing Wallpapers.
04:29Yep, there's a decent choice of wallpapers here.
04:31And you can finally feel free to apply the one that you actually like.
04:35While I was working on this video, I also came to know about the smartphone experience in North Korea.
04:40And honestly, it's as bad as this OS.
04:42Just like their laptop, the phones can't also connect to the global internet.
04:46And you don't have any app stores as well.
04:48And all the apps that you have are all monitored by the government, even the camera app.
04:52In fact, for you to install any app on their phone, you have to visit a government-approved store.
04:57Yes, it's that bad.
04:58So, yeah, after using Red Star OS for days, one thing is very clear.
05:02This is not an operating system.
05:05It's actually a surveillance machine.
05:07Everything you do is being tracked, controlled, monitored, and locked.
05:10And the craziest part is that for millions of people living in North Korea, this is not just a tech experiment.
05:16This is their everyday life.
05:18And yeah, if you don't play by their rules, try to bypass them, or even make slightest of mistake, then you can get into some big, big trouble.
05:26Just to give you an example, you can land in jail if you are caught watching a banned foreign movie.
05:30And if that movie is from South Korea, it can be as severe as death penalty.
05:36Yep, it's that extreme.
05:37Now, I'd like to end this video with just one question.
05:40But if all the countries start behaving like North Korea, think about it.
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