North Koreans Are Jailbreaking Phones To Access Forbidden Media (wired.com) 23
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Wired: For most of the world, the common practice of "rooting" or "jailbreaking" a phone allows the device's owner to install apps and software tweaks that break the restrictions of Apple's or Google's operating systems. For a growing number of North Koreans, on the other hand, the same form of hacking allows them to break out of a far more expansive system of control -- one that seeks to extend to every aspect of their lives and minds. On Wednesday, the North Korea-focused human rights organization Lumen and Martyn Williams, a researcher at the Stimson Center think tank's North Korea -- focused 38 North project, together released a report on the state of smartphones and telecommunications in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, a country that restricts its citizens' access to information and the internet more tightly than any other in the world. The report details how millions of government-approved, Android-based smartphones now permeate North Korean society, though with digital restrictions that prevent their users from downloading any app or even any file not officially sanctioned by the state. But within that regime of digital repression, the report also offers a glimpse of an unlikely new group: North Korean jailbreakers capable of hacking those smartphones to secretly regain control of them and unlock a world of forbidden foreign content.
Learning anything about the details of subversive activity in North Korea -- digital or otherwise -- is notoriously difficult, given the Hermit Kingdom's nearly airtight information controls. Lumen's findings on North Korean jailbreaking are based on interviews with just two defectors from the country. But Williams says the two escapees both independently described hacking their phones and those of other North Koreans, roughly corroborating each others' telling. Other North Korea -- focused researchers who have interviewed defectors say they've heard similar stories. Both jailbreakers interviewed by Lumen and Williams said they hacked their phones -- government-approved, Chinese-made, midrange Android phones known as the Pyongyang 2423 and 2413 -- primarily so that they could use the devices to watch foreign media and install apps that weren't approved by the government. Their hacking was designed to circumvent a government-created version of Android on those phones, which has for years included a certificate system that requires any file downloaded to the device to be "signed" with a cryptographic signature from government authorities, or else it's immediately and automatically deleted. Both jailbreakers say they were able to remove that certificate authentication scheme from phones, allowing them to install forbidden apps, such as games, as well as foreign media like South Korean films, TV shows, and ebooks that North Koreans have sought to access for decades despite draconian government bans.
In another Orwellian measure, Pyongyang phones' government-created operating system takes screenshots of the device at random intervals, the two defectors say -- a surveillance feature designed to instill a sense that the user is always being monitored. The images from those screenshots are then kept in an inaccessible portion of the phone's storage, where they can't be viewed or deleted. Jailbreaking the phones also allowed the two defectors to access and wipe those surveillance screenshots, they say. The two hackers told Lumen they used their jailbreaking skills to remove restrictions from friends' phones, as well. They said they also knew of people who would jailbreak phones as a commercial service, though often for purposes that had less to do with information freedom than more mundane motives. Some users wanted to install a certain screensaver on their phone, for instance, or wipe the phone's surveillance screenshots merely to free up storage before selling the phone secondhand. As for how the jailbreaking was done, the report says both jailbreakers "described attaching phones to a Windows PC via a USB cable to install a jailbreaking tool."
"One mentioned that the Pyongyang 2423's software included a vulnerability that allowed programs to be installed in a hidden directory. The hacker says they exploited that quirk to install a jailbreaking program they'd downloaded while working abroad in China and then smuggled back into North Korea." The other hacker might've obtained his jailbreaking tool in a computer science group at Pyongyang's elite Kim Il Sung University where he attended.
Learning anything about the details of subversive activity in North Korea -- digital or otherwise -- is notoriously difficult, given the Hermit Kingdom's nearly airtight information controls. Lumen's findings on North Korean jailbreaking are based on interviews with just two defectors from the country. But Williams says the two escapees both independently described hacking their phones and those of other North Koreans, roughly corroborating each others' telling. Other North Korea -- focused researchers who have interviewed defectors say they've heard similar stories. Both jailbreakers interviewed by Lumen and Williams said they hacked their phones -- government-approved, Chinese-made, midrange Android phones known as the Pyongyang 2423 and 2413 -- primarily so that they could use the devices to watch foreign media and install apps that weren't approved by the government. Their hacking was designed to circumvent a government-created version of Android on those phones, which has for years included a certificate system that requires any file downloaded to the device to be "signed" with a cryptographic signature from government authorities, or else it's immediately and automatically deleted. Both jailbreakers say they were able to remove that certificate authentication scheme from phones, allowing them to install forbidden apps, such as games, as well as foreign media like South Korean films, TV shows, and ebooks that North Koreans have sought to access for decades despite draconian government bans.
In another Orwellian measure, Pyongyang phones' government-created operating system takes screenshots of the device at random intervals, the two defectors say -- a surveillance feature designed to instill a sense that the user is always being monitored. The images from those screenshots are then kept in an inaccessible portion of the phone's storage, where they can't be viewed or deleted. Jailbreaking the phones also allowed the two defectors to access and wipe those surveillance screenshots, they say. The two hackers told Lumen they used their jailbreaking skills to remove restrictions from friends' phones, as well. They said they also knew of people who would jailbreak phones as a commercial service, though often for purposes that had less to do with information freedom than more mundane motives. Some users wanted to install a certain screensaver on their phone, for instance, or wipe the phone's surveillance screenshots merely to free up storage before selling the phone secondhand. As for how the jailbreaking was done, the report says both jailbreakers "described attaching phones to a Windows PC via a USB cable to install a jailbreaking tool."
"One mentioned that the Pyongyang 2423's software included a vulnerability that allowed programs to be installed in a hidden directory. The hacker says they exploited that quirk to install a jailbreaking program they'd downloaded while working abroad in China and then smuggled back into North Korea." The other hacker might've obtained his jailbreaking tool in a computer science group at Pyongyang's elite Kim Il Sung University where he attended.
Jailbreak twice (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Dead people don't need or get to jailbreak.
Re:Jailbreak twice (Score:4, Informative)
North Korea averages fewer executions per year than the USA. It's slave labor camps you have to worry about (granted that's also true in the southern states of the USA). And three generations of your family joining you.
Re: (Score:2)
I never mentioned executions.
From tragic accidents via natural causes to died in his sleep in a labor camp there's many ways to die in NK.
Re: (Score:2)
Rooting (Score:2)
Nobody calls rooting an android 'jailbreaking'. That'ss Apple.
But it's not clear from the article that they even got root - it sounds like they removed software via an exploit.
They just want to follow Elum on Twitter (Score:2)
Re:They just want to follow Elum on Twitter (Score:4, Funny)
I guess the North Koreans have a leg up on most Americans. They actually know their media is being highly censored and controlled and filled with propaganda. While in the US, we think we found our source of truthful information, while it is highly censored and controlled and filled with propaganda.
The only difference is one is government controlled, while the other is controlled by advisors and large companies.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
The only difference is one is government controlled, while the other is controlled by advisors and large companies.
That's an important distinction, though. In a free country, getting your news from sources outside of the mainstream media doesn't make you a dissident.
Re: (Score:2)
But what are the motivations behind non-mainstream media as well?
Even if it isn't money, or threat of government interaction. It might just be the person trying to get noticed in the world, so they will exaggerate to get the attention.
Good news is Dull news. Dull news doesn't get the views, so it isn't shown.
Bigger issue (Score:2)
Why do they need jailbreak? (Score:1)
The limit is built into the OS, not the ISP (Score:2)
A VPN can be used to get past poorly-implemented blocking by an ISP.
It doesn't do anything about restrictions that are built into the OS and browser.
They're just pissed (Score:2)
The DPRK is just pissed off that the Israelis can own your phone and data with an unsolicited image. [wired.com]
Future of computing right here... (Score:3)
With the war on general purpose computing, I see this as literally the future of all countries, not just some 3rd world hole.
I wish more people studied this and realized what is coming. We need these capabilities expanded before it's too late like it was for them. So late that this "hacking" required getting the program off another *shore* otherwise they weren't making progress.
Re: (Score:2)
So late that this "hacking" required getting the program off another *shore* otherwise they weren't making progress.
North Korea's problem is political in nature. In freer countries, you can buy mobile devices that aren't locked down. Just because they're not being sold at your local Walmart doesn't mean they don't exist.
Re: (Score:1)
For many people who don't know to search for them in the first place, they may as well not exist.
That's the real issue, Ease of Access is just as important as Exists, but Ease of Access tends to be harder to come by. If most things sold are missing a given feature, then the feature may exist, but it's unavailable to the majority of people who bought said things. Cost doesn't factor into it. Retailer / Source of the product or service doesn't factor into it.
To put it another way, the cure for cancer may exis