Quoted By:
Info-laden balloons released into North Korea
Former North Korean defectors and US human rights activists releasing the balloons in the border town of Paju yesterday.
PAJU (South Korea) - South Korean activists launched thousands of anti-Pyongyang leaflets and Wikipedia-loaded USB keys across the border yesterday, despite past North Korean threats to shell the "human scum" involved.
Packages floated over the heavily militarised border by balloon also contained 1,000 US one-dollar bills and DVDs detailing human rights abuses in the North.
"There is clearly enormous hunger for outside information in North Korea," said Mr Thor Halvorssen, president of the US-based Human Rights Foundation, which supported the event.
"USB keys are one of the most powerful tools because they're small, can be hidden and shared easily, and carry massive amounts of data," he added.
Each of the 1,500 USB flash drives had been loaded with the Korean-language version of the online encyclopaedia Wikipedia.
The 500,000 anti-North leaflets were also accompanied by around 50 tiny transistor radios.
While North Koreans live in what is probably the most isolated and censored society on the planet, the country is not a complete IT desert.
Cellphones were introduced through a joint venture with Egyptian telecom firm Orascom in 2008, the same year the state launched a domestic intranet, and some government bodies have websites.
Yesterday's event was organised by a North Korean defector group that is particularly vocal in its criticisms of Pyongyang.
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE