Sunday, January 13, 2013

Google can help N. Korea through many other programs: experts


I am afraid that the kind of help the regime will want from Google will not be the kind we want it to receive.  It will want to develop and use software to monitor and surveil its own people as this could be a great addition to help them keep the Songbun system functioning.  It will want to use it to reverse engineer software and then find ways to hack it and use it for spyware at home and abroad) and malware globally.  I would be very wary of any deals between Google and the regime because things might not turn out in ways that Google might envision.  That said, such deals could also provide us with opportunities.  In the long run I would err on making a deal to gain more access and influence inside north Korea but I am afraid few have the stomach for developing and sustaining a long term influence operation against the regime and to influence the population to prepare for eventual regime collapse and unification.  Instead Google and other foreigner will be exploited in ways they cannot imagine (but should – as Richardson and Schmidt should have imagined they would be and were used).
V/R
Dave

2013/01/12 04:35 KST


Google can help N. Korea through many other programs: experts
By Lee Chi-dong
WASHINGTON, Jan. 11 (Yonhap) -- Although this week's trip to Pyongyang by Google czar Eric Schmidt remains controversial, the California-based firm may be able to search multiple ways to help North Korea, experts here said Friday.

   Schmidt made a four-day trip to North Korea earlier this week, along with former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, drawing keen international attention.

   Peter Hayes, director of the Nautilus Institute, said Richardson was the apparent driving force behind the trip, which was opposed by the U.S. government.

   "Eric Schmidt was likely the 'juicy bait' to seal the deal with the North Koreans (on the trip)," Hayes, a long-time Korea watcher, said in an article co-authored by Roger Cavazos, an associate at the think tank.

   After his visit to Pyongyang, Schmidt said he had urged the communist regime to start work to connect its people to the outside world through cyberspace.
(Continued at the link below)

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