Kwangmyong (intranet)
Encyclopedia
Kwangmyong is a North Korea
n nationwide computer network
opened in 2000. It may be accessed by web browser
s, incorporates email
services, news groups, and a web search engine
.
In North Korea, only a small number of government-authorized persons are allowed to use the Internet
, so Kwangmyong is the only computer network available to other people. This is a free service for public use.
, preventing undesirable information from being accessed. Thus, sensitive topics and information are unlikely to surface on Kwangmyong due to the absence of a link to the outside world. Kwangmyong is maintained by government-related entities. However, large amounts of material from the Internet
end up on Kwangmyong, following processing.
as the main interface language, and is maintained by more than 2,000 language experts, according to official information, in expanding services in Russian
, Chinese
, English
, French
, German
and Japanese
, in which there is a real-time, online translation service for the seven languages, with a database containing over 2,000,000 words, to assist users who may not be familiar with foreign languages.
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
n nationwide computer network
Computer network
A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....
opened in 2000. It may be accessed by web browser
Web browser
A web browser is a software application for retrieving, presenting, and traversing information resources on the World Wide Web. An information resource is identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier and may be a web page, image, video, or other piece of content...
s, incorporates email
Email
Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...
services, news groups, and a web search engine
Web search engine
A web search engine is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web and FTP servers. The search results are generally presented in a list of results often referred to as SERPS, or "search engine results pages". The information may consist of web pages, images, information and other...
.
In North Korea, only a small number of government-authorized persons are allowed to use the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
, so Kwangmyong is the only computer network available to other people. This is a free service for public use.
Detail
Designed only for domestic use in North Korea, Kwangmyong is not directly connected to the Internet to prevent contact of domestic users with foreign source of information or to prevent the leak of classified data. It functions as a form of information censorshipCensorship
thumb|[[Book burning]] following the [[1973 Chilean coup d'état|1973 coup]] that installed the [[Military government of Chile |Pinochet regime]] in Chile...
, preventing undesirable information from being accessed. Thus, sensitive topics and information are unlikely to surface on Kwangmyong due to the absence of a link to the outside world. Kwangmyong is maintained by government-related entities. However, large amounts of material from the Internet
Internet
The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...
end up on Kwangmyong, following processing.
Coverage
Kwangmyong is accessible from within North Korea's major cities, counties, as well as universities and major industrial and commercial organizations.Content
- Information such as political, economic, scientific, cultural and other fields of knowledge.
- Domestic news service
- A mailing service similar in function to that of e-mail
- University scientific research areas of academic and scholarly works devoted to the network through a web-based academic exchanges and information sharing.
- Academy of Sciences for science and technology (Chosongul: 과학기술전시관 HanchaHanjaHanja is the Korean name for the Chinese characters hanzi. More specifically, it refers to those Chinese characters borrowed from Chinese and incorporated into the Korean language with Korean pronunciation...
: 科學技術展示館) - Academy of Sciences for medical science (Chosongul: 의학과학정보센터)
- Academy of Sciences for science and technology (Chosongul: 과학기술전시관 Hancha
- At present, North Korea in the various government agencies, provincial government, cultural institutions, universities, as well as some of the major industrial and commercial organizations have set up their own web site and has links to Kwangmyong.
- Censored websites from the Internet (mostly science-related). Upon a request, whole websites may be downloaded from the Internet, undergo review and censorship, and be published on Kwangmyong.
- An electronic library (Chosongul: 전자도서열람).
Languages
The network uses KoreanKorean language
Korean is the official language of the country Korea, in both South and North. It is also one of the two official languages in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture in People's Republic of China. There are about 78 million Korean speakers worldwide. In the 15th century, a national writing...
as the main interface language, and is maintained by more than 2,000 language experts, according to official information, in expanding services in Russian
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
, Chinese
Chinese language
The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
, English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
, French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
and Japanese
Japanese language
is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities. It is a member of the Japonic language family, which has a number of proposed relationships with other languages, none of which has gained wide acceptance among historical linguists .Japanese is an...
, in which there is a real-time, online translation service for the seven languages, with a database containing over 2,000,000 words, to assist users who may not be familiar with foreign languages.