Google exec. Eric Schmidt sees North Korean university students surfing web

Executive Chairman of Google, Eric Schmidt, third from left, and former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson, top right, watch as a North Korean student surfs the Internet at a computer lab during a tour of Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang, Jan. 8, 2013. / AP

PYONGYANG, North Korea Students at North Korea's premier university showed Google's executive chairman Tuesday how they look for information online: they Google it.

But surfing the Internet that way is the privilege of only a very few in North Korea, whose authoritarian government imposes strict limits on access to the World Wide Web.

Google's Eric Schmidt got a first look at North Korea's limited Internet usage when an American delegation he and former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson are leading visited a computer lab at Kim Il Sung University in Pyongyang. Other members of the delegation on the unusual four-day trip include Schmidt's daughter, Sophie, and Jared Cohen, director of the Google Ideas think tank.

Schmidt, who is the highest-profile U.S. business executive to visit North Korea since leader Kim Jong Un took power a year ago, has not spoken publicly about the reasons behind the journey to North Korea.

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Richardson has called the trip a "private, humanitarian" mission by U.S. citizens and has sought to allay worries in Washington.

North Korea is holding a U.S. citizen accused by Pyongyang of committing "hostile" acts against the state, charges that could carry 10 years in a prison or longer. Richardson told The Associated Press he would speak to North Korean officials about Kenneth Bae's detention and seek to visit the American.

Schmidt and Cohen chatted with students working on HP desktop computers at an "e-library" at the university named after North Korea founder Kim Il Sung. One student showed Schmidt how he accesses reading materials from Cornell University online on a computer with a red tag denoting it as a gift from Kim Jong Il.

"He's actually going to a Cornell site," Schmidt told Richardson after peering at the URL.

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Cohen asked a student how he searches for information online. The student clicked on Google; "That's where I work!" Cohen said; and then asked to be able to type in his own search: "New York City." Cohen clicked on a Wikipedia page for the city, pointing at a photo and telling the student, "That's where I live."

Kim Su Hyang, a librarian, said students at Kim Il Sung University have had Internet access since the laboratory opened in April 2010. School officials said the library is open from 8 a.m. to midnight, even when school is not in session, like Tuesday.

While university students at Kim Chaek University of Science and Technology and the Pyongyang University of Science and Technology also have carefully monitored Internet access; and are under strict instructions to access only educational materials; most North Koreans have never surfed the Web.

Computers at Pyongyang's main library at the Grand People's Study house are linked to a domestic Intranet service that allows them to read state-run media online and access a trove of reading materials culled by North Korean officials. North Koreans with computers at home can also sign up for the Intranet service.

But access to the World Wide Web is extremely rare and often is limited to those with clearance to get on the Internet.

At Kim Chaek University, instructors and students wishing to use the Internet must register first for permission and submit an application with their requests for research online, Ryu Sun Ryol, head of the e-library, said.

But he said it is only a matter of time before Internet use becomes widespread.

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[GeorgeKafantaris]

Hiding from the world is proof enough that the North Korean and Iranian regimes cannot withstand scrutiny even from their own people -- less they find out that their regimes have completely stifled economic development.
Yet North Korea and Iran could just as easily have excelled economically as well as technologically -- for the greater good of their citizens.
As things stand now, Iran has abandoned all paths to the country's Persian greatness, and daily North Korea has to face the glaring economic disparities with its sister state.
Exactly how long will it take for these regimes to realize that in today's world a country's might is measured in economic terms?
Indeed, even if the North Korean and Iranian regimes on their own somehow managed to amass Russia's military might, neither would be further ahead economically.
So what's the point in trying?

[ron_zo]

Can he possibly ask if the North Korea Space project was real & how many people went hungry if it was? NK has no business in Space.