Students at North Korea’s premier university yesterday showed Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt how they look for information online: They Google it.
However, 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.
Schmidt got a first look at North Korea’s limited Internet usage when a US delegation he and former New Mexico governor 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 US 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.
Richardson has called the trip a “private, humanitarian” mission by US citizens and has sought to allay worries in Washington.
North Korea is holding a US citizen that it has accused of committing “hostile” acts against the state, charges that could carry 10 years in a prison or longer. Richardson said he would speak to North Korean officials about Kenneth Bae’s detention and seek to visit him.
Schmidt and Cohen chatted with students working on Hewlett-Packard 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.
Cohen asked a student how he searches for information online. The student clicked on Google
“That’s where I work!” he 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 photograph and telling the student: “That’s where I live.”
Kim Su-hyang, a librarian, said students at the university have had Internet access since the laboratory opened in April 2010. School officials said the library is open from 8am to midnight, even when school is not in session, like yesterday.
While 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 an 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.
However, access to the World Wide Web is extremely rare and often is limited to those with clearance to get on the Internet.
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