SALON

Friday, Jan 4, 2013 9:38 PM UTC

Why is Google chief Eric Schmidt visiting North Korea?

He's been an advocate for Internet access and freedom, but it's still unclear if he'll push an agenda in Pyongyang

By

Topics: GlobalPost, Google, eric schmidt, Asia, Internet, ,

Why is Google chief Eric Schmidt visiting North Korea?Google executive chairman Eric Schmidt (Credit: AP/Lee Jin-man)
This article originally appeared on GlobalPost.

Global Post SEOUL — So, we now know that Google’s executive chairman Eric Schmidt is heading to North Korea this month.

As with virtually anything surrounding North Korea, the journey has triggered speculation and intrigue.

Google says the trip is a personal humanitarian mission, and won’t comment further. Schmidt will travel with former New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, a seasoned North Korea negotiator, sources have told AP. Presumably Richardon’s negotiation services will yield something other than an umbrella drink at the Pyongyang Four Seasons.

Schmidt has been an advocate for Internet access and freedom, both of which few North Koreans enjoy, although it’s not clear whether he will push this agenda in Pyongyang.

One possible attraction: North Korea has a burgeoning geek scene — and one that has already completed projects for at least one major Western media company. Kim Jong Un sees the tech sector as the cornerstone of a new domestic “industrial revolution,” according to his New Year’s Day address. Last year, a delegation of lower-level officials visited Google’s headquarters, the LA Times reported.

Again, this being North Korea, knowledge of Kim’s techies is patchy. In late December, North Korean programmers launched a video game called Pyongyang Racer, which lets gamers drive around the capital, through “authentic” Pyongyang cityscapes. You can see “a bigger version of France’s Arc de Triomphe,” according to the game’s website, and “obey the traffic wardens, which are a sight unique to the streets of Pyongyang, despite the overall lack of traffic.” It’s not exactly Google Earth, but the programmers are apparently competent and very cheap.

Pyongyang Racer was produced by Nosotek, North Korea’s first and only software joint venture, a studio of 30 employees that was founded in 2007. Nosotek has quietly churned out various popular games, including one “very big” role-playing game for the Nintendo Wii, according to the company’s German president, Volker Eloesser. Nosotek has also created award-winning medical software, and one of its iPhone apps once reached Apple’s Top 10 list in Germany, Eloesser said.

North Korea is under United Nations sanctions that bar commerce with companies engaged in the arms trade — a rule that doesn’t apply in Nosotek’s case. Still, “Customers don’t want us to mention their names,” said Eloesser, because the “Made in North Korea” label carries a stigma.

Pyongyang Racer, it turns out, had a secret predecessor. Eloesser said the project was based on an earlier racing game, developed by Nosotek and published on Facebook by “one of the big players in the social media market.”

After Eloesser had a chat at a North Korean beer bar with Nick Bonner, the co-founder of Koryo Tours, the project was transformed into the Pyongyang-themed version. “We thought it would make a great game, so we paid for it to be developed into a more playable game,” Bonner said.

Nosotek’s geeks apparently aren’t the only ones creating games. In 2007, a unit of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. released two mobile phone games that were based on the 1990s films “Men in Black” and “The Big Lebowski” and were developed by North Korea’s General Federation of Science and Technology, according to Bloomberg.

Pyongyang Geek Squad

While North Korea is certainly not a tech hub like India or China, its regime thinks technology can help solve its economic rut. The government does business with outsiders to bring in much-needed foreign currency.

Students with computer skills are identified at a young age and sent to a specialized middle school in Pyongyang. Many of them move on to the elite Kim Il Sung University and to Kim Chaek University of Technology, the MIT of North Korea.

While these institutes have produced thousands of legitimate programmers, anti-government refugee groups claim the schools also train hackers for North Korea’s cyber-warfare command. The unit has launched dozens of cyber-attacks on servers in South Korea and the U.S., South Korean intelligence officials claim.

Nevertheless, some companies think the benefits of working in North Korea outweigh the risks of disrepute. “The sales pitch is price and quality, compared to Indian companies,” said Eloesser. Labor costs in North Korea are about half of those in China.

In China, “it often happens that people quit their job to hunt for better salary before a project is completed,” he added. With the dearth of business competitors, North Koreans are unlikely to defect to another company or to leak intellectual property.

The culturally distant hermit kingdom, though, can create conundrums for Western managers. Eloesser said that North Koreans usually don’t question orders, and will follow instructions even if a project is unfeasible — although this is a common obstacle all over East Asia, he claims.

“By now, the local management is doing a good job,” he said, reflecting on their fast learning abilities. He no longer lives full-time in Pyongyang but rather hands off the hard tasks to his North Korean fellows.

More Geoffrey Cain.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 2 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

Salon is proud to feature content from GlobalPost, an awarding-winning international news site that focuses on original reporting from journalists stationed around the world. GlobalPost combines traditional journalistic values with the power of new media to offer a fresh perspective on global developments.

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Oklahoma senator: Tornado aid “totally different” from Sandy aid
2993 points2994 points | 1596 comments
vote
Anyone Regret Slashing National Weather Service Budget Now?: With GOP-backed cuts to forecasting agency, experts warn future storms will go undetected and more lives lost
909 points910 points | 449 comments
vote
Oklahoma senator wants to offset tornado aid with other cuts
141 points142 points | 42 comments
vote
Horrifying new trend: Posting rapes to Facebook " In Chicago this weekend, prosecutors announced three teenaged boys will tried as adults for aggravated criminal sexual assault after allegedly raping a 12-year-old girl — and posting a video of the attack on Facebook."
23 points24 points | 13 comments
vote
Recent scandals are Whitewater redux, not Watergate
21 points22 points | 2 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations