North Korean Smartphones Automatically Capture Screenshots Every 5 Minutes For State Surveillance 74
A smartphone smuggled out of North Korea automatically captures screenshots every five minutes and stores them in a hidden folder inaccessible to users, according to analysis by the BBC. Authorities can later review these images to monitor citizen activity on the device. The phone, obtained by Seoul-based media outlet Daily NK, resembles a Huawei or Honor device but runs state-approved software designed for surveillance and control. The device also automatically censors text, replacing "South Korea" with "puppet state" and Korean terms of endearment with "comrade."
Recall? (Score:5, Funny)
So they had Microsoft Recall before it was a thing?
Re:Recall? (Score:5, Funny)
I guess Microsoft is fortunate that there is a trade embargo, so they don't have to license the IP from NK.
Re:Recall? (Score:4, Funny)
So they had Microsoft Recall before it was a thing?
Where do you think MS (or the three-letter agencies who asked for it) got the idea? :-) #what-conspiracy-theory?
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Exceptional claims require exceptional evidence.
Probably more than just exceptional here, as A) that would interfere with the special "true depth" IR emitter required for face ID, and B) your comment history shows plenty of such lies from you before.
Re:iPhones Take a Photo of Your Face Every 5 Secon (Score:5, Insightful)
It doesn't interfere with the "TrueDepth" Face ID stuff because it IS the TrueDepth Face ID stuff.
The TrueDepth camera captures accurate face data by projecting and analyzing thousands of invisible dots to create a depth map of your face and also captures an infrared image of your face.
https://support.apple.com/en-u... [apple.com]
You called it an "IR emitter"... but its an IR camera.
This camera is also used for "attention awareness features" (and for this, yes it is constantly taking pictures.)
Is it quite the situation the GP suggested... no, of course not.
But yeah, it is pretty constantly taking IR photos of you when those features are on.
It's likely not doing anything with them beyond the functionality apple claims... but it is taking them, and it could be doing something more with them.
Re:iPhones Take a Photo of Your Face Every 5 Secon (Score:4, Informative)
Is it quite the situation the GP suggested... no, of course not
Still, some people will always jump on any opportunity to shit on Apple, always making stuff up even though there are plenty of real reasons to bash the company.
...and it could be doing something more with them
Phones, computers, smart TVs, routers, etc, could be doing anything with anything.
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Taking pictures is one thing. Writing those pictures to storage or sending them off is another.
Re:NK Propaganda (Score:4, Informative)
So the citizens are freely allowed to leave and visit other countries as they see fit?
I've never heard anyone refer to North Koreans as savages though, only that they're oppressed and the government does a poor job of making it a good place to live (evidenced by the difficulty in leaving).
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So the citizens are freely allowed to leave and visit other countries as they see fit?
I've never heard anyone refer to North Koreans as savages though, only that they're oppressed and the government does a poor job of making it a good place to live (evidenced by the difficulty in leaving).
Yes, it certainly is difficult to leave North Korea legally. I seem to recall reading that following a major defector in Europe bailing from a North Korean embassy with his family that now North Korea makes people who leave the country leave their families behind in North Korea. But I do want to point out something that you and maybe most Slashdotters don't understand at all.
Most people don't want to leave their country no matter how bad it gets.
Communist governments generally don't understa
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So the citizens are freely allowed to leave and visit other countries as they see fit?
I've never heard anyone refer to North Koreans as savages though, only that they're oppressed and the government does a poor job of making it a good place to live (evidenced by the difficulty in leaving).
Yes, it certainly is difficult to leave North Korea legally. I seem to recall reading that following a major defector in Europe bailing from a North Korean embassy with his family that now North Korea makes people who leave the country leave their families behind in North Korea. But I do want to point out something that you and maybe most Slashdotters don't understand at all.
Most people don't want to leave their country no matter how bad it gets.
Communist governments generally don't understand that, with China and maybe Vietnam being exceptions. Look at Syria (not communist but it sucks). That place is a hell hole. A lot of people left. But most people stayed. Even if they can leave, most people won't leave. I saw that in my working career too. Maybe 15 or so years ago I had a co-worker we hired from a bank that was closing down IT operations in our town and moving all IT to a distant state. Local IT employees were not given a chance to move to that distant state. So we hired that guy from the bank before they shut things down. He told us that the bank kept postponing the IT function move date and after working there maybe 2 years after the first notice that it was going to be moved out of state, he just found a job with us. We had an opening in our department and he had mentioned his co-worker at the bank and we told him to tell the guy to send us a resume. Bank dude refused. He was going to stick it out at the bank. About 6 months later, long after we filled the job we asked him to apply for, he got laid off our ot nowhere and the bank really moved his job away. He went to my co-worker and expressed and interest then in applying and we said to tell him that the job was filled and we had no current openings, nor did we anticipate having any in the near future. Dude knew at some point his job would just go away and he refused to leave it.
I get it.
I have moved around for a bit (never lived in another country though), but ended up within 30 minutes/15 miles of where I grew up.
I still stand by the sentiment that a country that makes travel outside of its boarder difficult is probably not all hunky dorey and wonderful inside.
Re:NK Propaganda (Score:5, Insightful)
Nice to know who is off their meds. When you look at those videos, tell us, how many cars do you see driving on the streets? A dozen?
If NK is so great, why can't tourists go into a store and see what's there? Why does every tour group have minders who check what pictures you've taken? Why must every statue of Kim Jong Un be shown in full and not, say, missing his feet? What water park are you talking about? NK people don't go to water parks unless they're part of the elite.
It's not editorializing if it's true.
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Since when are North Korean party officials allowed to reply on Slashdot?
Re:NK Propaganda (Score:5, Interesting)
Since they got hired at a tech company in the US, obviously.
https://blog.knowbe4.com/how-a... [knowbe4.com]
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I judge North Korea based on the condition they returned Otto Warmbier in.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Re: NK Propaganda (Score:2)
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They also believe their leader is a god, so suck some salt. I haven't met with anyone from NK, but have from SK.
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To some degree I agree: I was born in communist Romania, which at the time was similar with NK (poverty, lack of freedom)... you won't believe how many people today are nostalgic about that era... so many that in the recent presidential elections, their candidate got 46.4% of the votes (for multiple reasons, not just nostalgia).
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Lol, I can see that, but Romania was crazy western when I was there circa 2006. You could also see the Che Guevara posters everywhere, so maybe totally mixed. You all really hated Ceauescu and I get it, bankrupting the country to build a cathedral for his wife and government palace was probably too much.
But yeah, I have Russian online friends that are nostalgic for the days of Stalin, I have no idea why. They think Putin is the best (again, wtf). I've worked Open Source Software with those guys for years, I
I have the same thing (Score:5, Funny)
I have a device like this but it's a Macbook Pro. It's provided by the corporation I work for. It takes screenshots more frequently than every 5 minutes and sends them to an S3 bucket that only certain people in the org can see. Legal/HR, who knows. Anything that looks like it's not absolutely essential to doing work is filtered out by the firewall. This prevents any access to Gmail, X and other social media sites (except linkedin) and randomly blocks sites I find useful because they look like they're slurping data for AI intake. This is ostensibly for security purposes, and it's not supposed to be used to spy on us or provide data to 3rd parties or used to evaluate performance. I get paid to believe that, so I guess I do believe.
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I mean, if it's corporate provided then why would you do anything on it that's not work related? Also, why would you expect privacy on a work device? Wanna goof off at work? Use your own phone.
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Everything is illegal in Germany.
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"You people" "our side"
Yeah, people like you are exactly why US politics is going to shit, and taking the whole country with them.
Re: Will be in the USA soon (Score:2)
Being against Nazis used to be an American value.
Now Nazis cry about the Nazis they voted for being treated like Nazis.
And then they claim that's causing the country to be divided.
Hey, stop acting like a fucking Nazi.
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"You might be mixing two things up here."
What are the two things he's mixing up? What evidence does he have that there was any cancer diagnosis at all until one was announced? He takes the word of his dear leader, as his cult always does.
On the other hand, it's very clear that Trump has had medical issues that are hidden from the public, including a pretty clear stroke that occurred during his first term, ongoing drug use that has resulted in incontinence for decades and obvious signs of mental decline.
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Biden, Jill Biden, Harris, et al should be tried, and shot, as traitors.
The rectal-cranial inversion syndrome is strong with this one. As the saying goes: I'd try to see things from your point of view but I can't shove my head that far up my ass.
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"Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it's true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number
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According to Snopes, this is actually true. I usually take his bullshit posts to be false, On that note, Donald used to support liberal causes, so as a moderate, I lol at him. I am super pro nuclear, so I agree with him and his cousin, I think he's a complete idiot other than that, You need to understand fast fission and fusion to understand my viewpoint, conventional nuclear is trash.
I am sure other governments spy too (Score:1)
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If you think this sort of thing doesn't happen here I have a bridge I want to sell you
I'm not going to say that you're wrong, but on the other hand I've never seen penalties for having cameras on personal devices covered up or otherwise disabled. I've also never seen an Orwellian level of doublespeak-autocorrect baked into personal devices either.
Re: I am sure other governments spy too (Score:2)
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#BBC the nations LEAST trusted broadcaster can only look now to North Korea as an example of a nation worse than our own.
Know this
BBC would never admit that Britain is rated worst in Europe for protecting privacy and fourth most surveilled country in the world, recent research shows the number of CCTV cameras across the nation is continuing to increase.
But these are the facts they will never present .
#BBC The nations LEAST trusted broadcaster and propagandist provides your with a rose-coloured narrative to
so, what I'm hearing is... (Score:2)
North Koreans can easily flood their government with dick pics, with 100% plausible deniability.
"I had an unusual burning sensation and wanted a closer look."
"How was I to know that someone was going to view the picture? I never sent it to anyone."
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And everyone is better hung than Kim Jung-un.
can't be any worse than spellchecker ... (Score:1)
Pfft. I can be subversive in under 5 seconds. (Score:1)
With allowances for rhetorical flourish, of course.
Meanwhile in South Korea & the West... (Score:3, Interesting)
South Korean smart TVs capture screenshots every few milliseconds for corporate surveillance https://www.choose.tv/us/news/... [choose.tv]
Singular (Score:2)
North Korean smartphone. The only one that belongs to the dear leader. No way others cannot afford it.
Now that's really smart (Score:2)
Although you could cut out the middle man and not need evidence when you try someone for treason. Actually, you don't need to waste time with a trial. Just pick some people, imprison them, and tell everyone they were working as imperialist spies. Seems simpler than wasting bandwidth taking random photos.
Plot twist (Score:2)
The nations LEAST trusted broadcaster (Score:1)
#BBC the nations LEAST trusted broadcaster can only look now to North Korea as an example of a nation worse than our own.
Know this
BBC would never admit that Britain is rated worst in Europe for protecting privacy and fourth most surveilled country in the world, recent research shows the number of CCTV cameras across the nation is continuing to increase.
#BBC The nations LEAST trusted broadcaster and propagandist providing your with a rose-coloured narrative to distract you from the truth that our nation is "