WEBVTT 00:00:00.960 --> 00:00:04.590 JACK: A quick warning first; this episode is dark and intended for mature audiences. 00:00:04.590 --> 00:00:08.850 There’s not any swear words in it but we do talk about torture and human suffering. 00:00:08.850 --> 00:00:13.889 Not in a super-graphic way that’s gonna make you vomit, but it does come up so if 00:00:13.889 --> 00:00:15.370 that bothers you, maybe skip this one. 00:00:15.370 --> 00:00:20.400 Yeonmi Park was born in 1993 in North Korea. 00:00:20.400 --> 00:00:25.710 She grew up with her mother, father, and sister in a small house near the Chinese border. 00:00:25.710 --> 00:00:32.369 In 2007, Yeonmi’s older sister had escaped from North Korea by herself. 00:00:32.369 --> 00:00:35.090 Nobody knew what happened to her or where she was. 00:00:35.090 --> 00:00:38.590 Her family didn’t even know if she was alive or not. 00:00:38.590 --> 00:00:43.080 Yeonmi and her mother decided it was time to risk their lives and escape from North 00:00:43.080 --> 00:00:44.859 Korea, too. 00:00:44.859 --> 00:00:50.840 They paid someone to smuggle them into China, leaving their father behind, knowing full-well 00:00:50.840 --> 00:00:55.480 that if they got caught trying to leave North Korea, they would likely go to prison. 00:00:55.480 --> 00:01:00.000 They crossed into China, but even China was not safe for them. 00:01:00.000 --> 00:01:04.250 If the Chinese police or government catches North Korean defectors, they send them back 00:01:04.250 --> 00:01:09.530 to North Korea, so Yeonmi and her mother had to stay hidden while in China and rely on 00:01:09.530 --> 00:01:11.830 whoever was kind enough to help them. 00:01:11.830 --> 00:01:18.689 [MUSIC] But unfortunately, there’s a really bad sex and human trafficking problem in China. 00:01:18.689 --> 00:01:23.610 North Korean defectors are especially vulnerable because they’re so desperate, and the Chinese 00:01:23.610 --> 00:01:27.140 government does not grant them refugee status. 00:01:27.140 --> 00:01:31.970 Yeonmi and her mother were captured by one of these sex trafficking rings. 00:01:31.970 --> 00:01:37.430 Yeonmi was thirteen and her captor wanted to have sex with her, but her mother begged 00:01:37.430 --> 00:01:42.799 him not to and ultimately let herself get raped in order to spare Yeonmi. 00:01:42.799 --> 00:01:47.960 Each day, Yeonmi and her mother tried to find ways to escape out of their situation in China. 00:01:47.960 --> 00:01:55.570 At this point, Yeonmi was thirteen and was sold into a sex trafficking ring for 300 US 00:01:55.570 --> 00:01:56.570 dollars. 00:01:56.570 --> 00:01:59.130 She was separated from her mother, too. 00:01:59.130 --> 00:02:02.110 Imagine how scared she must have been. 00:02:02.110 --> 00:02:06.360 She was alive but she was terrified every day. 00:02:06.360 --> 00:02:11.400 At some point, her father came to look for them and found Yeonmi in China. 00:02:11.400 --> 00:02:18.470 But he was very sick and shortly, upon finding Yeonmi, he died. 00:02:18.470 --> 00:02:23.510 She cremated her own father secretly at 3 a.m. so she wouldn’t be caught. 00:02:23.510 --> 00:02:29.490 She continued on her journey to escape from both North Korea and her enslavers in China. 00:02:29.490 --> 00:02:34.620 The best option she had was to find a way to get all the way to Mongolia where they 00:02:34.620 --> 00:02:36.440 don’t send North Koreans back. 00:02:36.440 --> 00:02:41.250 If she could get to Mongolia, she thought she’d be safe, but this is about a thousand 00:02:41.250 --> 00:02:42.340 miles to travel. 00:02:42.340 --> 00:02:47.980 It’s like going from Florida to New York all while staying hidden, without money, and 00:02:47.980 --> 00:02:50.780 in a country that you don’t speak the language. 00:02:50.780 --> 00:02:52.909 But she was determined. 00:02:52.909 --> 00:02:55.290 Her life depended on it. 00:02:55.290 --> 00:03:01.740 She escaped from her enslavers and captors, and began trekking across China towards Mongolia. 00:03:01.740 --> 00:03:04.519 Again, she’s just thirteen years old. 00:03:04.519 --> 00:03:09.959 She would move at night, in the freezing cold, with only the stars to guide her. 00:03:09.959 --> 00:03:16.150 This was the lowest point in her life; to have gone so far, to escape so many evil people, 00:03:16.150 --> 00:03:21.450 in the dark, lost and cold, she lost hope for everything. 00:03:21.450 --> 00:03:26.400 She fell down in the dark and just felt like not getting up. 00:03:26.400 --> 00:03:32.129 Freezing to death was a better option than going forward. 00:03:32.129 --> 00:03:38.220 When you think nobody cares for you, you can feel like there’s no reason to live. 00:03:38.220 --> 00:03:44.510 But she did get back up and continued to crawl under barbed wire in the dark, and made it 00:03:44.510 --> 00:03:46.540 into Mongolia. 00:03:46.540 --> 00:03:50.900 From there, she was sent to South Korea where she was able to connect with human rights 00:03:50.900 --> 00:03:54.019 groups and they were able to help her. 00:03:54.019 --> 00:03:59.489 While this is the most harrowing story I’ve ever read, there’s something about this 00:03:59.489 --> 00:04:05.939 decision of risking your life to escape from North Korea that captivates me, because in 00:04:05.939 --> 00:04:11.189 North Korea, they brainwash you into believing that the Supreme Leader and the country are 00:04:11.189 --> 00:04:15.870 the best in the world and more important than anything. 00:04:15.870 --> 00:04:21.060 You should put all your wants and desires aside to help the Supreme Leader, so it’s 00:04:21.060 --> 00:04:23.870 not just about escaping from a country. 00:04:23.870 --> 00:04:29.360 But first, you have to undo that mindset that’s been forced into you since you were born, 00:04:29.360 --> 00:04:34.180 and to take that leap of faith that even though you have no idea what the world is like on 00:04:34.180 --> 00:04:38.870 the other side of that border, you just hope that it’s a better life than what’s in 00:04:38.870 --> 00:04:40.660 North Korea. 00:04:40.660 --> 00:04:46.070 Yeonmi Park took that leap of faith and made it to the other side, and that’s the mystery 00:04:46.070 --> 00:04:48.000 I want to figure out. 00:04:48.000 --> 00:04:52.560 What does it take for people to escape tyranny and seek freedom? 00:04:52.560 --> 00:04:54.650 But to figure this out, I’m gonna need some help. 00:04:54.650 --> 00:05:00.180 YEONMI: [00:05:00] My name is Yeonmi Park and I was born in Hyesan, North Korea. 00:05:00.180 --> 00:05:08.110 (INTRO): [INTRO MUSIC] These are true stories from the dark side of the internet. 00:05:08.110 --> 00:05:13.350 I’m Jack Rhysider. 00:05:13.350 --> 00:05:16.460 This is Darknet Diaries. 00:05:16.460 --> 00:05:22.370 [INTRO MUSIC ENDS] 00:05:22.370 --> 00:05:33.550 JACK: Okay, yeah, we’re gonna go deep into North Korea on this episode, but to talk about 00:05:33.550 --> 00:05:39.960 the mindset on why people defect doesn’t sound like a tech hacker story, does it? 00:05:39.960 --> 00:05:41.569 Yeah, well, true. 00:05:41.569 --> 00:05:46.319 I promise, there is tech involved in this story, and it’s actually tech that you have 00:05:46.319 --> 00:05:50.720 laying around your home that can help people in North Korea, and we’ll get to that, I 00:05:50.720 --> 00:05:51.720 promise. 00:05:51.720 --> 00:05:53.250 Just have a little patience at first. 00:05:53.250 --> 00:05:59.210 You might also think, how is North Korea related to stories about the dark parts of the internet? 00:05:59.210 --> 00:06:00.980 Well, it’s a dark place. 00:06:00.980 --> 00:06:04.300 YEONMI: I mean, literally, it is the darkest place on Earth. 00:06:04.300 --> 00:06:11.130 If you see the Google satellite photos, it is literally the black hole of this universe. 00:06:11.130 --> 00:06:13.830 This, our Earth, at least. 00:06:13.830 --> 00:06:20.270 Yeah, I just talk – whenever I think about North Korea, I do not see – I don’t remember 00:06:20.270 --> 00:06:21.270 any color. 00:06:21.270 --> 00:06:23.050 Everything seemed to me grey. 00:06:23.050 --> 00:06:27.830 JACK: [MUSIC] I first want to understand what life is like in North Korea, and that’s 00:06:27.830 --> 00:06:29.639 why I have Yeonmi here. 00:06:29.639 --> 00:06:35.090 She was born in the town of Hyesan in North Korea in 1993, which makes her twenty-seven 00:06:35.090 --> 00:06:36.090 now. 00:06:36.090 --> 00:06:38.690 Hyesan is in the northern part of North Korea. 00:06:38.690 --> 00:06:41.690 In fact, it’s right on the border of China. 00:06:41.690 --> 00:06:47.139 The only thing separating Hyesan, North Korea, and China is the Yalu River. 00:06:47.139 --> 00:06:50.230 As Yeonmi grew up, she would play in the river. 00:06:50.230 --> 00:06:56.349 YEONMI: Yeah, I was playing at the riverbank and seeing China, and seeing the kids from 00:06:56.349 --> 00:07:00.340 the Chinese side who were – who seemed really well-fed. 00:07:00.340 --> 00:07:03.550 JACK: You could see the kids on the Chinese side? 00:07:03.550 --> 00:07:09.330 YEONMI: Yeah, it’s a really narrow river, so even you – you can even hear what they 00:07:09.330 --> 00:07:10.330 are saying. 00:07:10.330 --> 00:07:13.780 They ask you questions like, are you hungry? 00:07:13.780 --> 00:07:16.190 They knew that we were hungry. 00:07:16.190 --> 00:07:17.270 JACK: Yeah. 00:07:17.270 --> 00:07:18.990 Tell me more about this river. 00:07:18.990 --> 00:07:20.710 Did you wash your clothes in there? 00:07:20.710 --> 00:07:21.910 Did you bathe in there? 00:07:21.910 --> 00:07:25.350 YEONMI: Yeah, so, in North Korea, we were in the middle-bottom class, I guess. 00:07:25.350 --> 00:07:29.810 We didn’t have laundry machines or a shower, anything like that. 00:07:29.810 --> 00:07:39.449 All we could do was go into the river, wash our hair and body there, and wash our clothes, 00:07:39.449 --> 00:07:49.020 and also get the water from the river to home to drink and cook. 00:07:49.020 --> 00:07:55.949 It was the main source for us to do anything with daily living. 00:07:55.949 --> 00:07:59.520 JACK: But it’s the north part which is cold in the winter. 00:07:59.520 --> 00:08:01.120 Did you also do that in the winter? 00:08:01.120 --> 00:08:07.060 YEONMI: Yeah, in the winter, we – I couldn’t even go shower – I mean, take a bath there. 00:08:07.060 --> 00:08:13.660 But in the winter, I still had to go to wash clothes and get water. 00:08:13.660 --> 00:08:21.289 It is freezing – that somebody digs a hole in the frozen Yalu River and in that hole, 00:08:21.289 --> 00:08:29.300 actually, a lot of times, children fall or adults fall and just die, and get drowned. 00:08:29.300 --> 00:08:32.019 It’s a really risky thing to do but what can you do? 00:08:32.019 --> 00:08:35.490 Every day is a life and death situation. 00:08:35.490 --> 00:08:42.570 You’re not bothered by that kind of danger because you need water to survive. 00:08:42.570 --> 00:08:48.810 There’s no, like, your water comes in the house; you have to go somewhere and get the 00:08:48.810 --> 00:08:49.810 water. 00:08:49.810 --> 00:08:51.600 You still have to wash your clothes. 00:08:51.600 --> 00:08:59.839 I remember in the winter time, you might just go not taking baths for months. 00:08:59.839 --> 00:09:04.760 JACK: Why doesn’t your city have running water and running electricity? 00:09:04.760 --> 00:09:05.760 YEONMI: It’s the regime. 00:09:05.760 --> 00:09:13.180 I mean, only chose the city of Pyongyang, the capitol, and the rest of the country, 00:09:13.180 --> 00:09:18.270 they considered not as royal as those – the people in Pyongyang. 00:09:18.270 --> 00:09:27.160 North Korean – I mean, the regime, is – it knows that if they – we are fed, if we are 00:09:27.160 --> 00:09:29.260 comfortable, that’s human nature. 00:09:29.260 --> 00:09:31.423 We’re going to think about what’s the meaning of life. 00:09:31.423 --> 00:09:32.423 What is happening in the world? 00:09:32.423 --> 00:09:37.660 But when you’re so desperate, when you’re like, the verge of death, when you’re starving, 00:09:37.660 --> 00:09:42.779 you do not have time to think about the meaning of life. 00:09:42.779 --> 00:09:51.730 You do not have time to think about what kind of political system is working on us. 00:09:51.730 --> 00:09:58.560 They rule with complete control [00:10:00] and the regime uses starvation as a tool to 00:09:58.560 --> 00:09:59.570 control the population. 00:09:59.570 --> 00:10:02.959 They choose not to make us feel comfortable. 00:10:02.959 --> 00:10:11.589 They choose not to make us feel full, so that is just exactly why there are so many people 00:10:11.589 --> 00:10:12.870 don’t have it. 00:10:12.870 --> 00:10:18.329 The regime has enough resources to feed its people and get all these facilities, but they 00:10:18.329 --> 00:10:21.990 choose not to in order to control us. 00:10:21.990 --> 00:10:26.230 JACK: I think it’s important to understand why there’s no food, water, or electricity 00:10:26.230 --> 00:10:27.480 in Yeonmi’s town. 00:10:27.480 --> 00:10:30.750 We’ll do a quick, five-minute North Korean history lesson. 00:10:30.750 --> 00:10:35.350 [MUSIC] A hundred years ago, Japan had taken over the whole Korean Peninsula. 00:10:35.350 --> 00:10:40.910 Then in the 1940s World War II happened, and Japan bombed the US Naval Base, Pearl Harbor. 00:10:40.910 --> 00:10:44.010 The US didn’t like this, so they bombed Japan back. 00:10:44.010 --> 00:10:45.770 But the US had bigger bombs. 00:10:45.770 --> 00:10:51.590 A nuclear bomb was detonated in Japan but Japan didn’t surrender, so a second nuclear 00:10:51.590 --> 00:10:53.430 bomb was detonated in Japan. 00:10:53.430 --> 00:10:56.480 With that, in 1945, Japan surrendered. 00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:02.079 Now, when they surrendered, there was both US troops and Soviet troops in the Korean 00:11:02.079 --> 00:11:05.240 peninsula, and neither wanted to leave. 00:11:05.240 --> 00:11:09.530 They both agreed, let’s just split Korea right down the middle and establish its own 00:11:09.530 --> 00:11:10.760 countries on both sides. 00:11:10.760 --> 00:11:15.880 Sort of like how Germany got split into East and West Germany, Korea got split into North 00:11:15.880 --> 00:11:17.560 and South Korea. 00:11:17.560 --> 00:11:22.560 US established the Republic of Korea for the South, where Seoul would be the capital. 00:11:22.560 --> 00:11:30.269 The Soviets in the North, in 1948, they established the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, 00:11:30.269 --> 00:11:31.680 DPRK. 00:11:31.680 --> 00:11:34.970 But I don’t believe it’s Democratic or Republic despite the name. 00:11:34.970 --> 00:11:38.149 It’s been rated the least Democratic country on Earth. 00:11:38.149 --> 00:11:41.890 One of the first things the Soviets needed to do was establish a new leader. 00:11:41.890 --> 00:11:46.270 They held so-called ‘elections’ but it’s widely believed those votes didn’t count, 00:11:46.270 --> 00:11:50.870 and the Soviets just placed Kim Il Sung as the first leader of North Korea. 00:11:50.870 --> 00:11:55.750 Kim Il Sung developed an ideology called Juche which was focused on the principles of national 00:11:55.750 --> 00:11:56.920 independence and self-reliance. 00:11:56.920 --> 00:12:02.540 The whole idea was that North Korea wouldn’t need to rely on any other governments or global 00:12:02.540 --> 00:12:04.980 powers in order for a nation to thrive. 00:12:04.980 --> 00:12:10.029 But this idea was taken to the extreme; the leader was soon calling himself the Supreme 00:12:10.029 --> 00:12:14.770 Leader and was convincing everyone that he personally was feeding and giving clothes 00:12:14.770 --> 00:12:16.690 to the people of North Korea. 00:12:16.690 --> 00:12:20.720 He would also say that he personally liberated North Korea from its oppressors by fighting 00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:22.019 in the wars. 00:12:22.019 --> 00:12:24.660 He would make the teachers teach this in school. 00:12:24.660 --> 00:12:31.690 After decades of it being taught, it was instilled because if you didn’t believe it, you were 00:12:31.690 --> 00:12:36.360 taken away and tortured, or beaten, or brought down in social rank. 00:12:36.360 --> 00:12:40.829 See, North Korea has this very harsh caste system. 00:12:40.829 --> 00:12:45.220 Those that show great loyalty to the country or leader will be given a higher class compared 00:12:45.220 --> 00:12:49.730 to those who don’t, so anyone who fought in the war against Japan was in the highest 00:12:49.730 --> 00:12:53.860 class, and those who were farmers or even lawyers were the lowest class. 00:12:53.860 --> 00:12:58.010 The people of the higher classes get better things; they get to live closer to the Supreme 00:12:58.010 --> 00:13:02.710 Leader and they get things like food, electricity, and water. 00:13:02.710 --> 00:13:05.139 People in the lower class, they don’t get that. 00:13:05.139 --> 00:13:10.180 Now, the North Koreans relied heavily on aid from the Soviet Union which was still their 00:13:10.180 --> 00:13:13.910 biggest ally and sent them food, electricity, and supplies. 00:13:13.910 --> 00:13:20.040 So, when the Soviet Union broke apart in the early 1990s, it had an immediate impact on 00:13:20.040 --> 00:13:21.040 North Korea. 00:13:21.040 --> 00:13:22.660 They lost their biggest ally. 00:13:22.660 --> 00:13:25.089 No more food or aid was sent. 00:13:25.089 --> 00:13:30.240 This resulted in a sharp loss for North Korea who had been getting a lot of resources from 00:13:30.240 --> 00:13:31.670 the Soviet Union. 00:13:31.670 --> 00:13:34.700 The North Korean economy almost completely collapsed. 00:13:34.700 --> 00:13:38.410 They tried to get help from China, but China couldn’t keep up with all the help that 00:13:38.410 --> 00:13:42.149 was requested, so North Korea simply went without. 00:13:42.149 --> 00:13:46.839 It could not provide enough water, food, and supplies for the nation. 00:13:46.839 --> 00:13:52.940 [MUSIC] But besides that, in the same decade, the 1990s, a great famine came over North 00:13:52.940 --> 00:13:53.940 Korea. 00:13:53.940 --> 00:13:59.459 The country could not grow enough food for its own people, and since everything is government-controlled, 00:13:59.459 --> 00:14:02.910 the caste system went into even stronger effect. 00:14:02.910 --> 00:14:06.050 Only the people who were the most loyal could eat. 00:14:06.050 --> 00:14:09.660 The least loyal would starve to death. 00:14:09.660 --> 00:14:13.380 This was an extremely cruel way to control the minds of the people and get them to be 00:14:13.380 --> 00:14:17.690 even more obedient than ever, which often meant turning in your friends or family if 00:14:17.690 --> 00:14:19.959 you saw them doing things against the rules. 00:14:19.959 --> 00:14:26.240 They might get tortured just so you could eat a little that day and show more loyalty. 00:14:26.240 --> 00:14:31.320 The combination of the Soviet Union breaking apart and not sending aid, and this famine, 00:14:31.320 --> 00:14:36.880 and the strict government regime meant that hundreds of thousands of people were dying. 00:14:36.880 --> 00:14:42.150 Maybe as much as three million North Koreans died in the 1990s. 00:14:42.150 --> 00:14:45.600 In 1994, Kim Il Sung died of a heart attack. 00:14:45.600 --> 00:14:48.930 His son immediately took over, Kim Jong Il. 00:14:48.930 --> 00:14:53.839 He was ruthless and cruel, too, punishing people even more harshly if they broke even 00:14:53.839 --> 00:14:55.180 the smallest laws. 00:14:55.180 --> 00:14:57.570 [00:15:00] Make a phone call outside the country? 00:14:57.570 --> 00:15:00.460 Yeah, you might be put to death for that. 00:15:00.460 --> 00:15:07.180 Kim Jong Il died in 2011 and immediately, his son took over, Kim Jong Un, who still 00:15:07.180 --> 00:15:08.959 rules today. 00:15:08.959 --> 00:15:14.160 In this short span since North Korea was created in 1948, there have been only three leaders, 00:15:14.160 --> 00:15:18.630 all of which are from the same family, all of whom ruled as dictators. 00:15:18.630 --> 00:15:22.389 They all tried to rule without relying on imports from other nations, and they have 00:15:22.389 --> 00:15:24.300 stood by their ideology with pride. 00:15:24.300 --> 00:15:27.410 But it’s gone so far now, it’s practically a cult. 00:15:27.410 --> 00:15:30.640 Your obedience to the leader is tested on a daily basis. 00:15:30.640 --> 00:15:31.930 You can’t leave the country. 00:15:31.930 --> 00:15:33.390 It’s strictly forbidden. 00:15:33.390 --> 00:15:39.390 You must worship the Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and do everything he tells you to. 00:15:39.390 --> 00:15:41.950 YEONMI: There’s no justice. 00:15:41.950 --> 00:15:43.610 There’s no human rights. 00:15:43.610 --> 00:15:49.709 There’s no dignity in any sense for humans to exist there. 00:15:49.709 --> 00:15:53.170 There’s only Kim, the dictator. 00:15:53.170 --> 00:15:57.040 The country exists for the dictator. 00:15:57.040 --> 00:15:58.880 People live for the dictator. 00:15:58.880 --> 00:16:03.270 JACK: Worshiping the dictator is woven into every aspect of life there. 00:16:03.270 --> 00:16:08.519 His picture is hung in every house and school, and everyone has meetings every week to discuss 00:16:08.519 --> 00:16:13.240 how you worshipped the dictator and how you can do better next week. 00:16:13.240 --> 00:16:16.670 Then you critique each other in the meetings, too, telling them how they can do better at 00:16:16.670 --> 00:16:18.060 worshipping him. 00:16:18.060 --> 00:16:23.480 In North Korea, you and your opinions, wants, desires, dreams, they don’t matter. 00:16:23.480 --> 00:16:24.680 Only the leader does. 00:16:24.680 --> 00:16:32.420 YEONMI: In North Korea, nobody asked me what I thought, what I want or what I like, what 00:16:32.420 --> 00:16:33.420 I dislike. 00:16:33.420 --> 00:16:38.079 It was not even a concept, as a concept for people to ask each other. 00:16:38.079 --> 00:16:43.019 So, when someone – I thought like – in North Korea, obviously, the favorite color 00:16:43.019 --> 00:16:50.259 for us to like, that we like – there are not such a word that exists in North Korea 00:16:50.259 --> 00:16:52.360 that we don’t say ‘I’. 00:16:52.360 --> 00:16:57.449 Every time when we start conversing, we say ‘we’, and say that we love red because 00:16:57.449 --> 00:16:59.440 it’s a revolutionary color. 00:16:59.440 --> 00:17:00.440 JACK: Wow. 00:17:00.440 --> 00:17:04.530 Can you imagine going your whole life and nobody asked you what your favorite color 00:17:04.530 --> 00:17:05.530 was? 00:17:05.530 --> 00:17:09.490 Or actually, you weren’t even allowed to have a favorite color; it simply must be red 00:17:09.490 --> 00:17:12.800 because that’s what the Supreme Leader wants you to have as a favorite color. 00:17:12.800 --> 00:17:17.429 Or let me put it to you like this: we typically have many meanings for the word ‘love’. 00:17:17.429 --> 00:17:19.620 You can love your spouse or partner. 00:17:19.620 --> 00:17:24.780 Okay, but you can also love a friend or you can love playing a game, or you might love 00:17:24.780 --> 00:17:30.420 some music, or you might have love for humankind and just want to help those in need, or you 00:17:30.420 --> 00:17:34.450 might actually love yourself either in a narcissistic way or in a more healthy way. 00:17:34.450 --> 00:17:38.039 But in North Korea, none of that exists. 00:17:38.039 --> 00:17:41.480 They do not experience any of this. 00:17:41.480 --> 00:17:45.440 The only love you’re allowed to experience is love for the Supreme Leader. 00:17:45.440 --> 00:17:46.440 It’s madness. 00:17:46.440 --> 00:17:49.260 Can you imagine not knowing what love is? 00:17:49.260 --> 00:17:53.060 Except for the one person who told you that you have to love them? 00:17:53.060 --> 00:17:56.840 Now, even though the country tries to be independent, it’s not. 00:17:56.840 --> 00:17:59.870 It relies heavily on imports to keep its people alive. 00:17:59.870 --> 00:18:01.790 We’re not talking about luxury goods, here. 00:18:01.790 --> 00:18:04.360 We’re just talking about basic food and clothes and supplies. 00:18:04.360 --> 00:18:08.210 In fact, Yeonmi’s father had a job handling these imports. 00:18:08.210 --> 00:18:13.409 YEONMI: Initially he started you know, sugar, dried fish, rice, cloth. 00:18:13.409 --> 00:18:16.059 JACK: He was a civil servant doing work for the government. 00:18:16.059 --> 00:18:20.180 But see, in North Korea, it’s extremely hard to get by with whatever you make at your 00:18:20.180 --> 00:18:21.180 job. 00:18:21.180 --> 00:18:22.180 It’s just not enough. 00:18:22.180 --> 00:18:26.860 It’s barely enough to get by just yourself, much less to try to support a family. 00:18:26.860 --> 00:18:31.800 This is common in most of North Korea; people have to find extra work to survive. 00:18:31.800 --> 00:18:36.100 Often, people find something illegal to do to survive. 00:18:36.100 --> 00:18:41.740 You don’t have enough resources to survive, so importing illegal goods becomes a necessity 00:18:41.740 --> 00:18:48.480 to live, especially when just a narrow river is what separates your country from China. 00:18:48.480 --> 00:18:53.400 You can set up some agreement to toss things back and forth, or swim across, go into town, 00:18:53.400 --> 00:18:54.950 buy something, swim back. 00:18:54.950 --> 00:19:00.020 Because her father was working with imports, he found a way to trade metals with people 00:19:00.020 --> 00:19:02.790 in China; copper, nickel, silver. 00:19:02.790 --> 00:19:08.000 He was doing this illegally which helped him earn just enough to keep his family alive, 00:19:08.000 --> 00:19:12.179 barely enough food, but still no water or electricity in their house. 00:19:12.179 --> 00:19:15.809 Yeonmi’s house was her, her sister, her mom, and dad. 00:19:15.809 --> 00:19:19.270 One day, her dad got caught trading these metals to China. 00:19:19.270 --> 00:19:24.270 YEONMI: That’s why he got in trouble and he sent to a labor camp for that. 00:19:24.270 --> 00:19:27.902 JACK: Because her dad was trading metals with China to earn just a little extra to live, 00:19:27.902 --> 00:19:31.590 he was sentenced to seventeen years in prison. 00:19:31.590 --> 00:19:35.940 This made life much harder for Yeonmi who was only nine. 00:19:35.940 --> 00:19:39.100 Now, around this time, Yeonmi had a friend who she knew. 00:19:39.100 --> 00:19:44.740 Her friend’s mom would sometimes get ahold of illegal movies that were snuck into North 00:19:44.740 --> 00:19:45.740 Korea. 00:19:45.740 --> 00:19:56.760 YEONMI: Yeah, so she saw a lot of Hollywood and South Korean and other foreign movies. 00:19:56.760 --> 00:19:59.690 Also, she [00:20:00] lent it to other people. 00:19:59.690 --> 00:20:03.690 She distributed the foreign information. 00:20:03.690 --> 00:20:08.240 She was publically executed for doing that. 00:20:08.240 --> 00:20:09.890 JACK: What? 00:20:09.890 --> 00:20:11.850 Executed for watching a movie? 00:20:11.850 --> 00:20:13.309 That’s insane. 00:20:13.309 --> 00:20:19.730 But that’s what North Korea believes they have to do to keep their people obedient. 00:20:19.730 --> 00:20:26.070 YEONMI: I think the problem was that in North Korea, you cannot have internet. 00:20:26.070 --> 00:20:27.980 You cannot watch foreign information. 00:20:27.980 --> 00:20:34.270 We can simply here go to a movie theatre and watch a movie but in North Korea, even watching 00:20:34.270 --> 00:20:35.710 a movie can get you get killed. 00:20:35.710 --> 00:20:38.480 JACK: [MUSIC] Oh, that’s another reason why North Korea is a dark place. 00:20:38.480 --> 00:20:43.059 Not only is there no imports of foreign films or music, but there’s no internet. 00:20:43.059 --> 00:20:48.720 People of North Korea cannot access the internet; no e-mails, YouTube, no podcasts, no news. 00:20:48.720 --> 00:20:50.679 There’s one TV channel, one. 00:20:50.679 --> 00:20:52.530 Guess what’s on it? 00:20:52.530 --> 00:20:54.540 Pro-North Korean propaganda. 00:20:54.540 --> 00:21:00.620 Everyone’s given a radio and the only radio station that the radio works on is a pro-North 00:21:00.620 --> 00:21:02.690 Korean propaganda radio station. 00:21:02.690 --> 00:21:06.770 I think you actually have to listen to it on certain days to hear what the Supreme Leader 00:21:06.770 --> 00:21:07.770 is doing. 00:21:07.770 --> 00:21:10.200 Was there any sort of computers in school for you? 00:21:10.200 --> 00:21:11.270 YEONMI: No. 00:21:11.270 --> 00:21:18.650 I never even heard the word like, even ‘internet’. 00:21:18.650 --> 00:21:21.450 I never seen a computer in my life. 00:21:21.450 --> 00:21:27.670 I maybe heard the word slightly somewhere, but never seen one. 00:21:27.670 --> 00:21:29.980 It was not even anyone’s part of life. 00:21:29.980 --> 00:21:34.050 JACK: Now, of course, in a town that has no electricity, this makes sense. 00:21:34.050 --> 00:21:36.610 Of course, she wouldn’t ever see a computer. 00:21:36.610 --> 00:21:40.020 But in the big city of Pyongyang, they do have computers. 00:21:40.020 --> 00:21:41.460 But it’s still very rare. 00:21:41.460 --> 00:21:50.539 YEONMI: The people who were in the elite class in Pyongyang, they do have intranet that the 00:21:50.539 --> 00:21:53.910 regime created to distribute a lot of propaganda materials. 00:21:53.910 --> 00:21:56.559 JACK: You said intranet, not internet. 00:21:56.559 --> 00:21:57.559 YEONMI: Yeah. 00:21:57.559 --> 00:22:00.220 They cannot access, like, go on Facebook. 00:22:00.220 --> 00:22:06.570 They have intranet that is really strictly controlled by the government. 00:22:06.570 --> 00:22:09.150 JACK: Okay. 00:22:09.150 --> 00:22:12.780 Some schools might have that, and some libraries? 00:22:12.780 --> 00:22:20.200 YEONMI: I am sure in Pyongyang they do, but I never seen anything in my eyes, so I don’t 00:22:20.200 --> 00:22:21.300 exactly where they have. 00:22:21.300 --> 00:22:26.080 But the people from elite class told me they did use intranet. 00:22:26.080 --> 00:22:29.659 JACK: You might wonder what kind of computers they have in North Korea. 00:22:29.659 --> 00:22:31.539 Like, are they Windows machines? 00:22:31.539 --> 00:22:32.539 Macs? 00:22:32.539 --> 00:22:36.510 They actually have their own operating system that they made themselves called Red Star 00:22:36.510 --> 00:22:40.400 OS, Red Star being the symbol of their country. 00:22:40.400 --> 00:22:44.990 This is actually a modified Linux system, but it’s severely restricted. 00:22:44.990 --> 00:22:50.210 It has Firefox on it but they renamed it and it’s called My Country instead. 00:22:50.210 --> 00:22:55.309 When you open it, you can only go to a handful of state-sponsored North Korean websites. 00:22:55.309 --> 00:22:59.789 It’s been reported that whatever you do on a North Korean computer gets screenshotted 00:22:59.789 --> 00:23:03.710 and saved, so the police can check and monitor your usage history. 00:23:03.710 --> 00:23:06.840 It even restricts what files can be opened on it. 00:23:06.840 --> 00:23:12.080 I think what bothers me the most about North Korea is this full control over the information 00:23:12.080 --> 00:23:14.050 that the people are allowed to consume. 00:23:14.050 --> 00:23:19.809 There’s literally no way to research anything or fact-check it outside the information that’s 00:23:19.809 --> 00:23:22.230 given to them by their government. 00:23:22.230 --> 00:23:26.410 This ability to control what information the citizens know is what keeps them obedient. 00:23:26.410 --> 00:23:30.860 They literally don’t know what the rest of the world is like, or that they’re being 00:23:30.860 --> 00:23:33.190 treated extremely poorly. 00:23:33.190 --> 00:23:38.180 They are told over and over since they were born that the rest of the world is terrible, 00:23:38.180 --> 00:23:42.410 and they’re being treated with love and great care, so they believe it. 00:23:42.410 --> 00:23:44.409 It’s all they know. 00:23:44.409 --> 00:23:49.490 [MUSIC] Now, when Yeonmi was young living in North Korea, her uncle got a copy of the 00:23:49.490 --> 00:23:52.950 movie Titanic, the one with Leonardo DiCaprio. 00:23:52.950 --> 00:23:54.760 She got a chance to watch it. 00:23:54.760 --> 00:23:57.960 It was dubbed in Korean so she could understand it. 00:23:57.960 --> 00:24:02.230 She knew this was dangerous and she might get in trouble if she was caught, but she 00:24:02.230 --> 00:24:03.230 watched it anyway. 00:24:03.230 --> 00:24:08.740 YEONMI: It was a revolutionary thing as a young girl to watch because I never seen anything 00:24:08.740 --> 00:24:09.740 like that. 00:24:09.740 --> 00:24:13.020 In North Korea, there’s no Romeo and Juliet. 00:24:13.020 --> 00:24:14.730 We do not read about Shakespeare. 00:24:14.730 --> 00:24:17.970 We do not have love songs and love books. 00:24:17.970 --> 00:24:26.320 Watching a movie, it’s made for a love story which I learned in North Korea, I had to – I 00:24:26.320 --> 00:24:29.460 thought it was a shameful thing to love somebody. 00:24:29.460 --> 00:24:34.760 There’s no even a vocabulary in North Korea that we have for ‘love’. 00:24:34.760 --> 00:24:42.420 We only allowed to use the word ‘love’ when we describe our feelings towards the 00:24:42.420 --> 00:24:43.420 Dear Leader and the party. 00:24:43.420 --> 00:24:48.711 I never heard my mom or my father says to each other that they love each other or they 00:24:48.711 --> 00:24:51.490 love me, even. 00:24:51.490 --> 00:24:57.919 Seeing that movie, a man dies for a woman, [00:25:00] it was a revolutionary thing. 00:24:57.919 --> 00:25:04.590 It did give me this turning moment where I thought something might be different – exists 00:25:04.590 --> 00:25:10.430 in the world, and maybe the outside world might not be that bad. 00:25:10.430 --> 00:25:18.090 Because in North Korea, it’s like in George Orwell’s 1984; they say there are enemies 00:25:18.090 --> 00:25:24.380 trying to attack us constantly and we have our Dear Leader to – protecting us from 00:25:24.380 --> 00:25:29.160 these monsters coming to kill us and torture us. 00:25:29.160 --> 00:25:36.360 They teach us how to hate our enemies since our birth, and how to be grateful for Dear 00:25:36.360 --> 00:25:39.490 Leader to protect us. 00:25:39.490 --> 00:25:43.380 Seeing that movie is like oh, I thought all Americans were bastards and monsters. 00:25:43.380 --> 00:25:49.540 It didn’t seem like that in the movie. 00:25:49.540 --> 00:25:54.110 Yeah, that definitely gave me some taste of freedom and humanity, I think. 00:25:54.110 --> 00:25:59.270 JACK: What a strange way to first understand that concept of humanity, by watching Titanic. 00:25:59.270 --> 00:26:05.789 But yet, it was so powerful at the same time, to secretly peer into another culture that 00:26:05.789 --> 00:26:12.400 you aren’t supposed to see and be struck by a completely new concept such as love. 00:26:12.400 --> 00:26:17.789 Remember, she somehow watched this even though she didn’t have electricity, and while the 00:26:17.789 --> 00:26:22.750 town had electricity and her house was wired to the grid, the thing is, is that the town 00:26:22.750 --> 00:26:26.419 just never turned on the electricity for the people living there. 00:26:26.419 --> 00:26:30.980 YEONMI: No, we didn’t – I mean, we did have electricity sometimes. 00:26:30.980 --> 00:26:36.890 Government gives electricity on the days like, Dear Leader birthday. 00:26:36.890 --> 00:26:39.799 Or like, New Year’s Day. 00:26:39.799 --> 00:26:46.809 Those days, they want – they give us electricity so we can watch those propaganda materials. 00:26:46.809 --> 00:26:51.950 Some other time, like summertime, if the water – maybe surprise good, they give like, free 00:26:51.950 --> 00:26:53.059 once in a few months. 00:26:53.059 --> 00:26:58.220 You definitely get it a few times a year. 00:26:58.220 --> 00:27:04.720 You know, sometimes in order to finish a movie, like the movie Titanic, such a long movie, 00:27:04.720 --> 00:27:07.919 it can take months to finish a movie. 00:27:07.919 --> 00:27:13.000 I do remember like, whenever the electricity came, it was the happiest thing, happiest 00:27:13.000 --> 00:27:14.220 event in my life. 00:27:14.220 --> 00:27:18.380 We were just clapping, everyone was going, like, hurray. 00:27:18.380 --> 00:27:22.370 The whole town claps. 00:27:22.370 --> 00:27:27.380 That’s how happy we were, how much that made us happy. 00:27:27.380 --> 00:27:30.029 JACK: [MUSIC] Now, the North Korean borders are locked up pretty tight. 00:27:30.029 --> 00:27:34.529 There are military guards all along the borders making sure nobody is sneaking out, nothing 00:27:34.529 --> 00:27:35.659 is getting snuck in. 00:27:35.659 --> 00:27:39.980 There are still ways to get stuff through and one way to learn how to do that was to 00:27:39.980 --> 00:27:40.980 look at Germany. 00:27:40.980 --> 00:27:45.360 See, there’s actually a few surprising similarities between North Korea and Germany. 00:27:45.360 --> 00:27:50.289 At the end of World War II, both countries were split apart, with half being Soviet-occupied 00:27:50.289 --> 00:27:52.890 in both Germany and North Korea. 00:27:52.890 --> 00:27:57.400 There was East and West Germany with the iconic Berlin Wall keeping people from coming in 00:27:57.400 --> 00:27:58.400 and out. 00:27:58.400 --> 00:28:02.210 Well, the Germans wanted to send propaganda over the wall to the other side, so they would 00:28:02.210 --> 00:28:05.539 tie messages to balloons and float them over. 00:28:05.539 --> 00:28:10.919 In fact, that’s what this song is all about, sending propaganda using balloons over the 00:28:10.919 --> 00:28:11.919 border. 00:28:11.919 --> 00:28:12.919 NENA: [MUSIC] 99 red balloons floating in the summer sky. 00:28:12.919 --> 00:28:13.919 Panic bells, it’s red alert. 00:28:13.919 --> 00:28:14.919 There’s something here from somewhere else. 00:28:14.919 --> 00:28:15.919 The war machine, it springs to life, opens up one eager eye. 00:28:15.919 --> 00:28:16.919 Focusing it on the sky as 99 red balloons go by. 00:28:16.919 --> 00:28:17.919 JACK: Red alert, war machine springs to life focusing on the sky. 00:28:17.919 --> 00:28:20.399 What a strange world to live in when the military is instructed to shoot balloons in fear that 00:28:20.399 --> 00:28:24.809 information might come into the country that you don’t want your people to have. 00:28:24.809 --> 00:28:25.980 Not false information. 00:28:25.980 --> 00:28:27.380 Not lies. 00:28:27.380 --> 00:28:29.080 Just little bits of truth. 00:28:29.080 --> 00:28:32.230 The Koreans began sending balloons too. 00:28:32.230 --> 00:28:35.690 Both sides would send propaganda over to the other side. 00:28:35.690 --> 00:28:40.240 When the wind was right North Korea would send balloons over south Korea and south Korea 00:28:40.240 --> 00:28:41.670 would send them into north Korea. 00:28:41.670 --> 00:28:42.799 Sending messages back and forth to the people. 00:28:42.799 --> 00:28:47.740 And yes military was instructed to shoot at balloons that would float over. 00:28:47.740 --> 00:28:51.289 Eventually a treaty was signed where south Korea would agree to stop sending balloons 00:28:51.289 --> 00:28:54.450 if they could have meetings with the president of north Korea. 00:28:54.450 --> 00:28:57.910 And this happened, so South Korea stopped sending them. 00:28:57.910 --> 00:29:02.680 But those balloons were effective. 00:29:02.680 --> 00:29:03.680 They were working. 00:29:03.680 --> 00:29:09.169 The people of North Korea were reading what was being dropped, and it was very slowly 00:29:09.169 --> 00:29:10.750 opening their eyes. 00:29:10.750 --> 00:29:15.710 So human rights groups saw how effective this was and began floating balloons into North 00:29:15.710 --> 00:29:16.809 Korea. 00:29:16.809 --> 00:29:19.010 It just wasn’t state sponsored any more. 00:29:19.010 --> 00:29:23.570 Human rights groups were sending information in like sports scores, news, and pictures 00:29:23.570 --> 00:29:25.000 of sexy women. 00:29:25.000 --> 00:29:28.220 Doing anything they can to entice the North Koreans escape. 00:29:28.220 --> 00:29:31.230 But this had a limited effect. 00:29:31.230 --> 00:29:35.120 I mean how much information can you put on a leaflet. 00:29:35.120 --> 00:29:37.840 So next we have the radio. 00:29:37.840 --> 00:29:42.490 In north Korea there’s one radio station and your radio is permanently set to that 00:29:42.490 --> 00:29:43.550 station. 00:29:43.550 --> 00:29:47.250 You have to know how to hack the thing to get it to pick up other stations. 00:29:47.250 --> 00:29:52.080 And there are human rights groups broadcasting radio waves into North Korea. 00:29:52.080 --> 00:29:57.340 But of course being caught with a hacked radio would result in a big punishment. 00:29:57.340 --> 00:29:59.340 Prison, torture. 00:29:59.340 --> 00:30:00.520 Maybe execution. 00:30:00.520 --> 00:30:05.040 And so here we are with this major problem of trying to help the people of North Korea 00:30:05.040 --> 00:30:08.769 by injecting information into the darkest network on earth. 00:30:08.769 --> 00:30:10.170 How can we do this? 00:30:10.170 --> 00:30:13.760 After the break, we’ll talk with someone who’s doing it. 00:30:13.760 --> 00:30:14.760 [AD BREAK] 00:30:14.760 --> 00:30:19.780 JACK: There are people who are smuggling information into North Korea, and these people really 00:30:19.780 --> 00:30:22.800 fascinate me, and they might fascinate you too. 00:30:22.800 --> 00:30:24.350 So I want you to meet Alex. 00:30:24.350 --> 00:30:25.740 ALEX: My name is Alex Gladstein. 00:30:25.740 --> 00:30:28.820 I’m the chief strategy officer for the Human Rights Foundation. 00:30:28.820 --> 00:30:33.919 We’re a nonprofit based in New York City with a global focus. 00:30:33.919 --> 00:30:37.980 We help people who live under authoritarian governments. 00:30:37.980 --> 00:30:42.500 JACK: Alex joined the Human Rights Foundation in 2007 and started as an intern. 00:30:42.500 --> 00:30:49.570 ALEX: That summer, my job was to put together backpacks of information which would be taken 00:30:49.570 --> 00:30:54.000 by my Latin American colleagues and smuggled into Cuba to the underground library movement. 00:30:54.000 --> 00:30:58.620 In Cuba, you can’t have a book or a movie, legally speaking, without it being approved 00:30:58.620 --> 00:30:59.620 by the Communist Party. 00:30:59.620 --> 00:31:06.519 Of course, the amount and variety of information that people can access legally, officially, 00:31:06.519 --> 00:31:13.559 is quite limited and obviously very propaganda-driven. 00:31:13.559 --> 00:31:19.500 We sent in all kinds of movies dubbed into Spanish, eBooks, everything from Animal Farm 00:31:19.500 --> 00:31:21.889 to V for Vendetta. 00:31:21.889 --> 00:31:25.679 People would read and watch these things in their homes and create small discussion groups. 00:31:25.679 --> 00:31:27.820 This was a program we ran for several years. 00:31:27.820 --> 00:31:30.340 It was really successful. 00:31:30.340 --> 00:31:35.870 That gave us the confidence and expertise, I would say, to be able to say hey, putting 00:31:35.870 --> 00:31:39.870 information into the hands of people who live under an information monopoly is actually 00:31:39.870 --> 00:31:42.289 really important for a whole bunch of reasons. 00:31:42.289 --> 00:31:45.110 Why don’t we try to help the people in North Korea? 00:31:45.110 --> 00:31:49.620 JACK: Here’s the way I look at it; IT stands for information technology. 00:31:49.620 --> 00:31:54.899 The entire point of IT is to find an effective way of exchanging information between two 00:31:54.899 --> 00:31:57.940 people or places or machines or whatever. 00:31:57.940 --> 00:32:02.470 Hacking typically involves stealing information you aren’t supposed to have. 00:32:02.470 --> 00:32:07.030 But here in North Korea, we have an anomaly, a problem, even. 00:32:07.030 --> 00:32:10.360 [MUSIC] We’re here in the year 2020 now. 00:32:10.360 --> 00:32:17.190 How can we use technology effectively to get information into North Korea? 00:32:17.190 --> 00:32:20.900 This is an IT problem like no other. 00:32:20.900 --> 00:32:26.070 If we could somehow inject information into the country, what would be the perfect elixir 00:32:26.070 --> 00:32:31.149 of truth that would be the most impactful to the people there to get them to either 00:32:31.149 --> 00:32:33.899 leave or overthrow their regime? 00:32:33.899 --> 00:32:39.500 Last decade, they were seeing DVDs getting smuggled into North Korea with all kinds of 00:32:39.500 --> 00:32:41.909 foreign movies and shows on them. 00:32:41.909 --> 00:32:46.150 This was eye-opening to a lot of North Koreans, educating them and teaching them about all 00:32:46.150 --> 00:32:50.760 of the different cultures of the world which opened their eyes to realize their own country 00:32:50.760 --> 00:32:52.299 might not be so good. 00:32:52.299 --> 00:32:56.270 But the government caught onto this and came up with a solution. 00:32:56.270 --> 00:33:01.080 ALEX: The thing with CDs and DVDs is, I mean, they were great for a long time but the problem 00:33:01.080 --> 00:33:04.190 is now – so, what the government will do, sometimes, is come and just shut down the 00:33:04.190 --> 00:33:07.830 electricity in your village, and then they’ll come into your house and they’ll look at 00:33:07.830 --> 00:33:09.279 what was in your DVD player. 00:33:09.279 --> 00:33:12.460 YEONMI: Yeah, that is one of the tactics the government use. 00:33:12.460 --> 00:33:16.409 They really do want to control what we think, right? 00:33:16.409 --> 00:33:20.500 People still go risk their life to watch this foreign information. 00:33:20.500 --> 00:33:23.240 China is a good source. 00:33:23.240 --> 00:33:30.159 A lot of smugglers to go China and bring these DVDs. 00:33:30.159 --> 00:33:32.409 They contain the foreign information, the foreign movies. 00:33:32.409 --> 00:33:39.860 When people watch this, the government tried, really tried to be tricky. 00:33:39.860 --> 00:33:45.020 They give the electricity out of nowhere and then, so, then they shut it down. 00:33:45.020 --> 00:33:51.750 When that happened, you cannot really get the DVD out of the player. 00:33:51.750 --> 00:33:57.500 These police would get these people and punish them and send them to camp or sometimes even 00:33:57.500 --> 00:33:58.500 execution. 00:33:58.500 --> 00:34:04.760 JACK: You say if you get caught with a DVD from another country, you might get executed 00:34:04.760 --> 00:34:06.720 for that? 00:34:06.720 --> 00:34:11.929 YEONMI: The thing is with these dictatorships, is that they are not consistent. 00:34:11.929 --> 00:34:16.460 They sometimes execute someone for eating cow. 00:34:16.460 --> 00:34:25.619 My mom saw this young man got executed because he stole a cow from the farm, the dear union. 00:34:25.619 --> 00:34:29.770 He had TB, so he ate the cow. 00:34:29.770 --> 00:34:36.730 That was his crime that he was executed – the human life is less value than even cow in 00:34:36.730 --> 00:34:37.840 North Korea. 00:34:37.840 --> 00:34:44.220 Sometimes not; so, the government is not always executing people for watching foreign information, 00:34:44.220 --> 00:34:49.720 but they will make a showcase when they want to spread fear, like when they show people 00:34:49.720 --> 00:34:55.929 this is what you’re gonna be, this is what you’re gonna get if you watch [00:35:00] 00:34:55.929 --> 00:34:56.929 foreign information. 00:34:56.929 --> 00:34:59.550 They do these showcases and then execute people. 00:34:59.550 --> 00:35:05.020 But I did also hear people that who wasn’t executed for watching DVDs and just sent to 00:35:05.020 --> 00:35:06.349 prison camp. 00:35:06.349 --> 00:35:13.339 Yeah, technically, you can definitely get executed for watching something like banned 00:35:13.339 --> 00:35:17.119 information the government don’t want you to watch. 00:35:17.119 --> 00:35:23.260 JACK: [MUSIC] Hm, so it sounds like CDs and DVDs aren’t a good solution here. 00:35:23.260 --> 00:35:30.760 What people have been doing is putting information on USB flash drives and sometimes SD cards, 00:35:30.760 --> 00:35:35.950 because you can easily take them out and hide them if the power is shut off to your house. 00:35:35.950 --> 00:35:38.980 You could put a lot more information on them compared to DVDs, too. 00:35:38.980 --> 00:35:43.631 ALEX: The other thing is that, I mean, it sounds horrifying, but in a pinch, you can 00:35:43.631 --> 00:35:45.000 swallow it, right? 00:35:45.000 --> 00:35:46.000 Just eat it. 00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:47.240 You can’t really do that with a DVD. 00:35:47.240 --> 00:35:48.890 This is what defectors have told me. 00:35:48.890 --> 00:35:51.180 SD cards are really interesting ‘cause they’re really super-tiny. 00:35:51.180 --> 00:35:54.680 Obviously, super-easy to conceal. 00:35:54.680 --> 00:36:00.480 The smaller we can make storage technology, the easier it’ll be to get information into 00:36:00.480 --> 00:36:06.240 dictatorships and the harder it will be for authoritarians to control and have information 00:36:06.240 --> 00:36:07.240 monopoly. 00:36:07.240 --> 00:36:11.450 JACK: Alex developed a plan to sneak USB drives into North Korea. 00:36:11.450 --> 00:36:14.400 They called the project Flash Drives for Freedom. 00:36:14.400 --> 00:36:17.930 ALEX: That’s what we assessed with the Flash Drives for Freedom initiative, is that hey, 00:36:17.930 --> 00:36:21.590 there needs to be a way to get everybody in the world involved with getting information 00:36:21.590 --> 00:36:22.590 into North Korea. 00:36:22.590 --> 00:36:28.180 It’s come up with an idea, so one of my colleagues, Jim Warnock, came up with the 00:36:28.180 --> 00:36:29.180 name Flash Drives for Freedom. 00:36:29.180 --> 00:36:33.230 Some guys at Leo Burnett, the really prominent ad company, decided to volunteer to create 00:36:33.230 --> 00:36:38.380 that imagery that you’ve seen, which is the Kim Jong Un face with the blue background 00:36:38.380 --> 00:36:40.360 with the USB mouth. 00:36:40.360 --> 00:36:45.950 We debuted at South by Southwest 2016 and we’ve raised enough support to be able to 00:36:45.950 --> 00:36:49.849 send in, at this point, more than 70,000 flash drives into North Korea. 00:36:49.849 --> 00:36:53.831 If you just think about that for a second, there’s about twenty-five million people 00:36:53.831 --> 00:37:00.230 in North Korea, and 70,000 USB sticks, I mean, each one gets shared a lot. 00:37:00.230 --> 00:37:04.950 Remember, these are very valuable so not only is each movie watched by a small group, but 00:37:04.950 --> 00:37:07.300 once you’re done with it, you give it to somebody else. 00:37:07.300 --> 00:37:11.160 Based on our field work, each flash drive gets shared at least ten times. 00:37:11.160 --> 00:37:15.670 We’re talking, like, close to a million people who have been directly influenced by 00:37:15.670 --> 00:37:21.430 the work that we’ve done, and we think potentially a lot more when you think about other effects. 00:37:21.430 --> 00:37:25.470 With more support from people, we can make a much bigger difference. 00:37:25.470 --> 00:37:28.869 JACK: This is the strangest way to hack I’ve ever seen. 00:37:28.869 --> 00:37:33.070 Picture the whole country of North Korea like a super-secure network; nothing gets in or 00:37:33.070 --> 00:37:36.990 out of there and your goal is to get data into the network. 00:37:36.990 --> 00:37:41.400 Not to poison it or corrupt it, but no, it’s just to correct the data that’s in there. 00:37:41.400 --> 00:37:45.930 The data inside North Korea is poison and the antidote is on the USB drives. 00:37:45.930 --> 00:37:49.119 [MUSIC] How do you hack this network to get the data in? 00:37:49.119 --> 00:37:54.010 ALEX: Well, I guess it would start with, I don’t know, maybe a school in Wisconsin 00:37:54.010 --> 00:37:58.430 hears about the drive, they read about it in the media, so they do a little collection 00:37:58.430 --> 00:37:59.780 at lunchtime. 00:37:59.780 --> 00:38:08.250 They mail us six flash drives, so they go to our collection point in Paulo Alto. 00:38:08.250 --> 00:38:10.540 Usually the flash drives we receive are new. 00:38:10.540 --> 00:38:16.329 If they’re not new, we work with security experts to wipe them in as complete way as 00:38:16.329 --> 00:38:17.329 we can. 00:38:17.329 --> 00:38:23.140 At that point, they’re packaged up and shipped to South Korea to our partners that are several 00:38:23.140 --> 00:38:27.400 organizations there, as I mentioned, that are led by North Koreans focused on getting 00:38:27.400 --> 00:38:29.390 this stuff into South Korea. 00:38:29.390 --> 00:38:33.190 At that point, the drives will arrive at their offices. 00:38:33.190 --> 00:38:38.050 They’ve been running these focus groups, okay, so, in previous weeks up until this 00:38:38.050 --> 00:38:42.990 day that we’re talking about, they’ve been sitting down recent people who’ve arrived 00:38:42.990 --> 00:38:48.810 to South Korea from North Korea, and interviewing them about what kind of content is hot right 00:38:48.810 --> 00:38:51.220 now or what’s interesting right now. 00:38:51.220 --> 00:38:57.400 They’ve also been doing sessions where they’ll watch – they’ll play certain content and 00:38:57.400 --> 00:38:58.600 see how it rates. 00:38:58.600 --> 00:39:02.510 It’s sort of like with TV in the United States, but we’re trying to get the most 00:39:02.510 --> 00:39:04.710 effective content possible. 00:39:04.710 --> 00:39:11.100 Once a batch is determined, once a particular mix of perhaps interviews with defectors, 00:39:11.100 --> 00:39:15.910 dramas, soap operas, movies, maybe some outside clippings of news. 00:39:15.910 --> 00:39:21.050 YEONMI: Some of them have the gospels, they have the Bible verses. 00:39:21.050 --> 00:39:31.530 Some of them have the American TV show Friends or the Housewives, the reality shows, or the 00:39:31.530 --> 00:39:36.130 fashion shows, or sitcom, or thriller. 00:39:36.130 --> 00:39:44.580 ALEX: Once a particular elixir of truth is mixed and put onto the drives, they have these 00:39:44.580 --> 00:39:49.730 little machines where you can basically upload – it looks like a surge protector, but you 00:39:49.730 --> 00:39:53.430 can basically do twenty drives at a time. 00:39:53.430 --> 00:39:56.760 They’re [00:40:00] packaged up and flown into China. 00:39:56.760 --> 00:39:58.630 JACK: How many are packaged up? 00:39:58.630 --> 00:40:00.880 On this mission, how many would go at once? 00:40:00.880 --> 00:40:08.240 ALEX: Yeah, so, it’s pretty slow because of how delicate the process is. 00:40:08.240 --> 00:40:13.100 But you’re usually talking a couple hundred at a time. 00:40:13.100 --> 00:40:19.150 To do more at scale, which we’ve done, has just required a lot of creativity which I 00:40:19.150 --> 00:40:20.500 won’t go into all the details, obviously. 00:40:20.500 --> 00:40:24.890 But let’s just say you fly into one of the cities in [MUSIC] China that’s close to 00:40:24.890 --> 00:40:29.150 North Korea and you head towards the border. 00:40:29.150 --> 00:40:33.400 JACK: Now, there’s a few different ways to get things into North Korea. 00:40:33.400 --> 00:40:38.610 For instance, there are people like Yeonmi’s father who would import foods and items into 00:40:38.610 --> 00:40:39.610 the country. 00:40:39.610 --> 00:40:41.790 He had to go into China to get the stuff and bring it back. 00:40:41.790 --> 00:40:45.230 After all, he was a civil servant and had permission to do this. 00:40:45.230 --> 00:40:49.460 See, China and North Korea border each other and often, there’s a small town on the Chinese 00:40:49.460 --> 00:40:51.010 side of the border. 00:40:51.010 --> 00:40:54.630 He’d go across the border into the Chinese town as part of his job. 00:40:54.630 --> 00:40:57.660 ALEX: In these Chinese towns, there are markets. 00:40:57.660 --> 00:41:04.450 There are people, Chinese people, who are selling everything from solar panels to clothing 00:41:04.450 --> 00:41:10.130 to food, and North Koreans come in and buy them and then bring them into North Korea. 00:41:10.130 --> 00:41:11.730 It’s like, there are these bridges. 00:41:11.730 --> 00:41:17.580 Yeah, there’s lots of truck and car activity or even just pedestrian activity. 00:41:17.580 --> 00:41:20.579 In the winter, the whole thing freezes over, so they can just walk across. 00:41:20.579 --> 00:41:24.550 JACK: Yeah, why not just give people at these Chinese markets a ton of these USB drives 00:41:24.550 --> 00:41:28.560 for free and then see if they can help get them into North Korea somehow? 00:41:28.560 --> 00:41:33.130 Sure, the Chinese shop owners will probably charge for it, but at least it’s available 00:41:33.130 --> 00:41:35.840 to buy if somebody’s looking around for these things. 00:41:35.840 --> 00:41:41.610 ALEX: People often say that a USB stick of movies or news articles or something is basically 00:41:41.610 --> 00:41:44.490 like gold in North Korea. 00:41:44.490 --> 00:41:46.690 People will risk a lot to get it. 00:41:46.690 --> 00:41:50.240 JACK: Yeah, if you know a certain Chinese market might have some, the people of North 00:41:50.240 --> 00:41:53.690 Korea will find a way to get to that market and get them. 00:41:53.690 --> 00:42:00.440 ALEX: Instead of even sending in pre-recorded flash drives, sometimes people will send in 00:42:00.440 --> 00:42:06.890 a giant terabyte drive that’s packed with content, and then a whole bunch of empty ones 00:42:06.890 --> 00:42:09.460 so that the person can act like a disseminator. 00:42:09.460 --> 00:42:16.060 You can really think about it like buying illegal drugs in a country in a democracy. 00:42:16.060 --> 00:42:18.250 It’s sort of the same thing. 00:42:18.250 --> 00:42:20.300 You might go to the market and kind of look around furtively. 00:42:20.300 --> 00:42:25.859 Oh, maybe you see someone who you’re like hey, and then you kind of exchange words, 00:42:25.859 --> 00:42:31.589 and you follow them into a quieter place and do a deal where you pay for a flash drive. 00:42:31.589 --> 00:42:36.359 Instead of paying for weed or something, you’re paying for a flash drive with outside content 00:42:36.359 --> 00:42:37.359 on it. 00:42:37.359 --> 00:42:39.970 You bring that home, you watch it with your family, and then maybe you share it. 00:42:39.970 --> 00:42:43.319 It’s kind of like the whole life cycle here. 00:42:43.319 --> 00:42:45.520 JACK: Okay, that’s one way to do it. 00:42:45.520 --> 00:42:47.840 There’s certainly a high level of risk here, too. 00:42:47.840 --> 00:42:52.770 [MUSIC] But again, being able to have these small USB drives means you can conceal it 00:42:52.770 --> 00:42:56.130 pretty well and get it across the border. 00:42:56.130 --> 00:42:58.069 But there’s another way to do it. 00:42:58.069 --> 00:43:04.360 Alex works with people to actually smuggle the drives into North Korea themselves, which 00:43:04.360 --> 00:43:07.040 has to be quite the adventure and super-secretive. 00:43:07.040 --> 00:43:14.160 ALEX: I’m not gonna go into the actual details of this because that would be really dangerous 00:43:14.160 --> 00:43:20.130 but generally speaking, there are trust networks. 00:43:20.130 --> 00:43:24.390 When you defect from North Korea, you’re paying someone to take you physically out 00:43:24.390 --> 00:43:28.890 of North Korea across the river and put you on some sort of track to freedom. 00:43:28.890 --> 00:43:34.750 Now, sometimes, they are being malicious and they – 70% of all people who leave North 00:43:34.750 --> 00:43:39.010 Korea are women and a lot of them – by some accounts, nearly all of them get sucked into 00:43:39.010 --> 00:43:40.819 some sort of trafficking ring. 00:43:40.819 --> 00:43:46.089 But some of the people, obviously the folks who eventually make it out, found some sort 00:43:46.089 --> 00:43:50.160 of human network that got them from North Korea to where they made it from. 00:43:50.160 --> 00:43:54.140 Now, when you get out and you come to South Korea and you’re now a free person and you’re 00:43:54.140 --> 00:43:59.170 thinking about what to do, you still can contact that person or those people. 00:43:59.170 --> 00:44:05.620 These networks of people who go back and forth are known to North Korean defectors. 00:44:05.620 --> 00:44:08.670 Each North Korean defector has a unique escape route that they took. 00:44:08.670 --> 00:44:13.609 There’s thousands and thousands and thousands of these human networks that help people get 00:44:13.609 --> 00:44:18.190 from North Korea into China and eventually into freedom or into subjugation, depending 00:44:18.190 --> 00:44:19.510 on what happens. 00:44:19.510 --> 00:44:25.000 But each of these – and whether it’s on a boat or across a frozen river, or under 00:44:25.000 --> 00:44:30.400 the eyes of a bribed official at a military tower, there’s many, many different ways 00:44:30.400 --> 00:44:31.700 to escape. 00:44:31.700 --> 00:44:37.540 Every way of escape is also a way of sending something in, if that makes sense. 00:44:37.540 --> 00:44:42.720 JACK: Again, I can’t overstate this enough that this is so extremely risky. 00:44:42.720 --> 00:44:46.340 If you get caught in North Korea doing this, it’s really bad news for you. 00:44:46.340 --> 00:44:51.589 North Korea has a lot of concentration camps, so the worst-case scenario is if you get caught, 00:44:51.589 --> 00:44:55.870 you might go to one of these concentration camps and [00:45:00] never come back. 00:44:55.870 --> 00:45:00.930 But those who do make it back have horrifying stories, stories of being tortured to heinous 00:45:00.930 --> 00:45:01.930 degrees. 00:45:01.930 --> 00:45:05.220 I don’t even want to explain what I’ve heard because it’s just stuff that you’ll 00:45:05.220 --> 00:45:07.090 never forget, and it’s sickening. 00:45:07.090 --> 00:45:11.740 But even knowing that you might get caught and tortured, people still try to smuggle 00:45:11.740 --> 00:45:14.310 these USB drives over the border. 00:45:14.310 --> 00:45:17.270 But sometimes even when you get caught, there are ways out of it. 00:45:17.270 --> 00:45:21.610 ALEX: When it comes to the government there, they would like to say they’re the most 00:45:21.610 --> 00:45:25.540 pure, whatever, country in the world, but it’s probably the most corrupt country in 00:45:25.540 --> 00:45:28.150 the world. 00:45:28.150 --> 00:45:33.119 Especially the soldiers who are sitting out there right now – so, we’re filming this 00:45:33.119 --> 00:45:36.480 podcast in December, so it’s a Siberian winter, literally. 00:45:36.480 --> 00:45:40.130 Russia’s border is right there as well. 00:45:40.130 --> 00:45:43.579 We’re talking one of the most brutal winter climates in the world. 00:45:43.579 --> 00:45:49.551 You’re sitting out there in the freezing snow, probably with no heat or whatever, and 00:45:49.551 --> 00:45:53.410 you’re just kind of assigned to watch this river border. 00:45:53.410 --> 00:45:59.500 Yeah, if someone – if you encounter somebody and you’re the only one there in this massive, 00:45:59.500 --> 00:46:05.530 porous region and you find someone who’s trying to escape, if they’re like, what 00:46:05.530 --> 00:46:09.099 if I give you all of this – all these cigarettes or whatever, will you let me go? 00:46:09.099 --> 00:46:10.550 You’re probably gonna say yes. 00:46:10.550 --> 00:46:14.420 There’s a lot of bribing that happens and a lot of these officials end up getting sucked 00:46:14.420 --> 00:46:16.290 into these information rings. 00:46:16.290 --> 00:46:19.000 JACK: These are just a few ways to get drives into North Korea. 00:46:19.000 --> 00:46:23.200 I’m sure there’s been experiences with people floating packages down the river or 00:46:23.200 --> 00:46:28.490 balloons over, or even flying drones and then dropping some, and then flying them back real 00:46:28.490 --> 00:46:29.490 quick. 00:46:29.490 --> 00:46:33.119 Once these flash drives get into North Korea, it becomes part of their grey market. 00:46:33.119 --> 00:46:36.580 It sounds more like a black market to me, but Alex says it’s a grey market. 00:46:36.580 --> 00:46:41.560 ALEX: Yeah, I say grey market ‘cause technically, it’s supposed to be a communist state, but 00:46:41.560 --> 00:46:45.480 the government has realized that they can’t provide for the people. 00:46:45.480 --> 00:46:49.990 The average annual income is way higher than the national wage. 00:46:49.990 --> 00:46:53.180 Everybody’s doing a little something on the side, some sort of arbitrage, some sort 00:46:53.180 --> 00:46:55.930 of buying and selling, all throughout North Korea. 00:46:55.930 --> 00:46:59.040 A lot of that stuff that they’re moving around and buying and selling came from China. 00:46:59.040 --> 00:47:02.790 Again, there’s this massive influx of outside stuff. 00:47:02.790 --> 00:47:13.050 When someone gets caught, a large percentage of those people are able to bribe their way 00:47:13.050 --> 00:47:14.470 out of it. 00:47:14.470 --> 00:47:18.630 The people who are not able to bribe their way out of it, several different things can 00:47:18.630 --> 00:47:19.630 happen. 00:47:19.630 --> 00:47:25.800 I’ve spoken to people who have been basically put in prison for a couple weeks as a lesson, 00:47:25.800 --> 00:47:29.630 maybe tortured, but not killed or put in a prison camp. 00:47:29.630 --> 00:47:37.839 Then, of course, there are people who are put into a prison camp for counter-revolutionary 00:47:37.839 --> 00:47:39.319 activities. 00:47:39.319 --> 00:47:40.809 This absolutely happens. 00:47:40.809 --> 00:47:43.490 JACK: You said not just one person but maybe the family, too. 00:47:43.490 --> 00:47:44.490 ALEX: Yeah. 00:47:44.490 --> 00:47:47.140 Depending on what kind of example they want to make out of you, right? 00:47:47.140 --> 00:47:49.730 It’s always about human context. 00:47:49.730 --> 00:47:57.210 If you’re in a particular city or town in North Korea and you’re a emblematic person 00:47:57.210 --> 00:48:05.360 who represents – who’s a prominent person in that area and you’re caught, they may 00:48:05.360 --> 00:48:06.960 want to make an example out of you. 00:48:06.960 --> 00:48:11.119 They might make a big deal of it and round up your whole family and take you away. 00:48:11.119 --> 00:48:13.280 You may never see them again. 00:48:13.280 --> 00:48:19.359 JACK: How, I don’t know, bloodthirsty is the government to try to find these things? 00:48:19.359 --> 00:48:23.260 ‘Cause you said earlier, they may shut off the power to try to find CD and drives. 00:48:23.260 --> 00:48:24.260 ALEX: Very. 00:48:24.260 --> 00:48:25.589 JACK: Are they really looking that hard? 00:48:25.589 --> 00:48:31.220 ALEX: Very, ‘cause their entire architecture of power relies on having an information monopoly. 00:48:31.220 --> 00:48:35.660 If a certain percentage of the North Korean people realize that what they’re told, that 00:48:35.660 --> 00:48:38.599 they’re the luckiest people in the world and then everything else is like a dumpster 00:48:38.599 --> 00:48:43.250 fire is not true, things will change very quickly. 00:48:43.250 --> 00:48:45.690 It’s just a matter of time. 00:48:45.690 --> 00:48:51.540 Right now, no one really knows, but certainly less than half of North Koreans actually know, 00:48:51.540 --> 00:48:54.450 like, have a good grasp of what the outside world is like. 00:48:54.450 --> 00:48:56.480 It’s probably closer to less than a third. 00:48:56.480 --> 00:48:58.780 Maybe even less than a quarter. 00:48:58.780 --> 00:48:59.780 No one really knows. 00:48:59.780 --> 00:49:01.780 There’s no way to do a comprehensive study. 00:49:01.780 --> 00:49:05.440 You can interview people who’ve escaped, of course, but you’re getting a biased sample 00:49:05.440 --> 00:49:06.440 size. 00:49:06.440 --> 00:49:09.530 You’re only interviewing people who managed to escape, which is a tiny little fraction 00:49:09.530 --> 00:49:10.549 of the actual population. 00:49:10.549 --> 00:49:16.510 But let’s say it’s like, for the purposes of this hypothetical, that one out of every 00:49:16.510 --> 00:49:22.380 three North Koreans today realizes that everything they’ve been told is a lie, they’re in 00:49:22.380 --> 00:49:23.380 the minority. 00:49:23.380 --> 00:49:27.710 Once that number becomes north of fifty or even gets to seventy, eighty percent, there’s 00:49:27.710 --> 00:49:32.460 no way that the government can sustain itself. 00:49:32.460 --> 00:49:36.030 Every program has to have a goal. 00:49:36.030 --> 00:49:38.359 What is our goal? 00:49:38.359 --> 00:49:43.230 I think, from everything we’ve been told, the idea that there’s gonna be some sort 00:49:43.230 --> 00:49:47.170 of grassroots revolution which is not gonna happen in North Korea; the monopoly of power 00:49:47.170 --> 00:49:50.859 and violence is too stacked on the government’s side. 00:49:50.859 --> 00:49:55.410 However, what could very well happen is some sort of coup at the top [00:50:00] where the 00:49:55.410 --> 00:50:01.160 military or the one percent in North Korea just learn enough about what’s going on 00:50:01.160 --> 00:50:05.150 in the outside world where they’re basically like, enough of this, and they get rid of 00:50:05.150 --> 00:50:10.650 this theocratic Kim dynasty, and they take power for themselves. 00:50:10.650 --> 00:50:16.849 You have a military dictatorship in North Korea now, no longer a theocratic sort of 00:50:16.849 --> 00:50:21.510 dynasty, but you have a military dictatorship in North Korea that’s willing to negotiate. 00:50:21.510 --> 00:50:26.680 Kim Jung’s Un’s uncle was one of these guys, but they called him a reformer ‘cause 00:50:26.680 --> 00:50:28.033 he’s the one who used to deal with the Chinese. 00:50:28.033 --> 00:50:34.520 Now, of course, Kim Jun Un saw this as a threat and they killed him within weeks of taking 00:50:34.520 --> 00:50:35.520 power. 00:50:35.520 --> 00:50:39.690 One of the first things he did as a signal to everybody else that oh, we’re gonna get 00:50:39.690 --> 00:50:40.820 rid of all the reformers. 00:50:40.820 --> 00:50:47.130 But if the Kim family moves out of the equation, all of a sudden you have a huge opportunity 00:50:47.130 --> 00:50:51.049 for actually having a constructive dialogue with the North Korean government where it’s 00:50:51.049 --> 00:50:56.640 like oh, well, if you guys close five prison camps, we’ll let you compete in the Olympics 00:50:56.640 --> 00:50:57.640 or something. 00:50:57.640 --> 00:51:00.270 This would actually open the door to this. 00:51:00.270 --> 00:51:07.630 Okay, if you disassemble five tactical weapons, then we’ll allow you – we’ll get rid 00:51:07.630 --> 00:51:09.610 of this particular sanction scheme. 00:51:09.610 --> 00:51:16.220 You could actually start having this discussion if there wasn’t a lunatic theocratic religious 00:51:16.220 --> 00:51:19.400 government in North Korea, if it was just a straight-up military dictatorship. 00:51:19.400 --> 00:51:26.339 That’s, I think, what we want as a first step towards a free North Korea which would 00:51:26.339 --> 00:51:29.590 be, of course, part of – the whole peninsula would be a free country. 00:51:29.590 --> 00:51:31.510 It would be one Korea. 00:51:31.510 --> 00:51:34.640 That’s, of course, the ultimate vision here. 00:51:34.640 --> 00:51:39.599 JACK: [MUSIC] It’s so amazing to me to think that if enough people in North Korea had the 00:51:39.599 --> 00:51:44.569 right elixir of truth, it would result in a country flipping over. 00:51:44.569 --> 00:51:48.180 You might think that by watching Titanic, you won’t suddenly start protesting. 00:51:48.180 --> 00:51:50.420 That’s true; that’s probably not enough. 00:51:50.420 --> 00:51:54.569 But at the same time, you might wake up to your father being hauled off to a prison camp 00:51:54.569 --> 00:51:59.290 simply for making a phone call, or you just might be starving to death, or freezing to 00:51:59.290 --> 00:52:00.290 death. 00:52:00.290 --> 00:52:04.530 If you push someone into a corner with no way out, they’ll do something completely 00:52:04.530 --> 00:52:07.390 unexpected just to survive. 00:52:07.390 --> 00:52:12.810 The people of North Korea are pushed into a corner every day, so sometimes, just a little 00:52:12.810 --> 00:52:17.540 drop of truth is all that it takes for them to break out of their thought-controlled mind 00:52:17.540 --> 00:52:21.900 and realize that the dictator has purposely been starving people to death just to keep 00:52:21.900 --> 00:52:24.250 them in order. For what? 00:52:24.250 --> 00:52:25.790 Just to maintain his power? 00:52:25.790 --> 00:52:31.030 There’s a formula somewhere in here that as the lack of humanity goes lower and knowledge 00:52:31.030 --> 00:52:36.559 of the outside world gets higher, at some place, it’ll be a tipping point for North 00:52:36.559 --> 00:52:37.559 Korea. 00:52:37.559 --> 00:52:38.559 YEONMI: Definitely. 00:52:38.559 --> 00:52:43.150 I mean, there, that’s the only thing, I think, is gonna – it’s a really long-term 00:52:43.150 --> 00:52:44.190 investment, right? 00:52:44.190 --> 00:52:49.590 North Korean regime has been there for more than seventy years. 00:52:49.590 --> 00:52:54.740 In thirty more years, it’s gonna be one century it’s been this way. 00:52:54.740 --> 00:53:02.950 They’ve been doing this brainwashing so many years on people’s minds. 00:53:02.950 --> 00:53:10.970 Only de-brainwashing these people is the truth. 00:53:10.970 --> 00:53:13.480 These USBs contain truth in it. 00:53:13.480 --> 00:53:19.460 It has information about freedom and human rights, and all about this world. 00:53:19.460 --> 00:53:28.829 I think, even though we might not see a revolution right now, but it accumulates and it gradually 00:53:28.829 --> 00:53:30.970 shifts people’s mindsets. 00:53:30.970 --> 00:53:35.300 That turning point can happen any time. 00:53:35.300 --> 00:53:41.849 I think the only change in North Korea should happen is when people demand the change in 00:53:41.849 --> 00:53:42.849 North Korea. 00:53:42.849 --> 00:53:45.339 It’s not by like, military invasion. 00:53:45.339 --> 00:53:46.730 Not by anything. 00:53:46.730 --> 00:53:53.080 It should be that the North Korean people demand their rights and their freedom. 00:53:53.080 --> 00:54:01.369 To do that, we need to show this information through these drives, flash drives we have. 00:54:01.369 --> 00:54:08.740 JACK: But what I’m worried about is that people can be tortured or put to the camp 00:54:08.740 --> 00:54:11.619 or executed for having these drives. 00:54:11.619 --> 00:54:14.450 Are we putting them in danger? 00:54:14.450 --> 00:54:20.630 YEONMI: But without even doing that, they can starve to death for no reason. 00:54:20.630 --> 00:54:24.220 They get sent to prison for so many other things. 00:54:24.220 --> 00:54:26.910 What is the alternative? 00:54:26.910 --> 00:54:31.800 It’s like being a slave and being killed for so many other things. 00:54:31.800 --> 00:54:36.220 I think that’s like, yeah, it is true. 00:54:36.220 --> 00:54:43.410 But when we send those drives, it’s not like we force them to watch. 00:54:43.410 --> 00:54:47.040 We are not, like, torturing these people, like, you must watch this information. 00:54:47.040 --> 00:54:52.869 We just give them the option to choose, and they always have the option to not watch them. 00:54:52.869 --> 00:54:58.660 But myself and my [00:55:00] parents, we took that risk and we watched Titanic, and we learned 00:54:58.660 --> 00:55:03.240 about the world, and we came out. 00:55:03.240 --> 00:55:10.130 If we forcefully showing them these things about the free world, that might be not fair. 00:55:10.130 --> 00:55:15.880 But because we just give them the option to choose to learn about the truth, I think we’re 00:55:15.880 --> 00:55:18.120 only doing their favor. 00:55:18.120 --> 00:55:24.000 Even though with even this, actually, North Korean people already demanding truth with 00:55:24.000 --> 00:55:26.630 that flash drives project. 00:55:26.630 --> 00:55:29.339 They buy this information in the black market. 00:55:29.339 --> 00:55:32.849 They pay their money even in that poverty. 00:55:32.849 --> 00:55:35.450 These people are so hungry for truth. 00:55:35.450 --> 00:55:42.750 Even we – only getting more flash drives that bring down the cost so much like excessive 00:55:42.750 --> 00:55:49.380 supplies bring down the cost, and people are gonna easily access information without too 00:55:49.380 --> 00:55:52.710 much money they are paying for it at the moment. 00:55:52.710 --> 00:55:56.250 JACK: Yeonmi’s mother had to leave her two daughters home alone in the winter. 00:55:56.250 --> 00:55:58.789 Yeonmi was nine and her sister was eleven. 00:55:58.789 --> 00:56:03.369 To survive, they would have to go to the mountains and pick grass and flowers to eat. 00:56:03.369 --> 00:56:07.550 [MUSIC] This was probably the most horrible winter she ever experienced in her life. 00:56:07.550 --> 00:56:12.309 No heat in the house, no food, no water other than the frozen Yalu River. 00:56:12.309 --> 00:56:14.109 No electricity. 00:56:14.109 --> 00:56:16.289 Somehow, she got through it. 00:56:16.289 --> 00:56:21.160 Yeonmi’s father developed cancer while in prison, so he bribed someone to go home so 00:56:21.160 --> 00:56:22.240 he can be treated. 00:56:22.240 --> 00:56:26.930 But even though the family was together, it was still a massive struggle to survive. 00:56:26.930 --> 00:56:28.970 There was still no food. 00:56:28.970 --> 00:56:32.270 Out of pure necessity, she needed to find a way to survive. 00:56:32.270 --> 00:56:37.400 YEONMI: My case was – I didn’t escape to be free. 00:56:37.400 --> 00:56:38.970 I was very hungry. 00:56:38.970 --> 00:56:44.140 If I stayed there, I was just gonna die. 00:56:44.140 --> 00:56:50.710 My only motivation was starvation; I wanted to find something to eat. 00:56:50.710 --> 00:56:55.099 That was going where the lights were. 00:56:55.099 --> 00:57:01.310 I was in the older part of North Korea, Hyesan, and as you said, right across the river, there’s 00:57:01.310 --> 00:57:02.310 China. 00:57:02.310 --> 00:57:06.040 There are highways, there are cars running on the highways. 00:57:06.040 --> 00:57:12.569 They have these streetlights, and they have lights at night. 00:57:12.569 --> 00:57:18.520 As a child, I thought, looking at China, if I go where the lights are, maybe I will find 00:57:18.520 --> 00:57:19.910 something to eat. 00:57:19.910 --> 00:57:22.750 That’s how I escaped. 00:57:22.750 --> 00:57:28.520 JACK: Yeonmi and her mother paid someone to smuggle them into China, leaving her father 00:57:28.520 --> 00:57:29.520 behind. 00:57:29.520 --> 00:57:33.789 Now, keep in mind, if the Chinese police had caught them, they would have sent them back 00:57:33.789 --> 00:57:37.510 to North Korea which would have put them right into a prison camp. 00:57:37.510 --> 00:57:41.010 ALEX: Because China’s a communist country with some sort of allegiance to North Korea, 00:57:41.010 --> 00:57:45.660 if you get caught as a North Korean in China, they send you back. 00:57:45.660 --> 00:57:46.960 It’s called repatriation. 00:57:46.960 --> 00:57:51.440 It’s a horrible practice that is honestly one of the cruelest things that the Chinese 00:57:51.440 --> 00:57:55.170 government does, and it does a lot of cruel things; like for example, keeping a million 00:57:55.170 --> 00:57:57.599 Muslims in prison camps right now. 00:57:57.599 --> 00:58:02.210 But when you’re sending someone back to North Korea, they’re facing either execution, 00:58:02.210 --> 00:58:08.420 of course without trial or with a mock trial, or more likely imprisonment in a gulag where 00:58:08.420 --> 00:58:10.590 they’re gonna starve to death or something. 00:58:10.590 --> 00:58:15.859 JACK: As you heard, Yeonmi narrowly escaped and made it to South Korea. 00:58:15.859 --> 00:58:18.280 When she got there, she started attending a school. 00:58:18.280 --> 00:58:22.640 One day, the teacher asked her what her favorite color was. 00:58:22.640 --> 00:58:25.839 This was the first time ever anyone asked her this. 00:58:25.839 --> 00:58:27.430 She was fourteen years old. 00:58:27.430 --> 00:58:34.280 YEONMI: I didn’t understand the question because in North Korea, nobody asked me what 00:58:34.280 --> 00:58:39.569 I thought, like what I want or what I like, what I dislike. 00:58:39.569 --> 00:58:44.070 It was not even a concept, as a concept for people to ask each other. 00:58:44.070 --> 00:58:48.080 JACK: She didn’t know she was allowed to have a favorite color, so it took her a while 00:58:48.080 --> 00:58:52.250 to figure things out and to discover her own self. 00:58:52.250 --> 00:58:53.520 What is her favorite color? 00:58:53.520 --> 00:58:55.440 YEONMI: Spring green. 00:58:55.440 --> 00:58:56.869 JACK: Spring green. 00:58:56.869 --> 00:58:58.220 Good choice. 00:58:58.220 --> 00:59:01.299 While in Korea, she learned English by watching the TV show Friends. 00:59:01.299 --> 00:59:05.650 YEONMI: I actually literally learned my English through watching Friends. 00:59:05.650 --> 00:59:09.690 I like, watched it thirty times from Season 1 to 10. 00:59:09.690 --> 00:59:13.420 It was insane, my obsession with Friends. 00:59:13.420 --> 00:59:21.000 But I think the first time when I saw the show, it was like, it wasn’t funny because 00:59:21.000 --> 00:59:27.569 I – the humor is something that you need to understand the culture, and you get it. 00:59:27.569 --> 00:59:34.380 It took many, many, many times for me to get the jokes and finally enjoy the show. 00:59:34.380 --> 00:59:39.119 JACK: She was able to slowly establish herself in the world and feels incredibly happy to 00:59:39.119 --> 00:59:40.119 have escaped. 00:59:40.119 --> 00:59:44.510 Actually, she’s living in the US now, and she just finished getting her degree at a 00:59:44.510 --> 00:59:47.809 university and is becoming a human rights advocate and helping others. 00:59:47.809 --> 00:59:53.640 YEONMI: It’s like, I should be, like, a billion, trillion, zillion times happier than 00:59:53.640 --> 00:59:59.670 when [01:00:00] I was in North Korea because now, I enter home, and you put the – press 00:59:59.670 --> 01:00:01.200 the – switch the lights on. 01:00:01.200 --> 01:00:03.200 I get hot water. 01:00:03.200 --> 01:00:11.640 But somehow, it is – I think I’m happier, definitely than in North Korea, but it’s 01:00:11.640 --> 01:00:20.000 not like, that little things that you appreciate when you really have nothing, is, I think, 01:00:20.000 --> 01:00:21.180 very different. 01:00:21.180 --> 01:00:24.690 JACK: How could the audience help North Korea? 01:00:24.690 --> 01:00:32.760 YEONMI: I think your audience are very into technology and they are very mindful of this 01:00:32.760 --> 01:00:33.760 tool. 01:00:33.760 --> 01:00:40.180 I think one of the ways they can help is definitely getting more information into North Korea 01:00:40.180 --> 01:00:41.579 through flash drives. 01:00:41.579 --> 01:00:48.289 I think, at the moment, it is really a war that we have. 01:00:48.289 --> 01:00:56.099 The regime is berating these people with propaganda materials, but the flash drives they are sending 01:00:56.099 --> 01:01:04.010 into North Korea contains truth about humanity, about the world, about freedom, and about 01:01:04.010 --> 01:01:05.910 the potential of North Korean people. 01:01:05.910 --> 01:01:12.809 I think this is really an opportunity for all of us to get involved and pushing of the 01:01:12.809 --> 01:01:13.920 work. 01:01:13.920 --> 01:01:19.000 I do believe that North Korea will be free in our lifetime. 01:01:19.000 --> 01:01:27.859 [MUSIC] We all can say that we did something to free these people when you are free. 01:01:27.859 --> 01:01:34.690 JACK: Okay, so, the Flash Drive for Freedom project is an easy way to help people in North 01:01:34.690 --> 01:01:35.690 Korea. 01:01:35.690 --> 01:01:39.780 With a big enough campaign, we can see the regime get toppled by its own people. 01:01:39.780 --> 01:01:41.750 Let’s all pitch in. 01:01:41.750 --> 01:01:45.650 Create a USB or SD card donation drive at your school or work. 01:01:45.650 --> 01:01:49.830 Collect as many drives as you can and send them to Flash Drives for Freedom. 01:01:49.830 --> 01:01:54.319 You have the power to make a change over in North Korea, and this is getting some serious 01:01:54.319 --> 01:01:58.220 momentum, so join me so we can help Alex help the people of North Korea. 01:01:58.220 --> 01:02:01.970 Oh, and one last thing while I have Yeonmi still, because I don’t know if I’m ever 01:02:01.970 --> 01:02:06.579 gonna have a chance to speak to a North Korean defector again; this has been so surreal to 01:02:06.579 --> 01:02:10.010 me, especially tracking down a North Korean to get them on my show. 01:02:10.010 --> 01:02:13.140 This is so crazy, what am I getting myself into? 01:02:13.140 --> 01:02:17.210 But okay, so even though she didn’t see any computers while in North Korea, I still 01:02:17.210 --> 01:02:20.450 wanted to talk with her about what she knows about the computers there. 01:02:20.450 --> 01:02:26.660 YEONMI: It is also like, I also meet a lot of defectors who were teaching in these universities 01:02:26.660 --> 01:02:29.720 where they are teaching hackers to hack. 01:02:29.720 --> 01:02:35.010 It’s definitely – that’s one of the things, the revenues the government gets now, 01:02:35.010 --> 01:02:42.220 is hacking, the cyber-hacking and attack they do on South Koreans, so many other countries. 01:02:42.220 --> 01:02:48.799 JACK: See, that’s interesting already because I think – first, I was wondering who’s 01:02:48.799 --> 01:02:52.730 able to do this because not many people have a computer, so you’re saying that there’s 01:02:52.730 --> 01:02:56.289 some schools in Pyongyang that teach people how to hack? 01:02:56.289 --> 01:02:57.609 YEONMI: Yep. 01:02:57.609 --> 01:03:04.890 I definitely met a professor who taught his students to hack. 01:03:04.890 --> 01:03:13.010 They do learn those things but also, I also heard a lot of them are based in China, too. 01:03:13.010 --> 01:03:18.609 They hack it not from North Korea, but they use code and things they can hack. 01:03:18.609 --> 01:03:22.890 North Korean hackers can hack from other countries. 01:03:22.890 --> 01:03:26.109 JACK: ‘Cause I wondered; they have no internet there. 01:03:26.109 --> 01:03:28.490 It would be very hard to do it. 01:03:28.490 --> 01:03:29.490 YEONMI: Right. 01:03:29.490 --> 01:03:32.020 Or so, maybe the connection might not be good. 01:03:32.020 --> 01:03:33.500 But, I’m not sure. 01:03:33.500 --> 01:03:40.510 Maybe these hackers do maybe get – I do think they do have internet for this, like 01:03:40.510 --> 01:03:42.730 certain very restricted officers. 01:03:42.730 --> 01:03:46.630 I’m sure Kim Jun Un has internet. 01:03:46.630 --> 01:03:51.500 I know that these foreign journalists, when they travel to North Korea, they do get internet 01:03:51.500 --> 01:03:53.890 time to time. 01:03:53.890 --> 01:04:05.490 Also, you know, when the people – when tourists want to travel to North Korea, I heard also, 01:04:05.490 --> 01:04:12.210 the North Koreans Googling these people’s names, see if they’re journalists or not. 01:04:12.210 --> 01:04:20.890 I think those very restricted population do have internet and access to Google and like 01:04:20.890 --> 01:04:22.180 that. 01:04:22.180 --> 01:04:27.230 JACK: When other countries do hacking, they do it to steal. 01:04:27.230 --> 01:04:33.400 They spy, they steal trade secrets, but you said that this is a source of – the hacking 01:04:33.400 --> 01:04:36.220 that North Korea does is a source of revenue for the country? 01:04:36.220 --> 01:04:41.190 YEONMI: One of the reasons they do this, like now, these hackings do create revenue for 01:04:41.190 --> 01:04:42.480 them. 01:04:42.480 --> 01:04:52.960 Like some of the holidays while living in South Korea, or these banks will get attacks 01:04:52.960 --> 01:04:55.011 [01:05:00] from North Korea. 01:04:55.011 --> 01:05:01.950 North Korea does not just only have a nuclear weapons to threat other countries, but they 01:05:01.950 --> 01:05:05.480 have a strong army of hackers to threat any entity. 01:05:05.480 --> 01:05:10.000 Now, they are just really controlled by all this internet system. 01:05:10.000 --> 01:05:15.869 Even our water supplies, electric supplies, controlled by internet. 01:05:15.869 --> 01:05:23.370 North Korea is threatening basically the whole humanity with these hacker groups. 01:05:23.370 --> 01:05:28.750 They are – keep raising and keep developing. 01:05:28.750 --> 01:05:31.790 I don’t know how far they can go with their – there’s a recklessness. 01:05:31.790 --> 01:05:42.369 I don’t know if that’s what they’re gonna do, but North Korea certainly does not 01:05:42.369 --> 01:05:45.000 respect any international law. 01:05:45.000 --> 01:05:52.799 They do not certainly respect any human dignity, so if they – if dictator wants or if he 01:05:52.799 --> 01:05:59.440 decides that it’s good for his – maintaining his regime, I do think they are capable of 01:05:59.440 --> 01:06:00.440 literally everything. 01:06:00.440 --> 01:06:05.840 JACK: This sounds incredibly fascinating to me, so fascinating that I’m gonna stick 01:06:05.840 --> 01:06:09.579 with the North Korean theme for the next two episodes, and we’re gonna dive into some 01:06:09.579 --> 01:06:12.819 huge hacking campaigns that they’ve done over the years. 01:06:12.819 --> 01:06:15.839 There’s some real doozies they’ve done. 01:06:15.839 --> 01:06:18.390 So, see you in the next episode. 01:06:18.390 --> 01:06:20.120 YEONMI: Bye! 01:06:20.120 --> 01:06:28.980 (OUTRO): [OUTRO MUSIC] A very big thank you to Yeonmi Park. 01:06:28.980 --> 01:06:30.940 Your story is so inspiring. 01:06:30.940 --> 01:06:33.599 Thank you so much for sharing it with us. 01:06:33.599 --> 01:06:37.320 She has a book out that talks about her life in North Korea and her escape. 01:06:37.320 --> 01:06:41.819 It’s one of the most inspirational and gut-wrenching books I’ve ever read. 01:06:41.819 --> 01:06:44.140 Her book is called In Order to Live. 01:06:44.140 --> 01:06:46.280 I tear up just thinking about it. 01:06:46.280 --> 01:06:49.339 I’ll have some affiliate links to the book in the show notes. 01:06:49.339 --> 01:06:53.230 Also, a very big thank you to Alex Gladstein from the Human Rights Foundation. 01:06:53.230 --> 01:06:57.530 I mean, he’s the one who formed the Flash Drives for Freedom, and he helps out North 01:06:57.530 --> 01:06:58.530 Koreans. 01:06:58.530 --> 01:07:01.220 He’s making the world a little bit better every day. 01:07:01.220 --> 01:07:06.500 I highly encourage all of my listeners to donate USB drives, SD cards, or just send 01:07:06.500 --> 01:07:07.500 them money. 01:07:07.500 --> 01:07:10.099 Their website is flashdrivesforfreedom.org. 01:07:10.099 --> 01:07:17.920 That’s all spelled out one big, long word; flashdrivesforfreedom.org. 01:07:17.920 --> 01:07:21.820 This show is made by me, the dark rabbit, Jack Rhysider. 01:07:21.820 --> 01:07:25.580 Original score and sound design this episode by Garrett Tiedemann. 01:07:25.580 --> 01:07:30.839 Editing help this episode by the super-user Damienne, and our theme music is by the backbeat 01:07:30.839 --> 01:07:32.550 Breakmaster Cylinder. 01:07:32.550 --> 01:07:38.119 Even though a dumpster fire erupts somewhere in the world every time I say it, this is 01:07:38.119 --> 01:07:38.640 Darknet Diaries.