North Korea has iPhones?
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- Опубликовано: 28 сен 2024
- iPhone usage has been surging in North Korea. In this episode, we investigate this phenomenon and speak with the CEO behind the data.
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The fact that one of your first Air Tags is still alive is amazing...especially since that one lawyer said they would deactivate after a few days.
Every time it gets misdelivered, it gets 6 months of charge. It'll outlive the courier and possibly the heat death of the universe.
@@lainwired3946 I think the AirTag would turn to dust before it could lose charge.
@@CatsT.M it also gets a refurb courtesy of the Jong family at every pitstop
@@lainwired3946 Ahh, of course, very kind of them.
@@lainwired3946 you mean the Kim family?
I was in North Korea in 2018 and I got a rare chance to check a north korean smartphone (it was chinese), one of the girls in the hotel bar where we were staying liked me very much and gave me her phone to check it, they have something like a texting app, looked like ICQ back in the day if you remember it, some games, the internet (the phone operator's internet, because there was no wifi at all anywhere) was super slow, like 40 kb/s. It was interesting to see :)
oh wow, with sanctions i'm honestly surprised the internet was that good
@@unreaall It was kilobits, like in the early 90''s ;)
@@georgih I think he don't know what a kb is 😂
That's fascinating, thanks so much for sharing! Actual Internet access though? I didn't know such a thing was casually allowed. Or is it NK's intranet?
@@TRDiscordian intranet definitely. Even the linux based os that they used supposedly was only setup to run on nk's intranet
This guys channel went from using airtags to do some cool experiments to exposing billion dollar shipping industries to tracking down North Korea
fr
Next he's going to break out of the Matrix
Stolen my comment on his last video
@@GTNTAnimations Precisely!
He a hundred percent did
at around 10:25 you can see the phone has just 1 camera placed in the top middle, where iPhone 10 would have speaker, so I'd say it's some kind of Xiaomi
you are right
I didn’t see this part but I was wondering if they hated the US so much they wouldn’t want to be using an American tech, neither would they be okay using South Korea’s Samsung, so the next obvious choice would be a Chinese brand considering their ties so Xiaomi or Huawei would be the perfect choice.
To me is pyongyang 2425 or pyongyang 2428
That's definitely a huawei they did many phones (some exclusive to China) with iPhone looking bodies
I think I might have a hunch why the iphone share increased so much, at around that time (september/october 2021) apple rolled out its new iCloud Private Relay feature, which is quite similar to a VPN. It just seems like this might be related so probably worth investigating further
how don’t they ban iPhones in NK?? 🇰🇵
Here before this blows up
Maybe the NK President gives them to his generals and import officers if they worship him…
Because Kim is an Apple fan. All images released showing computers were all iMacs
iPhones (like all American tech) is indeed BANNED. It’s probably diplomats or high-level government officials who have access to an iPhone AND the Internet.
Kim himself uses a Mac.
You said something about that company's data being anonymized. But, what I would like to hear from the CEO: Is there any way to get more insight about North Korean usage patterns? Are these devices connecting all the time, or are they only connecting at certain days/hours, such as at times when government censorship is on duty? Such insights, compared to other countries, would be of interest.
Yeah I would also love to dig into the data a bit more.
It's well known that in North Korea, the majority of smartphones (in use by the public) are no-name Android phones (according to Tourists from before the 2020 Border Closure) and their computers which previously ran Windows 7, now run their own Linux Distro called "Red Star OS" (in English) which judging by the newest version available to people outside of North Korea (due to leaks) uses the KDE Plasma Desktop Environment (probably based on Debian but idk since I have never actually looked at the ISO).
The Majority of iOS users are probably from government employees who work in high-ranking offices in the big cities (so not your average tram driver or food manufacturing facility worker who probably uses a cheap Chinese Android phone rebranded for the DPRK market) as well as any foreign diplomats whom may have returned to North Korea for their diplomatic mission in the country. There is also the chance that some iPhones have been smuggled into North Korea from either China or Russia and even South Korea (before their corporate employment deal with Hyundai [I think it was with that SK company but could be wrong] went sour)...
Ya, I saw few tourist videos back before 2020, where atleast in Pyongyang people had cheap chinese android phones.
These phones came with limited no of preinstalled Android apps.
There was no app store to search and download new apps.
This is pretty much the exact same conclusion I came to however you put it into words far better then I ever could
You must be smelling rock salt for fun if you think they let people use iPhone, SPECIALLY in the government. The data comes mostly from foreigners visiting the country and accessing the Internet in the country, reality is even government officials do not get access willy nilly.
More likely, they have their own browsers and/or even operating systems to lock down what can be accessed, and a browser like that could easily just have a hard coded to send a User-Agent tag as iPhone/iOS instead of whatever they call their software when making web requests.
That wouldn't explain the change of iOS versions correlated with their release dates.
@@nSiLEtan Yeah they could push an update to change to the new user-agent. Bearing in mind there is a North Korean version of Linux which is for the most part a one-to-one clone of macOS... it wouldn't surprise me.
Or, more likely, the DPRK propaganda flood the so called « influencers » with iPhones so they can fake their everyday lives better
@@SamTheEnglishTeacherr u talking ab red star os?? if so that shit is the biggest clone ever 😭 if it wasnt for the icons, colors, etc it’d look like an exact copy
@@nSiLEtan It's just a string sent with a HTTP request. Easiest thing to keep maintained and updated.
Send another airtag in case this dies from battery... it will be a shame to lose the opportunity
I love your channel.
You are one of the few that do it as a hobby. As a passion project. Reminds me of the good old days of RUclips in 2008 when people weren't money-focused with their content.
Can confirm. This guy is a legend.
The older I become the more I appreciate people with passion.. And yes, he definitely is on a mission.
I second that. Love that feeling of watching something created for the sake of experimenting and discovering the world.
He's playing the RUclips game pretty well though.
God forbid people want to make a living /s smh
10:32 This is either an iPhone 11 Pro Max or iPhone XS Max.
You can tell because the iPhone is in Gold, which the X didn't have as a color, and although it's hard to identify the left side of the phone (from the front) has 4 speaker grills, which the standard sized iPhones only have 3 on the left. From the front and Sides alone however it's impossible to differentiate an iPhone 11 Pro Max from a XS Max, since there are literally no physical differences from those angles
Though it's a bit difficult to tell if it's in gold because it almost looks like it's just silver getting some sort of gold reflection from a background object.
It’s a iPhone X it’s just the lighting that makes it look slightly gold you can see by that the speakers are the same on the left and right of the port. on a xs or 11 there is an antenna line on the Bottom left of the phone and the speakers arnt symmetrical
I don’t think it’s an iPhone at all.
There are 4 speaker grill holes on each side.
X has 6+6; Xs has 3+6; Xs Max has 4+7 …
also assuming it’s gold, the antenna stripe should also be on the bottom of the device on Xs (Max) … pentalobe screws around the connector are also missing, also the lightning port has a pretty visible ring around it which cannot be seen in the video
just go and watch the og video at 0.25x and pause it at the right moment
@@matuslivora7469 It’s just the low resolution video, plus the XS Max has 4+6 speaker grills, not 4+7
the other thing is, the camera punchout is on the top-center of the device, and no iphone had a centered camera, it reminds me of some kind of oppo phone. Going further, it has 4 speaker "dots" and none of the rounded bezzel iphones had 4 holes on either side, also the antenna bands are a little lower then on the normal iphone, in my opinion its some phone from the BBK family, or a cheap iphone knock off
Sad to see that the RUclips algorithm doesn't seem to like this as much as some of your other videos (it only recommended it to me after two days). It's s really interesting topic and I hope you won't be too discouraged by the lower view count, as we who find our way here definitely still enjoy it a lot!
Thanks man, appreciate that! In terms of CTR and AVD, this video is one of my top performers, so it's a little weird that it isn't getting promoted. Wondering if it's because spoke about Covid.
@@MegaLagwell that's definitely interesting. Hopefully your next videos do better, because they really deserve to!
@@MegaLagdefinitely weird. Anything NK usually gets flagged up. Probably didn't call it a regime enough
Its obvious now. My country has internet and phones.
I wonder if what changed was that ISP or IP range (could simply be a specific APN on a mobile network) that Android users changed IP ranges to one that is not yet properly tracked as being North Korea, and the only users left of the previous ISP are iPhone users (like.. just the Kim household or something)
Anyone with a smartphone connected to the internet in NK would be under constant close scrutiny. All smartphones would be government issued. This data makes perfect sense, they upgraded and bought in quantity to address their new PR campaign. Hence 99.99% of phones & devices were changed out within a very short timeframe. apple is the logical choice because NK doesn't want China spying via Huwai, and doesn't want SK spying via Samsung; apple serves no master but its own interests.
There are maybe a dozen people in NK who can pick and choose what smartphone they want.
@@masondegaulle5731 "apple serves no master but its own interests" lmao
@@Lego455200930 especially since Apple got caught not patching a bug the CCP was using to spy on Uigurs
As you like roasting DHL... you should do a video about the time DHL won the KFC chicken delivery contract in the UK which was so badly handled, KFC ran out of chicken and a number of branches had to close (and DHL lost the contract).
Yer i remember that! Alot of franchise owners lost alot of money!
As far as I know, North Korea's Red Star OS is based on Linux. If the browser used there is based on WebKit (like some Linux browsers like Epiphany), some websites recognise it as Safari. So it may be WebKit browsers being detected as Safari.
So far as I recall from running Red Star it had no browser. If it did it would likely be ice weasel or a variant of gecko. It is fairly ancient and unclear if it’s still used or ever had wide spread usage. While an interesting thought it does not explain the iOS version signature.
@@JeremyWestAU hmm, good point.
It would not be due to iOS versions being communicated
Who tf would want a phone that gets slow when the new one gets released and may or may not explode in your pocket
10:28 That is probably not an iPhone. The notch at the top has a centered selfie camera whereas iPhones with notches have a much more subtle looking one to the right of the notch. The speaker grills at the bottom are identical between each other (or at least they look like it) and no visible screws next to the charging port are visible, even in the original video. Antenna lines on the sides are also way brighter than the body, which is not how they look in gold/rose gold iPhones. Hard to figure out if that is USB-C or Lightning, but most likely the former. Based on this, this is mostly likely another device not coming from Apple. Knowing possible trading routes and the stats you showed, would probably say is a Xiaomi or an older BBK device.
Pyongyang 2427/Pyongyang 2428 phone 😊
It looks really similar to the iPhone XS. Maybe a clone, or maybe the compression hide the details.
4:18 “gigabitches” my new favorite term. Thank you.
For such a big switch in devices in such a small timeframe I would guess all internet connected devices are state controlled and they did an ‘enterprise’ upgrade.
Sounds feasible.
I wonder what their reaction will be when they find the airtag
amounts are so low that maybe they just got one shipping container phones for goverment officials.
Wait, that Statcounter CEO is named Aegon? As in The Conqueror? Thats pretty badass!
he should change his channel name to tracking north korea
My theory would list a few possible reasons.
First could be that since Samsung is a South Korean company, they would not want to have a company south of the DMZ to have huge market share. The DPRK could cite spying concerns and they could pass that as law. Would have to check on that, but seems logical.
Second, Huawei exports could have been limited due to the semiconductor shortage throughout the pandemic, and the fact the market share is expected to be so small, it wouldn’t make sense to send DPRK officials an updated phone when everywhere else has a huge return. Same could be said for all other brands for official sales.
A third possibility is the black market that North Koreans rely on to get foreign films, tv shows, etc. For years they would get it on Video Tapes, DVDs, and USB drives. But simply getting an iPhone could hold much more data. Plus, if it’s a jail broken iPhone, the it would give them more apps and movies, and they won’t have to sign up for an Apple ID to use it. That would be considering it’s NOT a high government official’s device that can access the greater World Wide Web.
And it would indeed help the governments influencer goals to have a smart phone that is more recognizable to their intended western audience. They can even say they like XYZ game on the App Store and play it every day.
some data science department at Apple is probably looking at the rising north korean IPs and going "Hmm. Ima just pretend I didnt see that..."
Imagine if you’ve actually just accidentally blown the lid off a secret deal between DPRK and Apple
Yep, that's an iPhone XS or XS Max for sure. As that was a year that came in a gold version. -- Btw, love the videos ... wish you made them more often.
Make a video about North Korean influencers. I personally find it extremely interesting
Perhaps StarLink? - maybe wifi is restricted, so it’s not entirely inconceivable that the DPRK gave certain folks these kits to access the greater internet.
I don't know the details if the starlink protocol, but I'd guess it would be a server at the base station of the satellites that would actually make the web request, then translate it for satellite usage, and the base station would probably be in America or similar, so all the ips would show as American
North Korean influencer: "Follow me on the Gram"
North Korean guy: "I literally can't bro sry" :(
Interesting that billions of pings per day from most of the planet tell us little, while a single ping from NK would tell us a lot.
Amother thing is foreigner in north korea : embassy , UN worker beside north korean elite bought from black market and north korean that work oversea ( quite large amount btw , they even work in poland a few years back )
Next video: Tracking down Kim Jong-Un to see if he has an IPhone
But does Apple Maps and the Find My service actually work in North Korea, if there was an iPhone?
This is such a good, interesting video!
There have been some NK IP address owners on the Chinese internet lately (you know, Chinese social media platforms will show everyone's IP address attribution).
From what I've heard from the owner of the NK IP address, it's likely that one (or possibly several ?) VPN providers got a NK VPS and used it to set up a proxy server.
Anyway, NK IP and VPS do exist, but they seem to have very little bandwidth. as for accessing sites like google? since I havent got this VPN yet, I dont know :-)
I think there is also a good percentage of tourists (yes it's a thing) and the phone you spotted 10:30 it's most definitely not an iPhone. I would say most likely an older Huawei that's exclusive to China if you look at the bottom grills it's 100% not an iPhone layout
Update when?
An alternative explanation could be user agent spoofing. I can use firefox on a linux computer and using a simple browser extension to make it look like im using safari on IOS with the click of a button. That browser extension generally shows the newest operating system and browser versions at the top of the list so that could explain why north koreans are using the newest version of IOS. The the question is why IOS and not any of the other possible user agents they could choose from?
Yeah user agent spoofing has been around for a long time. As you said, why now and why only iPhones?
And also change ios version every time new one comes out?
I propose we refer to GB as gigabitches from this point forward. 🤣
There are addons that you can install on your browser that replicate different devices. If I was using edge but wanted to replicate search results that an iPhone would display, you can replicate that on an edge browser which would then claim it is the most recent update.
I remember watching that video, cant believe its been 2 years
10:30 considering the gold, I'd say iPhone XS or iPhone 11 Pro.
How would you know whether there are any other gold phones available in NK?
The best explanation are the Korean Children of North Korea who are allowed to travel freely between the two states and naturally they use western tech.
Huh? What is it that you're talking about?
4:19 it’s Gigabytes I believe. That sounded really close to a bad word
He said gigabitches and it was funny
Do you really only have 18 videos and you’ve blown up this huge
Could it be from a small amount of tourist who visited North Korea? It’s a regally strange the spike is really high unless is small numbers
Same, my first thought was VPNs. I thought for sure that would be the case, but maybe not.
Now train to run a marathon and participate in the pyongjang marathon.
ahhh i remember your first video from years
The 500 international agents looking at this video:💀
8:19 my speculation, the goverment got a shipment of iphones and upgraded all there approved users. Ie wealthy gov officials
Its not data , its data
it could also be one of those click farms
Perhaps the DPRK uses exclusively iPhones, and all of the diplomats carrying non-iPhones left the country around the same time…
Hello from Seoul! Thanks for the amazing video as always. This particular one was especially interesting since it was related to the NK. It's out of context but I noticed that your TV screen got some Korean characters at 8:35. What are those? I'm kinda curious.
Not sure about Korean characters, but this is a screensaver on most recent LG TVs and the text says something like “please press any key except power to continue watching”
He is in Korea and look at the plug and some product is written in Hangeul
I've been using Statcounter since 2004
I would suspect that a smuggler bought in a huge load of apple devices in one go.
10:30 BBK phone(oneplus, oppo, vivo, realme iqoo, nothing etc) not iPhone
North Korean only have Android for most population. Apple iPhone are close OS system where the software cannot be modified and share to other companies/countries. Android on the other hand is open source where the OS codes are shared and can be modified. North Korea uses android because it can be closely tracked and prevent any sort of bad information sharing. This graph is clearly wrong and did not consider other maybe more normal stat
is there a update to this story because i have been following this for the last 2 years and i want to know if there is a happy ending to this story
I feel like literally every in this comment section has literally no clue of North Korea.
I’m more surprised that Japan uses Apple more than Samsung
My bet is in Nov 2021, a box fell off a truck in china and materialized in DPRK.
I completely misread this, had to double-check, misread AGAIN, and then i clicked on the video
i cant get over the fact of how long ive been following these videos
Lets not underestimate both DPRKs tiny tourism sector and internationals who go there for work like teaching. The iPhones could well be Americans or Europeans who happen to get somewhere with some internet access.
They have smartphones that access the intranet
lets hope that they can phone someone to get them out of the country
There could be NK operatives building online histories for later use.
I have a feeling that they are using Apple's MDM which is basically how companies control the Apple devices of their employees.
How come you said data not data.
how did they allow iphone???
The browser, operating system, etc information can be spoofed. Why though?
I'm extremely curious that iPhones (including some Android) devices, except the North Korea ones have branded devices. Despite North Korea government want to control everything from their citizens to access information outside North Korea. Actually, North Korea, internet access is extremely limited to their own local "internet" (I mean, intranet). Maybe for those who access the internet in North Korea could be embassy who work in North Korea and some North Korean (maybe government officials) have special permission to access the internet in North Korea. So, sample size will be very small compared to other countries where internet access is available almost everywhere in every country.
Maybe there are some small possible that some of their citizens are using iPhones and other Android devices (other than North Korean made devices) by buying from black market which is smuggling in either from China or South Korea. Internet access maybe there are some small chances they can access somewhere else. In small cases, they could brought China or South Korean SIM cards and stay near to the border to access the internet or if some places offer some WiFi connection that can literally access to internet instead of local intranet. Local SIM cards normally cannot access to the internet unless they buy from black market which they can connect to their local 3G network which can access internet (yes, their 3G network have internet access but actually limited to non North Korean only such as tourist).
going internet via safari 😂😂😂on iphone 😂😂😂 what a jock,must be pain in the aresh
I would assume WiFi is banned everywhere in NK. Because I'm sure the US and South Korea are blasting open WiFi everywhere they can around the border.
Though I'd think they'd do the same with free cellular service with internet access too.
The DPRK Has 3G also Internet is restricted to use it you are monitored at all times
2:40 HAITI! I knew i saw it.
They are from high-ranking government officials who get access to the internet and even have satellite dishes. North Korea has millions of smartphones, but they are android and have no access to the internet. That's why the 500ish number is believable in a country of 30 million plus.
2:43 so the Vatican almost 1000?!
Longest Statcounter ad I’ve ever seen, and this guy managed to make everyone think this wasn’t an ad.
If that’s the case that’s for sure black market for the North Korean elite only
The "Iphone" Is actually a pyongyang 2425
Can you sent a samsung tag to NK?
Could be foreigners in the DPRK, particularly Chinese.
Why was she hitting the griddy at 10:06
4:19 ''GigaBitches'' 💀💀
You might try to get in proximity of north korea and try to launch the packet by yourself. Maybe a model rocket amd the right wind conditions.
The 'everydaydprk' page hasn't posted since 2018. So I don't think it's relevant to this story. Great video as always though.
Well effluencers or those wealthy enough to have an iphone are also more likely to be permitted to use the internet. Someone dirt poor who might be lucky enough to have a phone is also far less likely to have permission to use the internet, so their devices will be invisible in such data sets.
Looks like XS Max or even 11 Pro Max
that dude in the interview says he wouldnt draw any conclusions from the tiny sample and then you go out to state your conclusion from that data authoritatively in the title. Love that.
Haha well to be fair, iOS usage did surge and NK traffic increased 500%. So it's technically not wrong
send another airtag
most probably some gangster starts smuggling iPhones in DPRK :)
If Americans are banned from North Korea but an massive American company’s phones are allowed in North Korea
I just noticed now that the subscriber count in the intro is updated with each video. Amazing detail!
This guy sounds like linustechtips :D
I highly doubt you’ll get your AirTag to ping. I can barely get it to ping in South Africa🥴