NorKor's digital underground

 A selection from a great article in the Altantic.  It is all about the different ways people try and smuggle information in AND out of NorKor.  A very interesting piece.  I thought the following was pretty crafty:

Kim reaches into his pocket and shows me one of his specially programmed thumb drives. It will read “empty” when it is plugged in to a computer, just in case it falls into the hands of a border guard. When the savvy (or unsuspecting) user double-clicks on the logo, the program launches, and installs a file called “Welcome World” on his computer. (Some funders object to these surreptitious distribution techniques, fearing they might endanger innocent people.) Then there is the self-destruct option. “We set it to erase itself after a month, or after a certain number of downloads,” Kim explains, holding up one of the thumb drives. “Even if you are caught reading the e-book, the national security police won’t be able to trace it. After all, you can say that when you got it, you thought it was empty!”