Who pulled the plug on North Korea's internet?

SEOUL: It is still unknown who pulled the plug on North Korea's Internet connection on Tuesday (Dec 23), which came days after Pyongyang had been blamed for the crippling cyber-attack against US-based Sony Pictures.

North Korea, one of the world's least wired countries, has made global headlines in recent weeks over its limited web infrastructure.

With a population of about 25 million, not many people have access to the internet - reports say the country has only about 1,000 official internet protocol addresses. Most of them are connected to a government-controlled intranet and only the elite and military have access to the World Wide Web.

But many are asking is who is responsible for the Internet shutdown in North Korea.

According to various security specialists, it could have been committed by individuals or the United States. US President Barack Obama had warned that Washington would respond to the attack on Sony Pictures, but did not specify how and when.

Experts in Seoul also say it is very likely that China has played a role or has turned a blind eye. They say even if there was a way to hack into North Korean systems without China's permission, Beijing would have to be aware about it. But China's foreign ministry has denied any involvement.

"I think that the US and China made security-related negotiations beforehand and China tacitly allowed the US hackers to pass through, because to access North Korea, one needs to go through China and China can monitor this," said Kim Myeong-joo, a computer security expert at Seoul Women’s University.

Experts have also thrown up another possibility - the North Koreans themselves shut down the internet to shield their systems from a possible cyber-attack. Defectors say North Korea has spent billions of dollars to train an army of hackers - the so-called "Bureau 121" - run by the military's spy agency. 

"The person doesn't volunteer - the North Korean government imposes it,” said defector-turned-professor Kang Myong-do at Kyerim University. “This is a country that produces counterfeit dollars. It wouldn't be a big deal for them to train prodigies into professional hackers, because the Government itself supports and educates them."

But then again, North Korea's problems with the internet could simply be due to a technical fault.

Whatever the reason might be, experts say ordinary people in North Korea would probably not be aware of recent events since they no access to the outside world.