The Central Scientific and Technological Information Agency (CSTIA) has been running North Korea’s "walled garden" national intranet called “Kwangmyong.” As of now, data held by CSTIA and the Grand People's Study House (North Korea’ largest central library) are accessible via Kwangmyong.
Offering various search functions, such as logical retrieval, retrieval based on indexes and dictionaries and retrieval based on FAQs, Kwangmyong makes it easy for anyone to search for information quickly.
In the North, the two most popular and widely used database management systems are Oracle and MS SQL Server. Kwangmyong has been recently developed to enable searching for approximately 3,000 datasets stored on CSTIA’s servers. Those datasets are available in Korean, English, Russian and Chinese. Now, the 5th edition of Kwangmyong is most widely used as it comes with better data retrieval functions and services than other programs.
Network Software Package “Kwangmyong 2000”
Recently, CSTIA has released a network software package called “Kwangmyong 2000,” and installed it in its computer network. Kwangmyong 2000 contains Kwangmyong 5.0; electronic mail system “Hyesung 2.0”; online communication system “Byulmoori 2.0; electronic document transmission system “Jaryosam 2.0”; and website internal search engine “Weesung (satellite in English) 2.0.”
Electronic mail system “Hyesung”
Hyesung was developed by CSTIA operating under the State Academy of Sciences. Compared to other electronic mail systems, Hyesung boasts faster transmission speeds over telephone lines and offers various online order forms that can be used in writing email requesting data search services, translation services or publications.
Electronic bulletin board “Byulmoori”
Electronic message board Byulmoori is an online communication system whereby one can share and discuss issues with other users. From the initial design stage, Byulmoori was developed to meet North Korea’s specific needs. Byulmoori allows users to select a topic, post, edit or delete a message, find other users on the same computer network and search for previous posts.
Website search system “Weesung”
Websites let network users read multimedia data page by page, so varied data retrieval functions are not on offer. Therefore, finding the exact page the user wants to read could be like looking for a needle in a haystack because agencies like CSTIA have thousands of HTML pages stored on the web server.
Weesung is a program that equips a website with an internal search engine. Yet Weesung is different from Kwangmyong. While Kwangmyong is designed to retrieve data from the database, Weesung simply enables searching for specific HTML pages of each document. Users can select a search category, write questions for logical retrieval, read resulting HTML pages and store the HTML pages in their online briefcase.
Electronic document delivery system “Jaryosam”
Jaryosam is a program that enables transmitting electronic documents on a server into the user’s computer. Users can access or cut off a server and read files stored on the server, download files and send files to their other computers.
(Prof. Choi Sung/sstar@nsu.ac.kr)
