MANILA, Philippines – The highly secretive Democratic People’s Republic of North Korea accidentally revealed a secret recently: The country only has 28 websites. 

The reveal comes as a result of a configuration change in North Korea’s network that allowed the rest of the world access to its websites, typically restricted within the country’s geographical borders. According to The Next Web, the erring tweak was detected by users at source code repository site GitHub. As any e-sleuth worth their salt, the users took advantage of the situation and mapped out the North Korean internet and its sites – now recorded on the GitHub thread “NorthKoreaDNSLeak.” Twenty-eight websites were mapped out. 

However, as The Next Web notes, the researchers were only able to map out the “externally-facing Internet” of the country. “North Korea has a separate version of the Internet that can only be accessed from within the country,” it adds. 

According to Cnet, the 28 websites have been listed on Reddit. Some examples are airkoryo.com.kp (“a flight ticket website”), cooks.org.kp (said to contain recipes), kass.org.kp (Korean Association of Social Scientists), and kcna.kp (Korean Central News Agency). Several of the sites cannot be accessed, with the general expectation being that access to the sites will be sealed up sometime soon.

Even in the internet age, North Korea has been able to restrict the flow of information within and outside their borders. Rare glimpses like these continue to unshroud the North Korean story. – Rappler.com