Testing North Korea’s Illegal Smartphones: Extreme Censorship and Constant Surveillance
In late 2025, British tech YouTuber Arun Maini, better known as MrWhosetheboss, released a video that offered one of the rarest public windows into everyday technology inside North Korea. Titled “Testing North Korea’s illegal smartphones,” the video examined two devices smuggled out of the country and supplied by Daily NK, a Seoul-based news outlet specializing in North Korean affairs. What Maini found was not a pair of ordinary Android phones, but carefully engineered instruments of control. Outwardly they resembled mid-range Chinese handsets. Internally they functioned as pocket-sized extensions of the state.
The two phones consisted of a lower-end model identified as the Haeyang 701 and a higher-end device branded Samtaesung 8. The latter name is an obvious play on Samsung, and the hardware itself closely matched a Huawei Nova 9. Both ran modified versions of Android—reportedly Android 10 and 11—stripped of standard Google services and loaded with North Korean software layers. These devices cannot connect to the global internet. Instead they operate exclusively on the country’s closed Kwangmyong intranet, a network of government-approved websites, propaganda portals, and carefully curated content. Even the system clock can be centrally controlled. There is no unrestricted Wi-Fi, no app stores in the conventional sense, and no ability to make or receive international calls or messages.
Language Policing at the Keyboard Level
One of the most striking features Maini demonstrated was real-time text censorship. Typing the words “South Korea” triggered an automatic replacement with “puppet state,” the regime’s preferred ideological term. South Korean slang such as “oppa”—commonly used to mean older brother or boyfriend—was converted to “comrade,” often accompanied by a warning that the original term was restricted. Other references to South Korean culture, modern slang, or forbidden political concepts produced asterisks, forced corrections, or explicit notifications that certain language was not permitted. These rules are embedded in the operating system itself and cannot be disabled by the user.
This is not passive filtering. The system actively reshapes what citizens can express on their own devices, reinforcing official vocabulary at the most personal level of communication. Experts who have examined similar devices note that the keyboard-level interventions serve both practical and psychological purposes: they make it harder to share unsanctioned ideas and constantly remind users that their words are being monitored.
Hidden Screenshots and Background Monitoring
Even more invasive is the automatic screenshot function. The phones take screenshots of the user’s activity at regular intervals—reports from earlier examinations and the video itself describe captures occurring every few minutes or specifically every five minutes. These images are stored in hidden folders that ordinary users cannot access or delete. Only authorities with the proper tools can review them. An accompanying app, sometimes referred to as Trace Viewer on other North Korean devices, logs the time, date, and application in use for each capture. The mere presence of this feature creates a powerful deterrent. Users know that anything displayed on the screen may later be examined by security services.
Local files and photos are frequently tagged with digital signatures or government markers. Unauthorized content, particularly material originating from outside the country, is often detected and deleted automatically. Attempts to transfer files via USB have been restricted on newer models, further limiting the ability to move data on or off the device without official channels.
App Installation and Controlled Content
Installing applications is deliberately cumbersome. There is no open app store. Users must visit physical IT exchange centers or authorized shops where government technicians approve and install software. Installations can be time-limited, and every app must carry a digital signature issued by the state. This system prevents the spread of unsigned or foreign software. The pre-installed apps themselves are often rebranded or purpose-built versions of familiar tools—browsers that only reach approved sites, media players stocked with state-approved films, and news readers locked to official outlets such as Rodong Sinmun.
Interestingly, some foreign entertainment still appears. Maini found copies of the Indian film 3 Idiots and other pirated or edited content from Russia and India on the devices. These materials have been stripped of undesirable elements, rebranded where necessary, and made available through official streaming or video apps. The regime has calculated that controlled entertainment is preferable to the complete absence of modern leisure, provided it remains within tightly managed boundaries.
A Growing but Locked-Down Market
North Korea’s mobile sector has expanded significantly in recent years. Researchers tracking the industry, including those at 38 North and NK TechLab, have catalogued more than twenty domestic-sounding brands and dozens of models. In reality, almost all of the hardware originates from Chinese original equipment manufacturers. The devices are imported, fitted with North Korean software and security layers, and then sold under local names such as Arirang, Pyongyang, or Samtaesung. Estimates place the number of mobile subscriptions in the country at more than six million in a population of roughly twenty-six million. True smartphones, however, remain relatively expensive. Top-tier models can cost around $750—an enormous sum in an economy where formal wages for many citizens are a fraction of that figure. Ownership is therefore concentrated among the elite, particularly in Pyongyang, though usage has spread more widely as the network improved and more models entered the market.
Despite the expansion, the fundamental restrictions have not relaxed. Phones still cannot access the open internet. International connectivity remains impossible for ordinary users. The software continues to enforce digital signatures, block unauthorized media, and log user activity. Possession of unmodified Chinese phones or foreign media carries serious risk under laws that criminalize “reactionary” ideology and culture. Security forces conduct inspections, and past users of Chinese devices in border regions have faced home raids based on old records.
Implications of Total Digital Control
The design of these smartphones reveals a sophisticated understanding of how technology can reinforce authoritarian power. By allowing limited modern functionality—domestic calls, approved media, basic digital wallets, and local information services—the regime reduces the incentive for citizens to seek illegal alternatives. At the same time, the built-in surveillance and censorship mechanisms ensure that the devices themselves become tools of compliance rather than liberation. The automatic screenshots, language filters, and approval requirements create an environment in which self-censorship becomes second nature.
Analysts note that this approach has proven effective in the internal information war. While USB drives and SD cards carrying South Korean dramas and K-pop still cross the border, the difficulty of consuming that material safely on official phones has increased. The state has shifted from simply blocking outside information to making engagement with it more dangerous and technically challenging.
Maini’s video, which quickly accumulated millions of views, succeeded in making these abstract controls concrete. Viewers watched as ordinary typing produced ideological corrections and as the phone silently recorded the user’s screen. The devices look modern enough to satisfy basic expectations of connectivity and entertainment. Yet every feature has been subordinated to the priority of control. For North Koreans who own them, the smartphone is both a convenience and a constant reminder that the state is watching.
The existence of these phones does not signal openness. It demonstrates the regime’s confidence that it can harness contemporary technology without loosening its grip. As the number of models and subscriptions continues to grow, the underlying architecture of surveillance and restriction remains firmly in place. What appears on the surface as progress in mobile technology is, in practice, a more refined system of digital containment.
About The Author
