Kim Heung-kwang (second from left) is a former North Korean cyberwarfare professor and a judge at the HRF event. Justice Suh (third from right) was one of the winning team members Cyrus Farivar/Ars Technica

<img src="http://cdni.wired.co.uk/138x138/a_c/ars.png" alt="Ars Technica" style="float: left;"/>A three-person Korean-American team -- including two 17-year-old college students -- won a weekend-long hackathon sponsored by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) designed to help people in North Korea.

The team's idea, which hasn't moved beyond the concept phase, was deceptively simple: import a bunch of satellite receivers into North Korea so that people can simply receive TV stations from SkyLife, a major South Korean broadcaster.


At present, SkyLife's satellite footprint easily extends into North Korea, and it includes many Korean-language stations including KBS and SBS, two of the largest. It also includes some English-language programming, including BBC, Eurosport, and Animal Planet, among others. The team realises that getting a little more independent information into North Korea won't create an overnight revolution in the country. But under this plan, the team claims, North Koreans could start to learn more about how their South Korean cousins live via news, sports, entertainment, and more. "I think our initial hope is to get North Korea to the state of Iran, where information is flowing in," one of the team members, Matthew Lee (a pseudonym), told Ars. "Right now North Korea is a hermit state. If we can at least get to a state where you can use Twitter, then people will understand what's going on outside.

That's the first catalyst and then they can use our device to create a shadow network and with that, they can bring about a change within their own social context."

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Specifically, the team wants to use new developments in Luneburg lens research that would allow for a traditional curved, bulk satellite dish receiver to be manufactured into something flat. They hope this could eventually be mounted (and camouflaged) onto walls and windows of North Korean homes. One big problem is that such antennas have yet to be manufactured on a widespread basis.

The trio won a round-trip ticket to Seoul, South Korea paid for by HRF, where they will meet with North Korean defector groups and other organisations. HRF says that it will work to secure funding to fully realise this project.


Justice wins

The event was judged by three North Korean defectors, among others. According to the South Korean Ministry of Unification, by the end of 2012, nearly 25,000 defectors have made it across.

The judges included Kim Heung-kwang, a former computer science professor who taught cyberwarfare at Hamheung Computer College and Hamheung Communist College. Another judge was Park Sang Hak, who continues to fight the North Korean government with balloons laden with USB sticks containing Wikipedia entries, DVDs of popular TV shows, anti-government leaflets, and even single American dollar bills. (The last is included so that starving North Koreans can buy rice on the black market.)

The panel listened via a Korean interpreter to around a dozen presentations that ranged from high tech (a timed chat client,

à la Wickr) to low tech ($40 slingshots). Martyn Williams, a journalist with the IDG News Service, even presented an idea to use a small satellite modem as a way to send and receive short text messages. Many of the ideas seemed overly complicated and appeared to focus more on style than substance. The winning idea -- just a sketch of concept, really -- did not have a slide deck and used cardboard boxes as props.

Justice Suh, one of the other winning team members, is a student at Northern Virginia Community College, where he studies computer science. He and the third team member, who wished to remain anonymous, said that they had only been to South Korea once, and their families did not talk much about North Korea. Suh noted that he and the third partner came up with the idea simply by reading academic papers about Luneburg lenses and thought it could be applied to the North Korean situation. "My family doesn't talk about it that much," Suh told Ars. "If it comes up, we just look at each other and say, 'Yeah he's crazy,'" referring to North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un.


Park Sang Hak, who met with Ars in San Francisco in February 2014, described how he hopes that his balloon project can pierce the lives of his fellow countrymen. "What I want to do is to tell them how many lies that the North Korean regime has been making," Park said. "It's not that they have to rise up, but it's their choice to rise up. But at least they have to know and understand, and that's the thing that I aim for.

You might consider the balloons as a letter to their loved ones telling them what they have experienced under the freedom of democracy. It's more making them understand. The North Korean government propagandizes about defectors, saying that they betrayed their homeland, they are living under dire conditions, they're living in poverty. But by sending a letter to show them how developed and how luxurious it is, and how free it is, we are giving a strong signal to [regular people] to see the difference."

This article originally appeared on Ars Technica.