<glgt>North Korean Country's operating system finally revealed.

http://www.theguardian.com/world/201...by-researchers

North Korea, whose rudimentary intranet system does not connect to the world wide web, but allows access to state media and some officially approved sites, has been developing its own operating system for more than a decade.

This latest version, written around 2013, is based on a version of Linux called Fedora and has eschewed the previous version’s Windows XP feel for Apple’s OSX – perhaps a nod to the country’s leader Kim Jong-un who, like his father, has been photographed near Macs.

But under the bonnet there’s a lot that is unique, including its own version of encrypting files. “This is a full blown operation system where they control most of the code,” Grunow said.

The researchers say this suggests North Korea wants to avoid any code that might be compromised by intelligence agencies.

The Red Star operating system makes it very hard for anyone to tamper with it. If a user makes any changes to core functions, like trying to disable its antivirus checker or firewall, the computer will display an error message or reboot itself.

Red Star also addresses a more pressing concern - cracking down on the growing underground exchange of foreign movies, music and writing.

Illegal media is usually passed person-to-person in North Korea using USB sticks and microSD cards, making it hard for the government to track where they come from.

Red Star tackles this by tagging, or watermarking, every document or media file on a computer or on any USB stick connected to it. That means that all files can be traced.