Media: Internet traffic from North Korea goes through Russia
The Russian company Trans Telecom (TTK) has established an Internet connection with North Korea, reported the website 38 North, with reference to the database of Internet routing. The Reuters news agency also drew attention to this.
The portal refers to the data of the Dyn Research Company, which studies the state of the Internet around the world and analyzes and compares the connections of individual networks and providers with each other. According to the data, the connection from TTK was first recorded at about 09:08 UTC on Sunday, October 1. Prior to this, requests from Internet users in North Korea and from users in other countries accessing North Korean resources were directed along the single route, 38 North pointed out. This route connects the Internet provider of the DPRK Star JV with China Unicron. It has been operating since 2010, the website notes.
"North Korea activated the first node of Internet communication through Russia, while the US strengthened its pressure against Pyongyang," Dyn Research employees wrote on Twitter.
38 North draws attention to the map posted on the website of the TTK that indicates that its fiber-optic cables are laid from Vladivostok to the border with North Korea. The map shows that the cable is laid to the village of Khasan, which borders on the DPRK. Khasan and the North Korean village of Tumangang share a railway bridge across the Tumen River.
In 2012, the second connection with Star JV via the international satellite operator Intelsat was established, the portal notes, but it lasted for about a year. Since then, North Korea had only one channel of communication with the outside world, which was subjected to distributed denial of service attacks.
There are few Internet users in the DPRK but government institutions, large enterprises and universities can access the Web. The Internet is also used by families from the ruling elite and, as the website notes, "cyber units of the North Korean army."
A representative of the TTK told RBC news agewncy that since 2009, the company has had a connection via backbone communication network with North Korea under a contract with Korea Posts and Telecommunications Corp. The parties did not enter into any new agreements, the company added.
The main shareholder of TTK is Russian Railways. The state-owned company owns 99.99% of the shares, as indicated on the company's website. TTK services more than 78,000 kilometers of fiber-optic communication lines. Its throughput is 3.4 Tbit/s.
The website indicates that the Eurasia Highway transcontinental digital highway provides communication with the DPRK, as well as with Japan, China, and Mongolia. The data highway is also connected to the networks of Finland, the Baltic States and the CIS countries.
Russia, together with the DPRK, carried out the reconstruction of the section of the Khasan-Rajin railway from 2008 to 2014. Russian Railways participated in the project. 10.6 billion rubles (or $183 million) was invested into the project.