Tim Martin

You're only allowed to access an internet that North Korea chooses.

These are the North Korean curated sites for you to go to.

These are the apps that

We can have you have access to certain things you try to text into your phone, like South Korea, for instance, autocorrects to the way North Korea refers to South Korea, which is Southern Joseon.

The smartphones at any given moment will take a random snapshot of what's on your screen.

If a police officer stops you on the street and says, show me your phone, which is a fairly frequent occurrence, then you're subjected to this audit of what...

you look at on your phone.

I think Kim Jong-un is very happy for more North Koreans to have smartphones because, again, it allows this surveillance capability to be supercharged.

It is concentrated in the North Korean capital, and it's not like, hey, I would love a view of the beautiful river in downtown Pyongyang, so I'm going to move there.

No, only people connected to the party, people with money, people with political connections can even live in the capital.

So if you leave Pyongyang,

The country still is very poor, malnourished.

Half the population doesn't have enough food.

So, yes, it's disproportionately going to Pyongyang and the elites, but it's not the only area where North Korea is seeing growth.

Many of these drivers could be fleeting for sure.

Russia's war machine could rev down if there's an end to the war in Ukraine.

But I think there would be a long tail there in terms of Russia wanting a cheap way to replenish many of its munitions.

So how sustainable is this?

I think Kim Jong-un has a degree of comfort politically, militarily, and now economically.

And that allows him to sort of call the shots.