How it began
Some intranet services were developed in the Rajin-Sonbong special economic zone as early as 1995, and North Korea's first website, the Naenara portal, was made in 1996. Efforts to build Kwangmyong on a national scale began as early as 1997. The intranet was originally developed by the Central Scientific and Technological Information Agency, and the national service came into use in the early 2000s.
How it works
Kwangmyong is designed for use only inside North Korea. As of 2016 it used IPv4 addresses in the private 10.0.0.0/8 range defined in RFC 1918. It carries many websites and services, an internal email service, news groups and a search engine. It can be reached from computers, smartphones, tablets and a Wi-Fi set-top box. It is managed by the Korea Computer Center and monitored by government bodies.
What changed first
The first email provider, Sili Bank, was set up in 2001. Before 2006, users arranged sports meetups in intranet chat rooms. After about 300 users organized a flash mob at the Pyongyang Gymnasium to mark the tenth anniversary of Naenara, all chat rooms were removed. By 2007 over 30 million documents, mostly scientific or technical, were reported to be posted on the network.
Where it stands today
Regional chat rooms reportedly returned in 2015. A video conferencing system called Rakwon was developed at Kim Il-sung University in 2010, and the central bank launched an electronic payment system in 2020. State television reported in 2018 that the service was being managed by an entity named for Kwangmyong. The network remains far more widely available in the country than the global internet.
