It’s basically what you’d expect.
One of the more revealing – and darkly amusing – features was the phone’s automatic censorship of words deemed problematic by the state. For instance, when users typed oppa, a South Korean term used to refer to an older brother or a boyfriend, the phone automatically replaced it with comrade. A warning would then appear, admonishing the user that oppa could only refer to an older sibling.
I can’t figure out what they’re claiming here. It replaces “oppa” with ‘comrade’ like in English? Or the Korean word for ‘comrade’? And why would it admonish you for an autocorrection it made on its own? This is nonsensical.
Typing “South Korea” would trigger another change. The phrase was automatically replaced with “puppet state,” reflecting the language used in official North Korean rhetoric.
lmao
Then came the more unsettling features. The phone silently captured a screenshot every five minutes, storing the images in a hidden folder that users couldn’t access. According to the BBC, authorities could later review these images to monitor the user’s activity.
Damn that’s a wild claim, wonder where it came from?
The device was smuggled out of North Korea by Daily NK, a Seoul-based media outlet specializing in North Korean affairs.
Who wants to guess where Daily NK gets their funding?
spoiler
https://www.dailynk.com/english/faq/
One of our biggest donors is the US-based National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and information about NED grants Daily NK has received can be found here.
Experts say this technology is designed not only to control information but also to reinforce state messaging at the most personal level.
Our noble “protecting free speech,” their dastardly reinforcing state messaging.
Also, “experts”? Which experts? And in what field? Who even knows.
The regime has reportedly intensified efforts to eliminate South Korean cultural influence, which it views as subversive. So-called “youth crackdown squads” have been deployed to enforce these rules, frequently stopping young people on the streets to inspect their phones and review text messages for banned language.
“”“reportedly”“” 
Some North Korean escapees have shared that exposure to South Korean dramas or foreign radio broadcasts played a key role in their decision to flee the country. Despite the risks, outside media continues to be smuggled in – often via USB sticks and memory cards hidden in food shipments. Much of this effort is supported by foreign organizations.
“Some North Korean escapees” apparently none who have names or positions, because none were found in this article.
It has been interesting watching the narrative around the DPRK shift from “They use outdated technology from the 80s because they are so backwards and in need of Freedom” to “They have advanced technology, sometimes even beyond what the west has, but they only ever use it exclusively for pointlessly evil things.”
Typing “South Korea” would trigger another change. The phrase was automatically replaced with “puppet state”
If hexbear made a phone
trying to enter any porn site would just give you a warning and a life sized
would appear to drag you to horny jail.
This is well deconstructed @rom and I would put money on the fact that the phone itself is bullshit, with software added and then placed in the hands of friendly (read: paid for) hacks to report on.
To add two points on the bullshit ‘secret screenshotting’:
- This is what Microsoft’s Co-Pilot integration does via its ‘Recall’ feature (except MS does it every few seconds or more). Since it’s initial rollout it’s been widely criticised with multiple national privacy and security watchdogs getting involved. Microsoft (which its worth remembering again is an asset of the US military & intelligence state) has responded by merely mking it slightly less difficult to ask to opt out. The feature remains in place.
- Also, if the phone was screenshotting and saving it on a folder every five minutes as described a 32gb phone would have its entire memory full of nothing but those screenshots in 3-4 months. So obviously people would notice or North Korean citizens would be going through multiple phones a year (can’t delete the files if they’re in a hidden folder you can’t access).
Also, if the phone was screenshotting and saving it on a folder every five minutes as described a 32gb phone would have its entire memory full of nothing but those screenshots in 3-4 months. So obviously people would notice or North Korean citizens would be going through multiple phones a year (can’t delete the files if they’re in a hidden folder you can’t access).
I was thinking the same thing. Considering how fast phone memory fills up for me with apps and pictures, that feels extremely unrealistic.
https://hexbear.net/comment/6201549
I commented about this a few days ago. The phone acquired by DailyNK is allegedly called Samtaesung 8 ( 삼태성8 ). You can search this phone name and find more results for the same phone. You will also notice a 8 on the wallpaper of the phone in the BBC video.
Samtaesung is not meant to replicate the word “Samsung”, Samtaesung is the name of a 3 star formation near the big dipper, which is deemed to be culturally important in DPRK.
I found that DailyNK, published 2 articles specific to the Samtaesung 8, which I have linked in my previous comment. One article shows technical specs of the phone and the other article speculates that people in DPRK were not allowed to take personal screenshots so that the government could control the flow of information. This DailyNK article, in my opinion, contradicts the statements made by the BBC.
It is not possible to block screenshots on the fear of spread of information and also to have automatic screenshots every 5 minutes. Creating automatic screenshots every 5 minutes would hypothetically create a new security risk for an entity which wanted to stop spread of information. Also the timestamps on the screenshots in the video don’t even match 5 minutes and the file names are not named as screenshots.
I noticed some other articles on DailyNK which named Samtaesung 8 tangentially, but were speculations about cell phone use in DPRK more broadly.
I remember reading an article about cell phone production on DPRK’s KCNA website some months ago but I am not able to find the article now.
comrade gangnam style
dibs on this being the name of the post-reunification dengism, instead of boring socialism with korean characteristics
Didn’t some people test the NK version of Linux recently and found it was completely network silent when you weren’t on the internet?
It wasn’t recent, the leaked copy of a very old version of Red Star OS (Debian downstream) was looked at years and years ago. The TLDR was that it was “their state surveillance” vs. “our god given right to telemetry”
Most people who have access to a computer in Democratic Korea just use Windows and Apple like the rest of the human race is subjected to.
The saddest part of that is most of the people there use the regular OSes. There goes my linux utopia
Good post!
Given how much the West likes to project I presume that’ll be an actual feature on the next generation of iPhones
It already is a feature on Microsoft copilot. Literally taking pictures of your screen every minute and feeding it to their AI for parsing whilst keeping said screenshots in an unencrypted hidden folder
I would assume it’s been a feature on every phone since like 2017
windows did it already
Damn North Korea got Copilot before GTA6
What I found more funny about this shit is the start animation for the phone. The most
stupidpatriot people I know of is the USanian and as far as I know not even in America you have the flag as the start animation for you phone. But how to make people believe this stupid tinkered android phone comes from NK? Put the NK flag on it!!!The fact that it’s animated is even more sus, and the host herself holds it like it’s a prop for the camera.
Check out this thread from a few days ago: https://hexbear.net/post/5101914 BBC has a video showing the phone in action.
I can’t figure out what they’re claiming here. It replaces “oppa” with ‘comrade’ like in English? Or the Korean word for ‘comrade’? And why would it admonish you for an autocorrection it made on its own? This is nonsensical.
In the BBC video, they show that it changes to Korean for “comrade”, and presents a notification saying “oppa is only used for family relations” or something like that. They’re making the claim that the word changed because “oppa” has a kind of slag meaning in occupied Korea that means “brother” but is used when talking to or about your boyfriend. I liken it to people in America calling people “Daddy”. The idea is they are trying to ensure North Koreans are not adopting South Korean pop culture.
@[email protected] left a good comment on that thread I linked above:
click to see comment
The woman in the video published an article alongside the video. In the article, it says she obtained from Daily NK. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c98pnx35xj2o
DailyNK is a anti-DPRK and anti-communism news website. DailyNK has received funding from National Endowment for Democracy (NED) ie US government funding.
DailyNK published a technical specification breakdown of the phone in the video in February 2025. The article says that they recently obtained the phone. They say this phone is called “Samtaesung 8”. You will notice in the BBC video that there is also an 8 on the phone wallpaper. The article doesn’t mention the autocorrect feature or the screenshot surveillance.
https://www.dailynk.com/english/north-korea-smartphone-samtaesung-8-revealed/
DailyNK published an article about the screenshot functionality of the Samtaesung 8 phone in April 2025. This article contradicts the BBC video. This article says that DPRK cellphones only recently gained screenshot functionality and the phone blocks screenshotting when the News app is open (maybe copyright protection?). The BBC video said that the phones had no access to internet but if it has a News app, then it has some form of internet. The screenshot list on the BBC video also doesn’t make sense, the timestamps are inconsistent and the file names are illogical.
The BBC video seems to be just straight up lying. I have skepticism for the information provided by DailyNK, but they at least show screenshots of the technical information about the phone.
Edit /// The Korean name for the phone is 삼태성8 . You get a lot more search results when searching for the Korean name. There is also a newer model Samtaesung 9 or 삼태성9 . There are some videos on youtube in Korean.
contextual auto-replace sounds fake as fuck
It’s not even contextual, in the video they just type it in by itself. The warning says it can then only refer to family. But it wasn’t referring to anything, so why would the phone assume you’re using it in the SK style? How would you go about using it appropriately? It doesn’t make any sense.
damn can you imagine if the USA had an entire agency dedicated to Total Information Awareness that ingested all of its communications at internet peering points into massive databases in Utah
i actually got ahold of one of these north korean phones. whenever i type reddit it automatically autocorrects to stormfront.
chilling.
Typing “South Korea” would trigger another change. The phrase was automatically replaced with “puppet state,” reflecting the language used in official North Korean rhetoric.
lol i literally do this but as quisling korea.
in bad country phone spies on you
