The official North Korean Linux-based operating system
"Based on FOSS, hence Red Star Linux has the freedom to restrict and oppress the citizens of North Korea. "
—wertperch, quoted in FOSS
If I asked the Linux geeks among you, guess which distribution this is based on? For those of you who guessed Red Hat, well done.
This OS is mostly based on open-source software; the kernel is a modified version of the Linux kernel. Prior to the development of Red Star in 1998, North Korea used Red Hat or a North Korean version of Windows XP. The first version was released in 2008 and wa set up to look like XP. Currently version 4 is in use.
Other software includes a modified Mozilla Firefox web browser called Naenara ("My country" in Korean), which is used for browsing the Naenara web portal on North Korea's national intranet known as Kwangmyong. Naenara comes with two search engines. Other software includes a text editor, an office suite based on Open Office, an e-mail client, audio and video players, and amazingly enough, a file sharing program, and video games. Since at least Version 3, it also uses Wine, a compatibility layer that allows Windows programs to be run. The KDE desktop environment is currently configured to resemble Apple's MacOS The OS runs on minimum specs of an 800 MHz Intel Pentium III, 256 MB of RAM and needs but 3 GB of storage space.
The North Korean government wants to track the underground market of USB flash drives used to exchange foreign films, music and writing, so the system watermarks all files on portable media attached to computers.The OS includes scanning programs that resemble antivirus and the kernel includes a module that scans files for watermarks that enables the government to track users swapping files from outside the country. According to German researchers:
"The first thing that came to our attention when looking at the functions in the binary was gpsWatermarkingInformation." ¹
Any media files created are watermarked with the serial number of the computer's hard drive. When the computer is connected to the NK "internet" (really an intranet) the OS checks for any changes to system files, seeks out any unauthorised configurations, software or changes, and reports them at the same time reverting the system to default settings.
$ xclip -o | wc -w
¹ https://www.theregister.com/2015/07/20/north_korea_red_star_linux_inserts_sneaky_serial_content_tracker/