North Korea has iPhones?

iPhone usage has been surging in North Korea. In this episode, we investigate this phenomenon and speak with the CEO behind the data.
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Instagram: / mega.lag
Twitter: / megalagofficial

[@CatsT.M]

The fact that one of your first Air Tags is still alive is amazing...especially since that one lawyer said they would deactivate after a few days.

[@lainwired3946]

Every time it gets misdelivered, it gets 6 months of charge. It'll outlive the courier and possibly the heat death of the universe.

[@CatsT.M]

@@lainwired3946 I think the AirTag would turn to dust before it could lose charge.

[@lainwired3946]

@@CatsT.M it also gets a refurb courtesy of the Jong family at every pitstop

[@CatsT.M]

@@lainwired3946 Ahh, of course, very kind of them.

[@ElisAW]

@@lainwired3946 you mean the Kim family?

[@georgih]

I was in North Korea in 2018 and I got a rare chance to check a north korean smartphone (it was chinese), one of the girls in the hotel bar where we were staying liked me very much and gave me her phone to check it, they have something like a texting app, looked like ICQ back in the day if you remember it, some games, the internet (the phone operator's internet, because there was no wifi at all anywhere) was super slow, like 40 kb/s. It was interesting to see :)

[@unreaall]

oh wow, with sanctions i'm honestly surprised the internet was that good

[@georgih]

@@unreaall It was kilobits, like in the early 90''s ;)

[@patrick1992]

​@@georgih I think he don't know what a kb is 😂

[@TRDiscordian]

That's fascinating, thanks so much for sharing! Actual Internet access though? I didn't know such a thing was casually allowed. Or is it NK's intranet?

[@scottex.]

@@TRDiscordian intranet definitely. Even the linux based os that they used supposedly was only setup to run on nk's intranet

[@AadamSaleem390]

This guys channel went from using airtags to do some cool experiments to exposing billion dollar shipping industries to tracking down North Korea

[@RyanGonTV]

fr

[@osheridan]

Next he's going to break out of the Matrix

[@GTNTAnimations]

Stolen my comment on his last video

[@HENRUS7]

@@GTNTAnimations Precisely!

[@Darktacomic]

He a hundred percent did

[@TheStopwatchGod]

10:32 This is either an iPhone 11 Pro Max or iPhone XS Max. You can tell because the iPhone is in Gold, which the X didn't have as a color, and although it's hard to identify the left side of the phone (from the front) has 4 speaker grills, which the standard sized iPhones only have 3 on the left. From the front and Sides alone however it's impossible to differentiate an iPhone 11 Pro Max from a XS Max, since there are literally no physical differences from those angles

[@justnathan_4087]

Though it's a bit difficult to tell if it's in gold because it almost looks like it's just silver getting some sort of gold reflection from a background object.

[@SOMEONE-wq3qb]

It’s a iPhone X it’s just the lighting that makes it look slightly gold you can see by that the speakers are the same on the left and right of the port. on a xs or 11 there is an antenna line on the Bottom left of the phone and the speakers arnt symmetrical

[@matuslivora7469]

I don’t think it’s an iPhone at all. There are 4 speaker grill holes on each side. X has 6+6; Xs has 3+6; Xs Max has 4+7 … also assuming it’s gold, the antenna stripe should also be on the bottom of the device on Xs (Max) … pentalobe screws around the connector are also missing, also the lightning port has a pretty visible ring around it which cannot be seen in the video just go and watch the og video at 0.25x and pause it at the right moment

[@TheStopwatchGod]

@@matuslivora7469 It’s just the low resolution video, plus the XS Max has 4+6 speaker grills, not 4+7

[@awi6040]

the other thing is, the camera punchout is on the top-center of the device, and no iphone had a centered camera, it reminds me of some kind of oppo phone. Going further, it has 4 speaker "dots" and none of the rounded bezzel iphones had 4 holes on either side, also the antenna bands are a little lower then on the normal iphone, in my opinion its some phone from the BBK family, or a cheap iphone knock off

[@zjeckaktus]

at around 10:25 you can see the phone has just 1 camera placed in the top middle, where iPhone 10 would have speaker, so I'd say it's some kind of Xiaomi

[@Redbuild_]

you are right

[@melvinlourdes88]

I didn’t see this part but I was wondering if they hated the US so much they wouldn’t want to be using an American tech, neither would they be okay using South Korea’s Samsung, so the next obvious choice would be a Chinese brand considering their ties so Xiaomi or Huawei would be the perfect choice.

[@hermenegildoc3933]

To me is pyongyang 2425 or pyongyang 2428

[@MainInternetUser]

That's definitely a huawei they did many phones (some exclusive to China) with iPhone looking bodies

[@Frameton.]

I think I might have a hunch why the iphone share increased so much, at around that time (september/october 2021) apple rolled out its new iCloud Private Relay feature, which is quite similar to a VPN. It just seems like this might be related so probably worth investigating further

[@MaxLovesNascarOfficial]

how don’t they ban iPhones in NK?? 🇰🇵

[@dyl518]

Here before this blows up

[@FireBlockerPro]

Maybe the NK President gives them to his generals and import officers if they worship him…

[@DimitrisSartzetakis]

Because Kim is an Apple fan. All images released showing computers were all iMacs

[@tdrg_]

iPhones (like all American tech) is indeed BANNED. It’s probably diplomats or high-level government officials who have access to an iPhone AND the Internet.

[@manun7448]

Kim himself uses a Mac.

[@NiklasVWWV]

You said something about that company's data being anonymized. But, what I would like to hear from the CEO: Is there any way to get more insight about North Korean usage patterns? Are these devices connecting all the time, or are they only connecting at certain days/hours, such as at times when government censorship is on duty? Such insights, compared to other countries, would be of interest.

[@aspuzling]

Yeah I would also love to dig into the data a bit more.

[@wclifton968gameplaystutorials]

It's well known that in North Korea, the majority of smartphones (in use by the public) are no-name Android phones (according to Tourists from before the 2020 Border Closure) and their computers which previously ran Windows 7, now run their own Linux Distro called "Red Star OS" (in English) which judging by the newest version available to people outside of North Korea (due to leaks) uses the KDE Plasma Desktop Environment (probably based on Debian but idk since I have never actually looked at the ISO). The Majority of iOS users are probably from government employees who work in high-ranking offices in the big cities (so not your average tram driver or food manufacturing facility worker who probably uses a cheap Chinese Android phone rebranded for the DPRK market) as well as any foreign diplomats whom may have returned to North Korea for their diplomatic mission in the country. There is also the chance that some iPhones have been smuggled into North Korea from either China or Russia and even South Korea (before their corporate employment deal with Hyundai [I think it was with that SK company but could be wrong] went sour)...

[@sachinchauhan7775]

Ya, I saw few tourist videos back before 2020, where atleast in Pyongyang people had cheap chinese android phones. These phones came with limited no of preinstalled Android apps. There was no app store to search and download new apps.

[@jamiealeksic8428]

This is pretty much the exact same conclusion I came to however you put it into words far better then I ever could

[@SMGJohn_Secondary]

You must be smelling rock salt for fun if you think they let people use iPhone, SPECIALLY in the government. The data comes mostly from foreigners visiting the country and accessing the Internet in the country, reality is even government officials do not get access willy nilly.

[@morethanplanets]

As far as I know, North Korea's Red Star OS is based on Linux. If the browser used there is based on WebKit (like some Linux browsers like Epiphany), some websites recognise it as Safari. So it may be WebKit browsers being detected as Safari.

[@JeremyWestAU]

So far as I recall from running Red Star it had no browser. If it did it would likely be ice weasel or a variant of gecko. It is fairly ancient and unclear if it’s still used or ever had wide spread usage. While an interesting thought it does not explain the iOS version signature.

[@morethanplanets]

@@JeremyWestAU hmm, good point.

[@My_Old_YT_Account]

It would not be due to iOS versions being communicated

[@Sundheden]

More likely, they have their own browsers and/or even operating systems to lock down what can be accessed, and a browser like that could easily just have a hard coded to send a User-Agent tag as iPhone/iOS instead of whatever they call their software when making web requests.

[@nSiLEtan]

That wouldn't explain the change of iOS versions correlated with their release dates.

[@SamTheEnglishTeacher]

@@nSiLEtan Yeah they could push an update to change to the new user-agent. Bearing in mind there is a North Korean version of Linux which is for the most part a one-to-one clone of macOS... it wouldn't surprise me.

[@capybara5494]

Or, more likely, the DPRK propaganda flood the so called « influencers » with iPhones so they can fake their everyday lives better

[@m9ddie]

@@SamTheEnglishTeacherr u talking ab red star os?? if so that shit is the biggest clone ever 😭 if it wasnt for the icons, colors, etc it’d look like an exact copy

[@Sundheden]

@@nSiLEtan It's just a string sent with a HTTP request. Easiest thing to keep maintained and updated.

[@therationalanarchist]

It's not surprising. A very few people deemed to be VIP in NK are allowed to have cell phones and internet access.

[@jerryle379]

You will be surprising the amount of smartphone user in north Korea ( quite a lot now day ) especially in Pyongyang , there Indonesian guy whom stay in nkorean a few year that film stuff with his go pro totally check it out.

[@KayleeVRC]

@@jerryle379 Pretty much only diplomats. He works for the Indonesian embassy in Pyongyang

[@jerryle379]

@@KayleeVRC yup but he did show the amount of folk in north Korean owning smartphone increase over the year another guy are Aram ( from sing ) one thing I have seen the north Korean can't own are PC and laptop haven't seen them much in normal household

[@mntish]

Send another airtag in case this dies from battery... it will be a shame to lose the opportunity

[@PlittHD]

I love your channel. You are one of the few that do it as a hobby. As a passion project. Reminds me of the good old days of KZbin in 2008 when people weren't money-focused with their content.

[@SOFTWAREMASTER]

Can confirm. This guy is a legend.

[@rkan2]

The older I become the more I appreciate people with passion.. And yes, he definitely is on a mission.

[@guiximenes]

I second that. Love that feeling of watching something created for the sake of experimenting and discovering the world.

[@jannikheidemann3805]

He's playing the KZbin game pretty well though.

[@kevinsundelin8639]

God forbid people want to make a living /s smh

[@KarlBaron]

I wonder if what changed was that ISP or IP range (could simply be a specific APN on a mobile network) that Android users changed IP ranges to one that is not yet properly tracked as being North Korea, and the only users left of the previous ISP are iPhone users (like.. just the Kim household or something)

[@masondegaulle5731]

Anyone with a smartphone connected to the internet in NK would be under constant close scrutiny. All smartphones would be government issued. This data makes perfect sense, they upgraded and bought in quantity to address their new PR campaign. Hence 99.99% of phones & devices were changed out within a very short timeframe. apple is the logical choice because NK doesn't want China spying via Huwai, and doesn't want SK spying via Samsung; apple serves no master but its own interests. There are maybe a dozen people in NK who can pick and choose what smartphone they want.

[@Lego455200930]

@@masondegaulle5731 "apple serves no master but its own interests" lmao

[@My_Old_YT_Account]

@@Lego455200930 especially since Apple got caught not patching a bug the CCP was using to spy on Uigurs

[@ONhistoryplus]

As you like roasting DHL... you should do a video about the time DHL won the KFC chicken delivery contract in the UK which was so badly handled, KFC ran out of chicken and a number of branches had to close (and DHL lost the contract).

[@tosspot1305]

Yer i remember that! Alot of franchise owners lost alot of money!

[@Iisakkiik]

Sad to see that the KZbin algorithm doesn't seem to like this as much as some of your other videos (it only recommended it to me after two days). It's s really interesting topic and I hope you won't be too discouraged by the lower view count, as we who find our way here definitely still enjoy it a lot!

[@MegaLag]

Thanks man, appreciate that! In terms of CTR and AVD, this video is one of my top performers, so it's a little weird that it isn't getting promoted. Wondering if it's because spoke about Covid.

[@Iisakkiik]

​@@MegaLagwell that's definitely interesting. Hopefully your next videos do better, because they really deserve to!

[@naberville3305]

​@@MegaLagdefinitely weird. Anything NK usually gets flagged up. Probably didn't call it a regime enough

[@manun7448]

The fact that the borders are reopening is really interesting! I am personally quite interested in the DPRK and I didn't know this yet. Exciting! Very much looking forward to seeing what happens with the AirTag. Did you consider maybe sending a new AirTag over now? So that it can be there in time for the border to (supposedly) reopen?

[@LewisLarsen]

I can't wait until this man visits North Korea.

[@SrSteve404]

you make cool uncovering stuff videos, you deserve way more subs

[@neildotwilliams]

For such a big switch in devices in such a small timeframe I would guess all internet connected devices are state controlled and they did an ‘enterprise’ upgrade.

[@ShadowRacing]

This is such a good, interesting video!

[@theon.953]

iphones are like the first or second most used brands there, the other being samsung theres like some footage of iphone/ mac usage like in one of moranbong's concerts, where theyre using a macbook (i forgot what year its from)

[@TheBROTOTYPE]

Something happened to the Apple location pings last week, my apple watch catched a ping from other side of a planet while sitting on a table next to me. 😂 And they continued to send that ping from other country for almost the whole day.

[@AlanTheBeast100]

You can report that to Apple.

[@fitybux4664]

GPS anomaly or someone playing with AirTag spoofing.

[@JaylanYilmaz]

I once opened my security camera app and saw some else’s entire camera setup I could view live and even watch back the last 60 days or rather. Never reported it to Eufy but you bet I switched to Google after that.

[@Micko.1]

​@@JaylanYilmaz I asked my Echo Show 15 to show me my xiaomi camera in my dogs house, i was so confused when someones bathroom live view popped up 😂😂😂

[@ipommes]

Hi, interesting Video! When I looked at it, the first what came to my mind is that maybe the Apple Private Relay has to do something with this? Because this was released at the end of 2021 at the same time the traffic increased rapidly… Maybe the normal use of the internet is blocked, but Private Relay routes the traffic over Apple Servers so it wont be blocked?

[@MegaLag]

I thought about this too! Because the dates def match up. But i assumed Apple wouldn’t have North Korean IPs for the egress servers. But someone reached out recently claiming they do. I need to look into it deeper to confirm

[@leazhito2826]

10:28 That is probably not an iPhone. The notch at the top has a centered selfie camera whereas iPhones with notches have a much more subtle looking one to the right of the notch. The speaker grills at the bottom are identical between each other (or at least they look like it) and no visible screws next to the charging port are visible, even in the original video. Antenna lines on the sides are also way brighter than the body, which is not how they look in gold/rose gold iPhones. Hard to figure out if that is USB-C or Lightning, but most likely the former. Based on this, this is mostly likely another device not coming from Apple. Knowing possible trading routes and the stats you showed, would probably say is a Xiaomi or an older BBK device.

[@hermenegildoc3933]

Pyongyang 2427/Pyongyang 2428 phone 😊

[@LetrixAR]

It looks really similar to the iPhone XS. Maybe a clone, or maybe the compression hide the details.

[@MorganAntoinette]

You are a gem. Thank you for sharing the creative talents you have and the discerning, thoughtful modalities in which you ponder and investigate the human condition. I am hooked on your content. I noticed the cross on your… Bluetooth speaker? in your room. Are you a believer? Thank you again for being you. God bless you sir.

[@KelseyBDJ]

I love following your stories, such a great story teller. Respect from England 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 👊

[@MegaLag]

Thanks man! Glad you're enjoying the content :)

[@SeaBeast4Life]

Wait, that Statcounter CEO is named Aegon? As in The Conqueror? Thats pretty badass!

[@OneBaldingWookiee]

4:18 “gigabitches” my new favorite term. Thank you.

[@thelonelygamer7861]

I wonder what their reaction will be when they find the airtag

[@nuIlIllI]

Hello from Seoul! Thanks for the amazing video as always. This particular one was especially interesting since it was related to the NK. It's out of context but I noticed that your TV screen got some Korean characters at 8:35. What are those? I'm kinda curious.

[@PAPERMAsster]

Not sure about Korean characters, but this is a screensaver on most recent LG TVs and the text says something like “please press any key except power to continue watching”

[@user-cg1oq5le1n]

He is in Korea and look at the plug and some product is written in Hangeul

[@david5uper529]

the title of this video is exactly what I thought when you said your apple air tag was tracked as being in n korea. Air tags connect via iphones around it.

[@dani33300]

It's a country-wide firewall that changes your user agent. First they spoofed random user agents, hence the wild swings in stats. Now they spoof latest iPhone only, hence the 100% market share and orderly up to date versions each month.

[@LiEnby]

This is not possible as the user-agent section is part of the HTTP request headers which would be encrypted by TLS, as per the HTTPS protocol. - Li (proxied by Mia)

[@dani33300]

@@LiEnby But we can probably assume any great firewall will MITM their own users, decrypting and re-encrypting all https traffic with their own keys.

[@LiEnby]

@@dani33300 but then the server would reject the connection? DPRK doesn't own whatever site the tracking stuff is on

[@dani33300]

@@LiEnby I'm not sure how strong man in the middle attacks can become if an entire state does it at the ISP level. I imagine it works with a reverse proxy to defeat https.

[@LiEnby]

@@dani33300 ? So .. what? North Korea has their own DPRK internal address for a website and it has a different domain like say Facebook-dprk which is http only and on the dprk internal intranet and then that securely connects to real facebook and forwards your stuff over to that ? Is that what your suggesting Because this would work but it would also break in some instances

[@myharryface]

Yep, that's an iPhone XS or XS Max for sure. As that was a year that came in a gold version. -- Btw, love the videos ... wish you made them more often.

[@rumpelstiltskin9729]

This feels like a giant ad for this tracking service

[@MrTCOOPS16]

My theory would list a few possible reasons. First could be that since Samsung is a South Korean company, they would not want to have a company south of the DMZ to have huge market share. The DPRK could cite spying concerns and they could pass that as law. Would have to check on that, but seems logical. Second, Huawei exports could have been limited due to the semiconductor shortage throughout the pandemic, and the fact the market share is expected to be so small, it wouldn’t make sense to send DPRK officials an updated phone when everywhere else has a huge return. Same could be said for all other brands for official sales. A third possibility is the black market that North Koreans rely on to get foreign films, tv shows, etc. For years they would get it on Video Tapes, DVDs, and USB drives. But simply getting an iPhone could hold much more data. Plus, if it’s a jail broken iPhone, the it would give them more apps and movies, and they won’t have to sign up for an Apple ID to use it. That would be considering it’s NOT a high government official’s device that can access the greater World Wide Web. And it would indeed help the governments influencer goals to have a smart phone that is more recognizable to their intended western audience. They can even say they like XYZ game on the App Store and play it every day.

[@jerryle379]

Amother thing is foreigner in north korea : embassy , UN worker beside north korean elite bought from black market and north korean that work oversea ( quite large amount btw , they even work in poland a few years back )

[@asgergotved1263]

I just saw your colorblind glasses (and had to check out more), so now I gotta say: Dude, you gotta upload more! Your videos are great (sure, they can improve, but you are the next Johnny Harris), just get more consistent so we can all discover you!

[@asgergotved1263]

(But take care of yourself, so if this is all you feel like is realistic then stick to it! I've been burned out, and it's better to take an extra year to "make it")

[@dropyourself]

Johnny Harris is just a neoliberal ideologue. This dude actually makes well researched videos, the only place CIA Harris has him beat is editing.

[@captainsuckbutt3917]

its pretty insulting to call someone johnny harris

[@JamesLee-on1yb]

Imagining the next video would be Megalag travelling to North Korea to find out those mystery

[@Everytwo_]

I love this channel

[@TechNo1geek]

I remember watching that video, cant believe its been 2 years

[@theallmightytimelord1265]

i cant get over the fact of how long ive been following these videos

[@Mr_Top_Hat_Jones]

Same, my first thought was VPNs. I thought for sure that would be the case, but maybe not.

[@enterchannelname5953]

North Korea has it’s own smartphone brands connected to Kwangmyong which most normal North Koreans but it’s only connected inside North Korea.

[@eduardoizquierdo309]

It would be cool if you did a trip to the dprk

[@bartjanvanwilgenburg5775]

is there a update to this story because i have been following this for the last 2 years and i want to know if there is a happy ending to this story

[@justusgovaert]

That phone from Song A definitely looks like an iPhone x/xs/xs max. maybe it could be an iPhone XR. Interesting. I hope that one day we can freely talk to people from North Korea on the Internet but that probably takes many years if that ever happens

[@joshjacobson9846]

Imagine if you’ve actually just accidentally blown the lid off a secret deal between DPRK and Apple

[@willowthelyxra]

Who tf would want a phone that gets slow when the new one gets released and may or may not explode in your pocket

[@aizawahikaru9002]

There have been some NK IP address owners on the Chinese internet lately (you know, Chinese social media platforms will show everyone's IP address attribution). From what I've heard from the owner of the NK IP address, it's likely that one (or possibly several ?) VPN providers got a NK VPS and used it to set up a proxy server. Anyway, NK IP and VPS do exist, but they seem to have very little bandwidth. as for accessing sites like google? since I havent got this VPN yet, I dont know :-)

[@ErickHatesBMC]

you can tell it's not an iphone by the charging port, the edges are usually bevelled around a real ones charging port

[@QOTSAPT]

what about user agent? The data might not come from an apple device but rather some korean browser using apple's user agent.

[@Jaydenkozdoes]

he should change his channel name to tracking north korea

[@TokyoChanSan]

Thank you for making another video. Please make more. TY............. What providers does NK have? The data usage for Apple phones is higher than others. Hence Are their internet g etc.? 4G service companies strong? I can't see how NK can have such a high usage age of iPhones if their Internet coverage isn't vital. thinking TY!

[@WatchNoah]

They probably don't have any cellular data infrastructure but instead some WiFi for very few privileged people I would guess

[@TokyoChanSan]

@@WatchNoah very few, there must be some stable connections for this amount of iPhone users. The video is excellent. I hope he adds more to this piece.

[@joebidenofficialpotus]

University

[@TokyoChanSan]

@@joebidenofficialpotus It can't account for that much usage? I see the idea, but it cant be that great.

[@a_programer]

ahhh i remember your first video from years

[@TH-wr1dv]

amounts are so low that maybe they just got one shipping container phones for goverment officials.

[@TheChemicalWorkshop]

i still have the absurd dream of having a server in DPRK

[@LiEnby]

imagine all the copyright infringement you could get away with!

[@AnupomAG]

2:23 I thought they don't have internet. Only a few gets access to the internet and that's also very restricted

[@Nobody-hc1rw]

Am i the one asking myself why a website would track my screen size? A mobile phone's screen size you would know by the model of the phone, which they already collect. Why do they want to know the size of my monitor?

[@ljc71]

There are addons that you can install on your browser that replicate different devices. If I was using edge but wanted to replicate search results that an iPhone would display, you can replicate that on an edge browser which would then claim it is the most recent update.

[@EmelyPhan]

That and that there are probably some border towns that may affect how may the data

[@jordanwiliams6056]

You need to hand deliver an air tag, then we can see what happens to it

[@elonnut]

It’s probably tracking only a few phones and which ones are active that visited those sites at the time so that why it’s so sporadic

[@Alvin-eq5rc]

Could it be from a small amount of tourist who visited North Korea? It’s a regally strange the spike is really high unless is small numbers

[@hautehussey]

It’s probably just a company that has internet access. Like the DHL affiliated company bought some iPhones for their higher class staff.

[@Sawgone-us7is]

Bruh in Korea the airtag location doesn't work...

[@casualamber]

What if the AirTag dies right before shipping?

[@DanielColson]

I wonder if the surge in iPhones could be a result of supply chain issues? Maybe iPhones were the only smartphones they were able to get shipped in for a while?

[@joshhud]

Update when?

[@believer2030]

10:30 that's not an iPhone it's a North Korean smartphone known as Pyongyang 2425. You can search it up.

[@jepoyeng]

I've been using Statcounter since 2004

[@reecepeart]

Perhaps StarLink? - maybe wifi is restricted, so it’s not entirely inconceivable that the DPRK gave certain folks these kits to access the greater internet.

[@amyshaw893]

I don't know the details if the starlink protocol, but I'd guess it would be a server at the base station of the satellites that would actually make the web request, then translate it for satellite usage, and the base station would probably be in America or similar, so all the ips would show as American

[@sheepcute]

But does Apple Maps and the Find My service actually work in North Korea, if there was an iPhone?

[@sosigking6358]

That gold-ish iPhone in Song A's video is likely a xiaomi-esque iPhone clone of some sort

[@EquaTechnologies]

It could be mostly the blogger's IP.

[@suboptical2732]

An alternative explanation could be user agent spoofing. I can use firefox on a linux computer and using a simple browser extension to make it look like im using safari on IOS with the click of a button. That browser extension generally shows the newest operating system and browser versions at the top of the list so that could explain why north koreans are using the newest version of IOS. The the question is why IOS and not any of the other possible user agents they could choose from?

[@MegaLag]

Yeah user agent spoofing has been around for a long time. As you said, why now and why only iPhones?

[@buzdi_dop]

And also change ios version every time new one comes out?

[@StefanbBorisov]

Make a video about North Korean influencers. I personally find it extremely interesting

[@kanedaku]

*_"Gigabitches"_* - that killed me 😆😂🤣

[@TheiPhoneGeek]

10:30 considering the gold, I'd say iPhone XS or iPhone 11 Pro.

[@MacDKB]

Wrong. The user agent string of a browser can be spoofed. There's a ton of browser extensions out there that do it. All that's happening here is that the user agent string is being spoofed & declaring the platform the browser's running on to be iOS.

[@rocketboysmc]

its the 18th now did the tag make it?

[@PuntosPlace]

bro wtf you always cook incredible videos

[@nopus1]

Please, make video about VPN to educate people like you about how it really works!

[@cl4998]

The ease of changing ones browser via the alteration of their user agent data makes this data completely unreliable. In regards to VPN's that would require nk to allow foreign leasing of domestic nk servers, and from the little research I've done, I haven't found that to be the case.

[@CC20_Moto3_f1]

its mostly likely a gold version of the iphone 8 plus

[@KimNKofficial]

Its obvious now. My country has internet and phones.

[@greenpixel_]

2:43 The sample size for Antarctica is 1. 😄

[@Doggiedogedog]

That air tag isn’t lasting that long 😂

[@sennlenscosplay]

I'm extremely curious that iPhones (including some Android) devices, except the North Korea ones have branded devices. Despite North Korea government want to control everything from their citizens to access information outside North Korea. Actually, North Korea, internet access is extremely limited to their own local "internet" (I mean, intranet). Maybe for those who access the internet in North Korea could be embassy who work in North Korea and some North Korean (maybe government officials) have special permission to access the internet in North Korea. So, sample size will be very small compared to other countries where internet access is available almost everywhere in every country. Maybe there are some small possible that some of their citizens are using iPhones and other Android devices (other than North Korean made devices) by buying from black market which is smuggling in either from China or South Korea. Internet access maybe there are some small chances they can access somewhere else. In small cases, they could brought China or South Korean SIM cards and stay near to the border to access the internet or if some places offer some WiFi connection that can literally access to internet instead of local intranet. Local SIM cards normally cannot access to the internet unless they buy from black market which they can connect to their local 3G network which can access internet (yes, their 3G network have internet access but actually limited to non North Korean only such as tourist).

[@hermenegildoc3933]

They have smartphones that access the intranet

[@SOMEONE-wq3qb]

It’s a iPhone X it’s just the lighting that makes it look slightly gold you can see by that the speakers are the same on the left and right of the port. on a xs or 11 there is an antenna line on the Bottom left of the phone and the speakers arnt symmetrical

[@ThisHandleIsNotTaken.]

I completely misread this, had to double-check, misread AGAIN, and then i clicked on the video

[@MainInternetUser]

I think there is also a good percentage of tourists (yes it's a thing) and the phone you spotted 10:30 it's most definitely not an iPhone. I would say most likely an older Huawei that's exclusive to China if you look at the bottom grills it's 100% not an iPhone layout

[@Windows98R]

some data science department at Apple is probably looking at the rising north korean IPs and going "Hmm. Ima just pretend I didnt see that..."

[@ABarbershopBarber]

Do you really only have 18 videos and you’ve blown up this huge

[@Ale-bj7nd]

You might try to get in proximity of north korea and try to launch the packet by yourself. Maybe a model rocket amd the right wind conditions.

[@HailAnts]

I would assume WiFi is banned everywhere in NK. Because I'm sure the US and South Korea are blasting open WiFi everywhere they can around the border. Though I'd think they'd do the same with free cellular service with internet access too.

[@avus-kw2f213]

The DPRK Has 3G also Internet is restricted to use it you are monitored at all times

[@amnottabs]

I dare to say that the majority of those iOS devices are from their state-approved influencers like that little girl you showed, probably easier to run Instagram on an iPhone and allow it internet access than trying to install it on their customized Android with no Google Services

[@arilebon]

The browser, operating system, etc information can be spoofed. Why though?