Which Videos Do North Koreans Download Most?

In an August 15 article posted on its website, the Telegraph said that a large number of Internet users in North Korea have downloaded pornography made in Japan or the U.S., and the most popular game download via file sharing sites was the mobile game “Angry Birds,” according to data from Scan Eye. The web site monitoring BitTorrent, a protocol for sharing files over the internet, analyzed 178 downloads made by computers registered in Pyongyang.

Episodes of Top Gear and the HBO documentary Manhunt: The Search for Bin Laden were also downloaded by IP addresses in Pyongyang.

“These IP addresses are registered to North Korea, and there is no known Virtual Network Provider operating in that range. This makes it likely that the traffic is indeed originating from the area,” said Ernesto Van Der Sar, who edits the TorrentFreak blog.

On the other hand, some experts questioned Scan Eye's analysis. Martyn Williams, who runs the North Korea Tech blog, remarked, “If any of it is real, I expect it's foreigners in Pyongyang. But I really wonder whether people would be bothered to torrent and if the bandwidth would support it.”