The truth is persistent, and nothing worries Pyongyang more than the truth coming out of South Korea. It is one thing over which the North does not have much control, and trying to prevent the influx of information about the rest of the world that comes in from South Korea is a losing battle and a fool’s errand.

As but one example, Radio Free Asia recently reported that the wildly popular Notetel is now an objectum non grata. Similar to a notebook, it is a Chinese-made portable gadget that plays CDs, DVDs, and EVDs – and it even features ports for USB sticks and SD cards as well. Moreover, it has tuners for radio and television broadcasts. The very descriptive name of the device is a mashup of notebook and television.