The Internet is still young, and North Korea remains a hermit Kimdom. But that’s a losing wicket. The World Wide Web brooks no exceptions. Already it has utterly transformed both the quantity and quality of our information about the DPRK, as indeed about everything else.

To those of us who remember when knowledge only came printed on paper, the difference is staggering. What was the preserve of a handful of specialists, published in arcane tomes and obscure periodicals found in few libraries, is now available to just about anyone anywhere in the world – except North Korea, of course – at the mere click of a mouse. That is amazing.