North Korea Allegedly Broadcasts Spy Messages Over YouTube

North Korea, on Saturday, allegedly broadcasted a mysterious encrypted message to its spies, for the first time on YouTube, reported Yonhap News Agency. 

The video clip, uploaded on the state-run Radio Pyongyang’s YouTube account, had a female announcer read off a series of numbers and said this is “an information technology review assignment of the remote education university for No. 719 expedition agents.”

The announcer repeated phrases such as “No. 23 on Page 564, No. -19 on Page 479” in the minute-long broadcast. The video, titled “0100011001-001,” was viewed several thousand times before it was deleted. Here are some of the screenshots of the video:

This could be the latest example of cryptography blended with social media that Pyongyang uses to communicate instructions to its secret agents in other countries. 

YouTube user Sneed Chuck appears to have recorded the now-deleted video. 

However, Martyn Williams, founder of North Korea Tech website, was quoted by NK News as saying the media reports of the now-deleted video were false:

“North Korea doesn’t run the channel,” Williams said. “It’s run from Mexico and was only recently renamed to Pyongyang Broadcast Station– which is incorrect anyway, and the [official] radio station is called Pyongyang Broadcasting Station.”

He said there are dozens of websites and social media accounts that appear to be North-Korean run but are managed by individual users in Mexico, that frequently record or copy content and repost. 

Williams said Radio Pyongyang’s YouTube account did precisely that…

“The recording uploaded was obviously recorded off the radio,” he said. “It wasn’t clear and contained interference,” Williams continued – a point that “also indicates it’s not from the source.”

With no authenticity of the video’s contents, it remains anyone’s guess if the spy codes were, in fact, instructions to North Korean secret agents. However, the two Koreas have historically interjected codes into music, tv shows, and other media content over the decades to communicate with spies in enemy territory.