A human-rights organization is using nothing more than USB sticks in its efforts to bring regime change in one of the most totalitarian country in the world, North Korea.
USB Sticks For Freedom
A human-rights organization is trying to influence people living in North Korea by using USB sticks. The Human Rights Foundation launched earlier this year a campaign called "Flash Drives for Freedom."
The goal of the political campaign is to bring regime change in totalitarian North Korea and transform the country in a more open and free society. The means, in Human Right Foundation's vision are based on delivering education and information via USB sticks and change the system from inside, instead of relying on military action or diplomacy.
According to Business Insider, the Human Right Foundation has established as target to deliver around 10,000 USB drives loaded with "subversive" content by the end of this year. As chief strategy officer for the Human Rights Foundation Alex Gladstein put it, truth could be a "dangerous weapon."
USB flash drives are not an obsolete technology as some might think. They are still used by millions of people around the world as main carriers of information, especially by those living in totalitarian countries such as North Korea.
In one of the most closed societies in the world, USB flash drives are vital tools of discovery and education. North Korea is a country with total government censorship and without internet, with no independent media. In such conditions, the only thing North Koreans could rely are these USB sticks filled with internet content, books and films that provide a window to the outside world.
Some of North Koreans are "defectors" who have escaped their country's dictatorship by founding freedom in South Korea. They have organized there various civil society groups dedicated to sending knowledge, truth, culture and information back to their friends, neighbors and families. Forum 280 and the Human Rights Foundation are collecting USB sticks to donate to these North Korean, refugee-led organizations.
