Just like politics , it appears Business makes strange bedfellows.
A unit of News Corp. published mobile video games that were developed by North Korea’s General Federation of Science and Technology, part of a growing software industry cultivated by Kim Jong Il as a means to pump money into the impoverished regime
Programmers from North Korea’s General Federation of Science and Technology developed a 2007 mobile-phone bowling game based on the 1998 film The Big Lebowski , as well as “Men in Black: Alien Assault,” according to two executives at Nosotek Joint Venture Company, which markets software from North Korea for foreign clients. Both games were published by a unit of News Corp., the New York-based media company, a spokeswoman for the unit said.
Both games were published by Ojom GmbH, a unit of a company called Jamba that was bought by News Corp. and later renamed Fox Mobile, according to Fox Mobile spokeswoman Juliane Walther in Berlin. They came out after News Corp. took a controlling interest in Jamba in January 2007 and before it bought the remainder in October 2008. Ojom was eliminated in a May 2008 reorganization, Walther said.
When asked whether Fox Mobile distributes games developed in North Korea, Walther said that the unit “has extensive partnerships with content producers in all areas, with operators, and with the biggest media companies worldwide, including various Asian companies.”
She said the company could not provide more details on where partners are based or confirm “if and how” North Korean companies were involved in development for Ojom. Dan Berger, a News Corp. spokesman in Los Angeles, declined to comment further. News Corp. is controlled by Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Rupert Murdoch, 79.
“Any sort of transaction that gives cash to the North Korean government works against U.S. policy,” said James Lewis, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based policy group. “The coding skills people would acquire in outsourcing activities could easily strengthen cyberwar cyber-espionage capabilities. Mobile devices are the new frontier of hacking.”
President Barack Obama widened U.S. financial sanctions on North Korea on Aug. 30, freezing assets of North Korean officials, companies and government agencies suspected of “illicit and deceptive activities” that support the regime’s weapons industry.
