Hidden Message in the North Korea Internet Outages?

Jake Warren
Aug 9, 2017 · 2 min read

tl;dr

The nine hour duration of the 2014 & 2017 North Korean Internet outages lends credence to the claims that the outages were intentionally caused to send a message to the regime.

2014 Outage:

After the Sony Pictures hack in 2014, North Korea suffered a complete Internet outage during December 22–23 lasting ~9 hours.

2017 Outage:

Around 10:45am ET on Friday July 28th 2017 the US detected an intercontinental ballistic missile launch out of North Korea. At 9pm ET North Korea had another Internet outage for 9 hours. [1]

The Magic Number:

The duration of both internet outages being 9 hours is significant because the Kim dynasty is obsessed with the number nine. The number nine is found throughout the North Korean military, government and country. Examples include the creation of the 9 provinces of the country after its founding on 9/9 in 1948, to the Supreme Guard Command, Kim’s personal bodyguard unit, named Unit 963 (double nines are especially lucky). [2]

[1] http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/28/politics/north-korea-missile-test/index.html

[2] https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/05/north-korea-nine-magic-number

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