North Korea Broadcasts Random Number Transmission on YouTube Then Deletes... South Korean Infiltration Agent's Order?

Screenshot of North Korea Pyongyang Broadcasting YouTube account [Image source=Yonhap News]

[Asia Economy Reporter Kim Heung-soon] North Korea broadcast a random number (亂數) transmission presumed to be a directive for infiltrated agents via YouTube. Random number broadcasts involve sending codes by listing irregular arbitrary numbers and have since been deleted. This has led to speculation that orders were given to infiltrated agents.

On the 29th, a video titled '0100011001-001' was uploaded to the YouTube account of Pyongyang Broadcasting, an external radio medium. The announcer in the video said, "From now on, we will inform you of the remote education university information technology basic review assignments for the 710th exploration team," and read out a combination of numbers with unclear meaning such as "Page 564, number 23; page 479, number -19; page 694, number 20..."

Then, the announcer concluded the approximately 1 minute and 5 seconds broadcast by saying, "So far, we have informed you of the basic review assignments for the 710th exploration team. This is Pyongyang." This video was posted on the Pyongyang Broadcasting YouTube account and quickly surpassed 10,000 views but was confirmed deleted as of 7 p.m. that day.

This is understood to be the first time North Korea has transmitted a random number broadcast via YouTube. Until now, random number broadcasts were done through radio broadcasts by Pyongyang Broadcasting. This year, random number broadcasts were also conducted on March 7 and 13. This time, it was not broadcast on the radio.

In the past, North Korea used to broadcast praise songs for Kim Il-sung and Kim Jong-il around midnight via Pyongyang Broadcasting, then read random numbers to give orders to infiltrated spies. The method involved reading for about 15 minutes and then repeating once more.

Such broadcasts were suspended after the June 15 inter-Korean summit in 2000 but resumed in June 2016 after 16 years. Some interpret this as directives aimed at infiltrated agents, while others speculate it is intended to cause domestic disruption.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.