A Facebook clone thought to have originated in North Korea has quickly appeared and disappeared off the internet.
The site was discovered by Doug Madory, a researcher at network management company Dyn Research, who told the BBC that it is "rare to see any websites hosted in the secretive nation".
He added the clone clearly wasn't intended to be accessible from outside North Korea – its .kp address, the country's equivalent of .co.uk, gave the game away.
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
StarCon.net.kp had many of the features expected to be found popular social networking sites such as Facebook, added the broadcaster, and while it's not clear who exactly created the site, "it is thought to be a test project for a future service to be offered by the nation's telecoms operator".
Around 300 accounts, including several parodies of North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un, were created on the site after news of it broke on Twitter.
"There were a lot of people signing up that, based on their comments, appeared to genuinely think they could reach the North Korean people through the website," Madory says.
However, the site was also hacked – by a student from Scotland. According to the International Business Times, 18-year-old Andrew McKean correctly guessed the login details on the administration page – simply "Admin" and "Password" – and gained control.
McKean said he had the power to delete users, read their emails, censor specific words and phrases and change content in the advertising spaces skirting the homepage.
Since the site's exposure and security breach, it is yet to resurface online.
-
Who are the new-wave hackers bringing the world to a halt?The Explainer Individual groups and nations are beginning to form concerning partnerships with new ways to commit cybercrime
-
Trump allies reportedly poised to buy TikTokSpeed Read Under the deal, U.S. companies would own about 80% of the company
-
What an all-bot social network tells us about social mediaUnder The Radar The experiment's findings 'didn't speak well of us'
-
Broken brains: The social price of digital lifeFeature A new study shows that smartphones and streaming services may be fueling a sharp decline in responsibility and reliability in adults
-
The Hermit Kingdom's laptop warriorsFeature American firms are unwittingly hiring IT workers with a second job—as North Korean operatives
-
Supreme Court allows social media age check lawSpeed Read The court refused to intervene in a decision that affirmed a Mississippi law requiring social media users to verify their ages
-
What's Linda Yaccarino's legacy? And what's next for X?Today's Big Question An 'uncertain future' in the age of TikTok
-
Bitcoin braces for a quantum computing onslaughtIN THE SPOTLIGHT The cryptocurrency community is starting to worry over a new generation of super-powered computers that could turn the digital monetary world on its head.
