A smartphone from North Korea went viral on Reddit after someone posted pictures of the device they got from a friend. The phone looks like a smartphone from a famous Chinese brand, but inside, it has surveillance applications installed.
It became viral on the Reddit web board when user mudkipsc posted in the r/interestingasfuck group a thread titled “North Korean phone I got from my friend” along with a set of photos showing the smartphone and its installed applications.
From the device information screen, this smartphone model is called 만물상300 (Manmulsang 300), running Android 11 with 8GB RAM, 256GB storage, a 64MP main camera, an 8MP ultrawide camera, a 0.3MP depth sensor, and a 32MP front camera.
The display is a 6.67-inch AMOLED screen with a resolution of 1080 x 2400 pixels, and the battery capacity is 4,800 mAh.
The phone’s design closely resembles the Huawei Mate 40, especially the circular rear camera module. This suggests that the North Korean brand likely hired a Chinese OEM factory to manufacture the device, possibly using the Huawei Mate 40’s design as a template before adding North Korean government applications on top.
Originally, Manmulsang was a North Korean e-commerce platform before becoming its own smartphone brand. However, the key point of interest is the applications installed on the device, particularly an app called “Red Flag.” According to Radio Free Asia, North Korean smartphones are required to have this app installed. It records users’ visited websites and randomly takes screenshots, which can be viewed but not deleted via another app called Trace Viewer.
In the comments, one user asked the original poster if this device secretly takes screenshots and photos of users periodically to send to state authorities, to which the poster replied, “Yes.”
The device information screen also hints at locked connectivity, with IP address and Wi-Fi MAC address fields showing "not usable" (사용할수 없음). The phone is cut off from the global internet and can only connect to North Korea’s closed intranet, Kwangmyong, which allows access only to government-approved websites, blocks foreign networks, and prevents unauthorized app installations.
The installed apps form a full North Korean government ecosystem, including apps for reading documents, a web browser, digital wallet, dictionary, law compliance apps, and incident reporting applications.
Comments encouraged the owner to send the phone to the tech YouTuber channel Linus Tech Tips, which has 16.8 million subscribers, for a review. The owner replied that they have already emailed Linus Tech Tips.
Source:Reddit