>I spent 2 semesters teaching computer science at PUST
How do you feel about educating the future hackers in the North Korean military? You almost certainly contributed to their ability to wage cyberwarfare.
As someone who has professional experience running/developing cyberwarfare and nuclear military operations with the US military, I can unequivocally state that the work I did at PUST was not developing these capabilities for North Korea.
Western experts who study the DPRK largely agree with me that educational exchanges are a great way to improve relations between the US and DPRK, building on the model of how educational exchanges improved relations between the US and USSR. See for example https://www.38north.org/2010/11/pyongyang-university-and-nk-...
But you taught computer science, yes? Would you say that it's difficult to teach someone hacking if they don't already have a working understanding of core computer science principles? If hackers in NK don't have access to digital infrastructure set up by other engineers, their work would be much more difficult if not impossible.
>Western experts who study the DPRK largely agree with me that educational exchanges are a great way to improve relations
Would you make a distinction between disciplines of agricultural engineering and more dangerous ones, such as nuclear science or aeronautical engineering?
Computing is a fundamental skill that forms the basis for all of modern life. We here at hacker news are constantly advocating that everyone (in the US) should learn some amount of programming, and I believe the same holds true in North Korea.
As a concrete example of the things I taught, look at the official KCNA webpage http://www.kcna.kp (North Korea's main state run newspaper).
This webpage is very poorly designed, and cannot even be indexed by Google due to poorly implemented AJAX queries. In my classes, we would talk about why this is bad design and how to improve it. The DPRK would benefit from producing better webpages, but so would the rest of the world. These webpages are one of the few sources we have for understanding life in North Korea, and I personally want to encourage the North Koreans to fill them with high quality and easy to access content. Currently, they simply don't have enough skilled programmers capable of performing these tasks.
IMHO, this is a clear example of how teaching computer science benefits both the North Koreans and Americans without improving North Korean hacking skills.
Going through the translated page of - http://www.kcna.kp (North Korea's main state run newspaper). So many news articles start with "Beloved Highest leader", "Beloved Supreme Leader" etc. Such a stereotypical NK propaganda. Is this the main source of news in North Korea? I cannot imagine life under North Korean regime. But seems like you had a great time there. Were you free to move anywhere you want in North Korea or were there guides with you?
Western experts who study the DPRK largely agree with me that educational exchanges are a great way to improve relations between the US and DPRK, building on the model of how educational exchanges improved relations between the US and USSR. See for example https://www.38north.org/2010/11/pyongyang-university-and-nk-...