Charles Curley's Weblog

World's Most Useless Software Product

Red Star Tux.

Here is a major contender for the coveted title of "World's Most Useless Software Product". It's the North Korean "Red Star" operating system. It is based on Linux (no surprise), and is designed for monitoring user activity (again, no surprise). I doubt you will confuse it with Estrella Roja, an Argentine disty.

Red Star's email client is something called "Pigeon". freshmeat.net doesn't list it. No. Absolutely not. Don't even think about RFC 1149.

Red Star is a candidate for the title "World's Most Useless Software Product" for several reasons.

• It's only available in North Korea. That limits its market somewhat. (But what do the North Korean government know about markets?)
• Very few people in North Korea have computers.
• Very few people in North Korea have access to what passes for an Internet in North Korea.
• That which passes for an Internet in North Korea is heavily censored and monitored.

So why bother?

But it may not be completely useless. Large American corporations can reverse engineer it to see how the North Koreans spy on their users.