From the 30th of December 2017 to the 26th of January 2018, all traffic starting with North Koreas country code (445) was logged from AISHub’s global feed. There are very few AIS reports. Only 1318 were logged in this time frame and most came from the UN BONG 2 (n=1236, 93.78%) .
Most signals were pulled up around China and between Japan and Korea, where local Japanese AIS systems seem to encourage using AIS for North Korean ships.
Then there were reports that seemed to be valid at positions in Amsterdam and Rotterdam and two position reports in Germany and Hungary.
Investigating the German and Hungarian AIS reports further showed both to be seemingly false reports on areas of dry land.
Only two (0.15 %) reports of 1318 were set to AIS defunct [181,91}.
There were 24 distinct MMSI reported during this time of which all that ended not in several zeros seem to have no name associated with them. All MMSI that have a name associated with them seem to be Cargo ships.
Obviously, given that North Korea is underlying sanctions, it is not in their interest to use a transparent system like AIS.
| MMSI | NAME | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| 445192000 | UN BONG 2 (General Cargo) | 1236 |
| 445590000 | NAM DAE CHON (Bulk Carrier) | 29 |
| 445202000 | RYON HWA 3 (General Cargo) | 18 |
| 445529000 | KO SAN (General Cargo) | 9 |
| 445279000 | MI YANG 5 (General Cargo) | 6 |
| 445181000 | UN BONG 1 (General Cargo) | 2 |
| 44555408 | ? | 1 |
| 44598145 | ? | 1 |
| 445004932 | ? | 1 |
| 445094936 | ? | 1 |
| 445357558 | ? | 1 |
| 445435116 | ? | 1 |
| 445438565 | ? | 1 |
| 445469000 | KUM DAE (Bulk Carrier) | 1 |
| 445479148 | ? | 1 |
| 445555000 | CHONG SONG (General Cargo) | 1 |
| 445560673 | ? | 1 |
| 445895651 | ? | 1 |
| 445956760 | ? | 1 |
| 445968975 | ? | 1 |
| 445977144 | ? | 1 |
| 445986659 | ? | 1 |
| 445987262 | ? | 1 |
| 445996856 | ? | 1 |