Pyongyang University of Science and Technology by its nature attracts controversy, even without hacking allegations.

At the university, founded by evangelical Christian Korean-American James Kim, a select group of North Korean students study under the direction of foreign teachers, many of whom are Christians and all of whom do so without pay. The administrators and supporters of the school highlight that it exposes North Koreans to outsiders and new ideas, while detractors question the usefulness of the program, and the school’s role in amplifying North Korea’s structural inequalities by teaching to such an “elite” core group.