Curtis Melvin, a doctoral candidate at George Mason University in the United States is one of the leading citizen spies in North Korea. Already having visited the country in two group tours, Melvin embarked upon a project two years ago to put the secretive country’s secret facilities on an online map.

Citizen spies, using the facilities of Google Earth, have taken pictures of Airfields hid in valleys, rocket launch pads, nuclear programs and concentration camps. In contrast to these war paraphernalia were beautiful palaces, elite architectural structures.

The work of Melvin and other citizen snoops working on this North Korea uncovering project, have busted the scope for any Soviet like secrecy to repeat. The threat posed by the sheer power of the netizens over these sort of secretive communist regimes should be able to prevent further unethical treatment.

The gallery of Melvin’s website, North Korea Uncovered (www.nkeconwatch.com) displays pictures of mass graves during the famine faced by the nation in the 1990s. Also on display are photos of Kim Jong II’s personal golf course. This will further expose the propaganda machine of the ruler, which harps on his gaming skills while millions of North Koreans are starving to death.

With help from other netizens and citizen spies, the online map has been said to have come out very accurate. It provides locations of 1,200 dams, 47 restaurants and nuclear facilities.

Melvin’s file has been downloaded by more than 35,000 people. Around 10 websites, specializing in the Stalinist country are sharing the data.