Image: North Korea's permanent blackout

The Korean peninsula provides one of the starkest contrasts between digital haves and have-nots. South Korea (seen here in the lower half of the circle) is one of the heaviest users of broadband technology in the world, while neighboring North Korea (in the upper half of the circle) has a near-total lockdown on Internet access. In an article Monday in The New York Times (registration required), Julien Pain of the censorship-tracking group Reporters Without Borders says of North Korea, "It is by far the worst Internet black hole."

This satellite photo from NASA's Visible Earth project shows the region at night, with the bright spots indicating electricity usage. To the right of the circle are the islands of Japan, to the left is the eastern portion of China, and at bottom is the island of Taiwan.