North Korea spends just $15 redesigning its national homepage

Robert Westmore of Southern California designs websites for a living ― but he was shocked to learn that he had designed a new homepage for the reclusive North Korean regime, FoxNews.com reported Thursday .

“I had no idea,” he told FoxNews.com in an interview. “Honestly, I didn't even know North Korea had a website.”

The communist state spent just $15 redesigning its national homepage, korea-dpr.com ― a fact accidentally discovered by an unsuspecting college student, the report said.

Fordham junior Michael DiTanna was working on a class project about Korean propaganda when he noticed the country's "flashy" new redesign, which DiTanna estimates to be only a few months old. A computer science major, DiTanna quickly realized the site was based on Westmore's $15 Blender template, according to FoxNews.com.

"Right away I saw that the site was produced through a purchased theme," DiTanna told FoxNews.com. "They just did a really sloppy job of cleaning up the source code," he added, leaving clues to the site's origin.

Since 2000, the site has served as the officially sanctioned face of North Korea to the outside world. It was built by Cho Son-il, who told FoxNews.com he is an honorary citizen and an authorized North Korean spokesman.