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Korea Fighting Pseudonyms on the 'Net 389

Posted by michael from the why-is-every-user-named-kim dept.
ThreeDayMonk writes "According to the Chosun Ilbo, Korean net firms, pushed by the government, are moving to require message board users to use their real names: 'The current regulation that requires those who post messages on government and public organizations' web sites to use their real names is likely to be expanded soon to private portal sites.' The Japanese version of the page has more information. Apparently, citizen ID numbers will be used to verify identity."
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Korea Fighting Pseudonyms on the 'Net More

Korea Fighting Pseudonyms on the 'Net

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  • NO! (Score:5, Funny)

    by mrpuffypants ( 444598 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .stnapyffuprm.> on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:05PM (#5987094)
    But Mr. Puffy Pants IS my real name!
    • ...and a real drag for the John Smith's of the world. Create such a law, and you would rush to have even weirder spellings for their children's birth names to give them that extra notice in life. You would also see people lining up to change their legal names. Future generations will hear: "My name is Puffy Pants...but you can call my by my nickname...John Smith."

  • Almost always been like this (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Alex_Ionescu ( 199153 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:05PM (#5987098) Homepage
    I'm not Korean but I have many friends that are...and whenever I had to signup for as little as gaming sites to play online games with them, I was always required to input a "Korean Registration Number", which is basically a citizen ID. Even if I had nicknames, they could always trace it back to the ID. However, the ID mechanism is pretty well known, and I was able to create a random generator, which is why I guess they now want real names.

    • Re:Almost always been like this (Score:5, Interesting)

      by djupedal ( 584558 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @04:55PM (#5987825)
      I'm an American (male) liveing/working in Korea, and naturally I have an ID here, similar to an US SSN. ID numbers for foreignors have always been distinct from the locals.

      When World Cup Soccer came around, the Korean Govt. decided to change the ID string format so they could weed out anyone already in the country that was not following the rules. This resulted in all foreignors having to reregister. The story was that they wanted us to be able to have ID numbers that would work with online activities. The result is a new number, that when decoded, has everyone shown as 'female'....and I still can't use banking sites. And, yes, number generators are common. Give them time...they'll figure it out soon enough. ID theft here is as bad as any other country, BTW.

      • Korean Racism against Non-Koreans (Score:5, Insightful)

        by reporter ( 666905 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @07:19PM (#5988535) Homepage
        We should not kid ourselves here. The primary reason that the Koreans use the ID number to identify everyone in Korea is to quickly and efficiently force non-Koreans out of the country.

        Please read "Once shunned, Chinese in Korea courted again [emcweb.com]". Even to this day, the Koreans have a racist attitude against non-Koreans. Most damning is the discriminatory laws that the Koreans have used against non-Koreans. The government of Korea gives preferential treatment to ethnic Koreans seeking Korean citizenship, and if you cannot prove that you are ethnically Korean, then you must obtain a personal guarantee from a high-ranking government official. Even more shocking, for more than 50 years, non-Koreans were prohibited from owning businesses. The Koreans "successfully" drove out most of the Chinese, reducing their number from 150,000 to 20,000.

    • Re:Almost always been like this (Score:5, Interesting)

      by wljones ( 79862 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @06:30PM (#5988338)
      When I worked in Korea thirty years ago I learned a great deal about their laws by buying a home. One of the most important laws concerns the name of the individual. A person can use any name they want, but there must be no attempt to conceal their real name. Movie and TV stars all had stage names, but news items always included their real names, in parentheses and written in Chinese characters, right after their stage name. My real name is difficult for a Korean to pronounce, so I used a Korean name for convenience. To comply with the law I had to use a stamp with my Korean name and my usual American signature on all papers. When written up in the news for a charity contribution once, my Korean name was followed by a phonetic spelling of my American name, all to comply with the law. Some comments to this article show a few changes to the law, but the principle is still the same. Your real name must never be concealed, and it is virtually impossible to have it legally changed. Korean married women do not take their husband's name, but retain their own family name.

  • sillly (Score:3, Interesting)

    by selderrr ( 523988 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:06PM (#5987102) Journal
    How are they going to verify that I don't just pick one of pre-posted IDs and us ethat one ?

    It always amazes me how stupid government regulations can be. Do these guys even think for a second before pooping out such a law ?
    • > How are they going to verify that I don't just pick one of pre-posted IDs and us ethat one ?

      The ID you enter isn't displayed on the webpage for the public to see. It is simply logged. Just like Slashdot's logs will have your IP address stored somewhere.

      • Re:sillly (Score:5, Interesting)

        by selderrr ( 523988 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @04:01PM (#5987483) Journal
        The ID you enter isn't displayed on the webpage for the public to see. It is simply logged. Just like Slashdot's logs will have your IP address stored somewhere.

        So you mean all korean messageboards are going to run over SSL ? Comeon, most of these boeards store IDs in cookies, unencrypted. Walk into any public room, copy cookie, done.

        And besides that : since the ID is apparently something associated with paper passport, who is going to stop kids from writing down dad's passport id ? Or the librarian from writing down mine ? Unless they add a smartcard chip to every passport and plug extra hardware into every internet connected computer, such measures are ridiculous.

  • Citizen ID Numbers (Score:5, Insightful)

    by GozerBrothers ( 637555 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:06PM (#5987104)
    "Apparently, citizen ID numbers will be used to verify identity." Sounds like Big Brother to me. Would be effective in stopping SPAM though.
    • I very much doubt that spammers would obey the rules. It wouldn't be that hard to find out someone else's name and passport number, so we'd have innocent people being prosecuted and the spammers getting away with it. And I bet that the burden of proof would be on the person whose identity was stolen to prove that it wasn't them.

    • Re:Citizen ID Numbers (Score:3, Interesting)

      by cjsnell ( 5825 )
      Apparently, citizen ID numbers will be used to verify identity

      This isn't all that strange in a country where so many people share a common last name (Kim).

  • Obvious to many, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by mikedaisey ( 413058 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:08PM (#5987120) Homepage
    ...the /. story shoul specify which of the two Koreas it is talking about, as quick /. readers who skim (is there another kind?) will believe this could be N. Korea, even though the state of that country's infrastructure makes it a lot more likely that this is S. Korea.

  • But (Score:2, Funny)

    by Timesprout ( 579035 )
    My real name is Anonymous Coward. What does this mean for me ??

    • Re:But (Score:2, Funny)

      by kaamos ( 647337 )
      I feel sorry if this ever gets to slashdot. Some people would not post their true opinion by fear of being branded a troll of a flamebait. I never want to see that on my passport card :

      Name : Anonym Us Corherd
      Karma : horrible
      Last post : -1, troll
      Airport clerk : Sir, we do not accept trolls in out airplanes, we do not like them slobbering up our seats. Please use another agency

    • Re:But (Score:3, Funny)

      by evilviper ( 135110 )
      That means you would best disgrace your mother and father ("Yellow-Bellied" and "Selfish" respectively) and change your name.
  • You mean to say Mr. Goatse is hiding behind an alias? I find that hard to believe.

  • You want my name? (Score:3, Funny)

    by PetWolverine ( 638111 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:14PM (#5987164) Journal
    So? I don't mind giving my name out on the Internet. There aren't a whole lot of Abe Thurtells out there, so my name is a unique identifier, but I don't care. There's nothing very dangerous about giving it to people.

    My address and phone number I keep a little more guarded, but the one thing I really don't post publicly, anywhere, is my e-mail address. Just let me keep that to myself, and I'm happy.

    Well, that and obvious things like my social security number and various bank account numbers and personal identification numbers.

  • this is a good idea (Score:4, Troll)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:15PM (#5987169)
    I mean look at slashdot. If people were forced to use their real names then I think that trolling would pretty much be eliminated, and there probably wouldn't even be any need for moderation either. Do you think people would hide goatse.cx links if their posts could be easily traced back to them? Would people still sneak in movie spoilers? Maybe one guy would try it, but then someone would show up at his door with a baseball bat the next day.

    Also, forcing people to use real names would eliminate some other big problems. Look at the amazon.com book reviews. Book publishers frequently post dozens of positive reviews for their own books to sell more copies. Forcing the usage of real names would mean that this could only be done once per person. And even then, you could do a little background searching to determine that the guy who said "THIS IS THE BEST BOOK EVER" was really the author's brother.

    Last and most importantly, this would save usenet. Usenet is becoming unusable today due to stupid spam posters, idiot trolls, and crazy psychos looking to start flame wars. You could argue that there is a real need for anonymity online, but I really disagree. The fact of the matter is that Morpheus dies, the Matrix is destroyed, and Neo is revealed to be a program and not a real human at the end of Matrix Revolutions. So to those that disagree with me, I ask you to consider my position carefully.

    • Ironically this was posted by an AC (Score:4, Funny)

      by eberry ( 84517 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:28PM (#5987284)
      Ironically this was posted by an AC.

    • Re:this is a good idea (Score:4, Insightful)

      by DASHSL0T ( 634167 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:40PM (#5987362) Homepage
      It also gets rid of dissident political speech quite effectively.

      I think that's more important to protect than the benefits of eliminating your Internet Troll.

      It is rather amusing that you posted AC. :-)

      • Re:this is a good idea (Score:3, Informative)

        by Arandir ( 19206 )
        I wonder. Anonymous political speech is pointless. Think about it. No, I don't necessarily want my address and telephone number listed next to my letter to the editor, but at the same time I'm not going to pay any creedence to a letter that's signed 'anonymous'.

        Of course, I live in a country where unpopular political opinions (which do not advocate violence) may get you spit upon, get you fired, and get you audited by the taxman, but which will not get you thrown into prison for the next decade. Where ther
    • this is a good idea (Score:5, Troll)
      by Anonymous Coward

      Best troll ever. Irony has a new champion.

    • Are you kidding? I mean, seriously, if it weren't for annonymity on the internet, there is no way it could be what it is today. Once you introduce a way to identify the online persona(s) with the actual person, the person is immediately limited to what is socially acceptable for them. Things can be traced all too easily, and all of a sudden, all the things that Mr. X was participating in that were kinda fun but not something he would do normally (like posting and reading /. at work or visiting in Role Playi
    • I don't know about you, but being anonymouse has it's uses. It allows people to say things that could be controversial without having to be afraid of someone comming to their door with a baseball bat, say bits of information that may not be legal, but need to be said, etc. It will be a sad day when people have to cower behind their egos, or image, or whatever. I know that's a personal problem for them, but still...it allows people to express themselves like they wouldn't normally.

  • My prediction... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by visualight ( 468005 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:16PM (#5987179) Homepage
    They won't fight this. There may be a couple of loud voices heard for a minute but Koreans are even more sheeplike than Americans. I don't know if it's a cultural thing or what but Korea's a country where the entire population can have an opinion that opposes the status quo yet nothing will change.

    While no one in Korea will run to the streets protesting, this is the internet and the more courageous Koreans (a minority) will stop posting to message boards that reside in country and start using boards put up by Koreans living in the U.S. and other countries.

    Note: I'm an American who has lived in Korea (I speak read and write Korean) and I'm not trying to be "inciteful".

    • Re:My prediction... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Someone who doesn't know anything about history.

      The *most* violent and frequent protests in the world occured in South Korea during the hey-day of dictatorship in the 80s. The student protests in Korea were a major reason why Korea is a democracy today.

      You can't get protests like that if Koreans were "sheeplike".

      How is it that China, with more than 1 billion people, could keep control of a population so big with nary a protest (save the Tibetans monks that were slaughtered)?

      If you want a sheeplike coun

      • The *most* violent and frequent protests in the world occured in South Korea during the hey-day of dictatorship in the 80s. The student protests in Korea were a major reason why Korea is a democracy today.

        I was there for that. Obviously you weren't.
        btw, I did study history, from Chosun to the present day...
        Korea is an entire nation. Those large, violent, frequent protests that you saw on TV weren't what you saw on TV. I was there and the prostests were actually pathetically small. Usually it was le

        • Re:My prediction... (Score:3, Informative)

          by enkidu ( 13673 )
          You may have lived there, and you may have seen the occasional demonstration. But many of the demonstrations in the late 70's and 80's were HUGE. Entire universities were shut down. An entire city Kwangju was in open rebellion until Chun sent in Korean special forces (resulting in an official tally of about 200 people killed, the real count was probably much higher). I remember coming back from school with my eyes watering because of all of the tear gas in the air from the demostrations 10 km away in d

      • Re:My prediction... (Score:4, Funny)

        by oogoliegoogolie ( 635356 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @04:41PM (#5987729)
        If you want a sheeplike country, look towards Canada (of which I am a citizen). The government can do *anything* and Canadians will sit back and say "Well, what can we do? Raise taxes? Okay. Add the GST? Okay. What can we do?"

        Oh I agree with you. I am a citizen of canada and as much as I hate the naivity, moral superiority, and complacency of Canadians, there is a good reason why it is so; it is called winter, which unless you are in BC we all get 8 months of it! Who the hell wants to protest outside from October to May? And when the four months of summer comes, most people would rather be at the beach, gardening, hiking, golfing, and doing summer stuff than picketing and yelling 'down with this, down with that".

        Canada has the higest number of golfers per capita of any nation, so I guess we know were our priorities are.

  • 1. On Internet noone knows you are a dog.
    2. Koreans like dog meat.

    Make your own conclusion.
  • I understand that a lot of liberal slashdotters might find the idea of having everyone post under their real name and number intriguing. However, I would caution them to think out the implementation very clearly.

    Any ID scheme by definition requires authentication, and therefore security protocols on an ABI layer (assuming we confine this discussion to computers and message boards). Most open source ABIs are well known and showing their age, the hacker community already knows how to circumvent them. The pri
  • Wow.

    Far-reaching implications. First applications I see is government spider programs crawling all over the Korean message boards, looking for anti-social posts, keeping records, tying in data from different forums. The government will have a database of everything you've ever said online. Then, when something not so nice happens, they start querying the database.

    SELECT FNAME,LNAME,ID
    FROM CITIZEN,FORUMS
    WHERE FORUMS.POSTS.CONTENTS contains "bomb" AND FORUMS.POSTS.CONTENTS contains "allah" AND FORUMS.POS

  • from the why-is-every-user-named-kim dept (Score:3, Funny)

    by zephc ( 225327 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:21PM (#5987217)
    yeah, who's this Kim chick that posts all over the korean boards? She hot?

    [/joke]

  • Thank God I live in the US (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm a Korean-American, but thank God I don't live in Korea.

    After a little over 10 years from breaking away from a dictatorship, my people *still* don't understand what freedom truly is.

    This is exactly what the founding fathers were doing when they made sure that freedom of speech became a pillar of what made this country. That is what makes this country so great. (Yes, there were a few hiccups, but at least today we can protest against the government and not fear being killed).

    What if you wanted to wri
    • This is exactly what the founding fathers were doing when they made sure that freedom of speech became a pillar of what made this country. That is what makes this country so great. (Yes, there were a few hiccups, but at least today we can protest against the government and not fear being killed).

      True, but instead you're labled unpatriotic if you protest against the Government. Or if it is a nother country that does not agree to what you are doing they are almost considered your enemy and might get some s

    • This is exactly what the founding fathers were doing when they made sure that freedom of speech became a pillar of what made this country. That is what makes this country so great.

      Ummmmmm, if it wasn't for the tons of money poured into the ACLU by _private_ donations, they wouldn't have been there to ravenously defend your right to use pseudonyms on-line, and you would probably be posting under a account tied to your real name RIGHT NOW.

      I appreciate this country as much as anyone, but it is having some se

  • Ragnarok Online (Score:2, Informative)

    by Josuah ( 26407 )
    The MMORPG Ragnarok Online [ragnarokonline.com] uses the Korean citizen ID to keep track of who is who, make people accountable for their actions (e.g. cheating), and also to prove ownership of accounts in the event you need them to do something like tell you your password. For this reason, some of those administrative things are not possible/enforceable on the International server.

    What this does do is make the punishment for cheating much more severe--you can't simply establish a new account and start cheating again. But it a

  • ok (Score:2)

    by BigBir3d ( 454486 )
    If this is for North Korea, I am not at all surprised, being a communist country and all. South Korea, and I am only midly surprised. Either way, I am sure that they are tired of their fellow countrymen acting like a bunch of stupid white eyed Americans :-P
  • ..no more Hot18F_Seoul for you then.

    You know who you are.

  • Bad ideas that people like are the worst kind. (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:31PM (#5987306)
    For all you idiots who'd like to see this measure universally applied, I've got two words for you: Salam Pax. You think he'd have been posting if the only way to do it was with his government ID# attached?

    I'm pretty sure he wouldn't, and I'm pretty sure enough of the trolls and spammers would find ways to keep going that we wouldn't miss them.

  • ... "axis of evil" North Korea, or our good buddies South Korea?

  • wrong answer. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:38PM (#5987346)
    And so ends free speech.

    People use pseudonyms so that they can speak freely. So they post something that some nutcase doesn't like, then the nutcase hunts that person down and whacks them.

    Or people want to speak out against the government. Which seem to be what the government there wants to put an end to..

    Fear the government that fears you..
    When the government restricts your right to speak freely on any subject, no matter who it may offend, it is time to abolish that government....

    • Re:wrong answer. (Score:3, Informative)

      by brooks_talley ( 86840 )

      And so ends free speech.


      Er, Koreans aren't familiar with the concept of free speech. And there's certainly no constitutional guarantee of it. Hard to end something that never started.

      Cheers
      -b
    • So they post something that some nutcase doesn't like, then the nutcase hunts that person down and whacks them.

      Or people want to speak out against the government.

      I hate to point it out, but you seem to have used the same example twice.

  • At least DotComGuy will have nothing to worry about...

  • Does this imply online opinion polls could work ? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by OneInEveryCrowd ( 62120 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:45PM (#5987385)
    The article was short on implementation details but let me hypothesize a bit. Imagine if the law was changed to require Koreans (or others) to sign on to their isp in a fashion that positively verified their identify. Now imagine that this system is normally about 99 percent effective (yeah right). Doesn't this correct the reasons that online opinion polling is assumed to not work ? Couldn't this (hypothetically folks) allow a polling system to restrict votes to one per person, and allow any user entered profile data (with the users permission) to be verified ?

    I realize there are many ways a positive id system could be abused, but if online opinion polling could be made accurate and easy to implement, some govts might wind up getting more than they'd bargained for.
    • Doesn't this correct the reasons that online opinion polling is assumed to not work ?


      No, because it's still a self-selected sample group.

    • It still doesn't work cause, yeah, it's self-selected (e.g. only the people who care enough about the poll decide to vote in it) and because the population profile of the internet does not equal the profile of the population as a whole (because you have an internet connection I can immediately tell you that its more likely that you come from middle class or above and have at least a high school education, with a high probability of college, too, etc.)

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:45PM (#5987386)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  • omg too good to be true (Score:5, Funny)

    by Flunitrazepam ( 664690 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:53PM (#5987427) Journal
    they should be forced to have a real picture of themselves too so i wont ever be tricked into cybering with a horny old pervert... again

  • How's this for a conspiracy theory? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by NetDanzr ( 619387 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @03:54PM (#5987438)
    In the Internet heydays, I was covering Internet companies as an investment analyst (a much more fun job, considering the companies I need to cover now). Anyway, even then, some Internet advertisers, retailers and service companies were complaining about people using fake names and name spoofing. Ever since then, they were quietly pushing for regulations which would allow them to sue users that don't use their real names (I can only guess the reason, but I think it's got something to do with customer habits and data collection).

    This may be partially the argument in Korea as well, even though it still dowsn't apply to outlawing nicknames on private message boards. However, considering the traditional need for a strong centralized government in Asian countries, at the cost of individual rights, it's just natural that Korea would be among the first to implement this. I'm wondering whether Singapore, the most authoritarian of these countries, didn't pass similar laws already...

  • I mean, in a country where 17% of all people are named Kim, you would have to add date and place of birth to make it a unique ID.

    And, after all, a number like 526590 is much easier to remember...
  • So, it's not OK to appear under a pseudonym on electrinic bulletin board, but it's just fine and dandy to let kornet.net continue as the world's number one source of spam, eh?

    Maybe we should pull all of our troops out of South Korea...

    Oh, by the way, here's a list of e-mail contacts for the Korean spammers who made it impossible for me to use my last e-mail address. Have at them, harvestbots!

    abuse@kornet.net, ip@ns.kornet.net, ip@ns.kornet21.net, domain@NS.KORNET.NET, donghk@soback.kornet.net, ever@kt.co.kr, jeonnam3@soback.kornet.net, jeon@kornet.net, jeonbuk3@kornet.net, koreatelecom@KORNET.NET, gfd5246@soback.kornet.net, gspark@kornet.net, help@KORNET.NET, helpdesk@KORNET.NET, haewha1@soback.kornet.net, heyeunmi@kornet.net, kmhno1@soback.kornet.net, hopewon3@soback.kornet.net, kgromc@soback.kornet21.net, kmhno1@soback.kornet.net, legal@KORNET.NET, network@kornet.net, packet@soback.kornet.net, postmaster@kornet.net, postmaster@soback.kornet.net, postmaster@ns.kornet.net, postmaster@soback.kornet.net, pusanpub@soback.kornet.net, root@soback.kornet.net, root@kt.co.kr, service@kornet.net, support@kornet.net, system@kornet.net, yjjeon61@kornet.net, abuse@ns.kornet21.net, domain@ns.kornet21.net, network@ns.kornet21.net, postmaster@ns.kornet21.net, resume@kornet.net, root@ns.kornet21.net, service@ns.kornet21.net, support@ns.kornet21.net, system@ns.kornet21.net, wong@kornet.net, abuse@ASADAL.NET, postmaster@ASADAL.NET, manager@cais.kaist.ac.kr, abuse@hanmir.com, postmaster@hanmir.com, webmaster@hanmir.com, msweet@kt.co.kr, abuse@itnsoft.com, help@itnsoft.com, ip@ns.kornet.net, hostmaster@nic.or.kr, marom@itnsoft.com, postmaster@itnsoft.com, root@itnsoft.com, eglee@yesnic.com, info@yesnic.com, hostmaster@yesnic.com, postmaster@yesnic.com, eglee@whois.co.kr, postmaster@whois.co.kr, whois@whois.co.kr, brkim@INWANG.NOWCOM.CO.KR, domain@NOWNURI.NET, busisik@nownuri.net, kbr@nownuri.net, memory@nownuri.net, abuse@nownuri.net, postmaster@nownuri.net, abuse@dreamx.net, abuse@cjdream.net, abuse@todream.net, admin@dreamx.net, admin@cjdream.net, administration@dreamx.net, administration@cjdream.net, billing@DREAMX.NET, billing@cjdream.net, brkim@cjdream.com, dns@dreamx.net, dns@cjdream.net, dnsadmin@dreamx.net, dnsadmin@cjdream.net, domain@DREAMX.NET, domain@todream.net, domains@DREAMX.NET, domain@todream.net, feedback@DREAMX.NET, feedback@cjdream.net, help@DREAMX.NET, help@cjdream.net, helpdesk@DREAMX.NET, helpdesk@cjdream.net, hostmaster@dreamx.net, hostmaster@cjdream.net, inhanna@cjdream.net, info@dreamx.net, info@cjdream.net, jyan@dreamx.net, jyan@cjdream.net, ley319@dreamx.net, loveabuse@dreamx.net, loveabuse@cjdream.net, mail@dreamx.net, mail@cjdream.net, mgr@cjdream.com, news@dreamx.net, news@cjdream.net, newsabuse@dreamx.net, newsabuse@cjdream.net, postmaster@dreamx.net, postmaster@todream.net, raven3@dreamx.net, raven3@empal.com, root@dreamx.net, root@cjdream.net, soip@cjdream.com, sales@dreamx.net, sales@cjdream.net, sbkim091@dreamx.net, sbkim091@cjdream.net, service@DREAMX.NET, service@cjdream.net, solhan@cjdream.net, spam@DREAMX.NET, spam@cjdream.net, support@cjdream.net, support@dreamx.net, sysop@DREAMX.NET, sysop@cjdream.net, sysop@todream.net, tech@dreamx.net, tech@cjdream.net, technical@dreamx.net, technical@cjdream.net, technicalsupport@dreamx.net, technicalsupport@cjdream.net, system@cjdream.net, system@dreamx.net, sysop@todream.net, ykshin@cjdream.net, ykshin@dreamx.net, eglee@yesnic.com, info@yesnic.com, hostmaster@yesnic.com, eglee@whois.co.kr, brkim@INWANG.NOWCOM.CO.KR, domain@NOWNURI.NET, kbr@nownuri.net, memory@nownuri.net, busisik@nownuri.net, abuse@nownuri.net, postmaster@nownuri.net, inhanna@sysone.co.kr, abuse@thrunet.com, abuse@korea.com, admin@thrunet.com, admin@korea.com, administration@thrunet.com, dns@thrunet.com, dns@korea.com, dnsadmin@thrunet.com, domain@thrunet.com, feedback@thrunet.com, feedback@korea.com, help@thrunet.com, helpdesk@thrunet.com, hostmaster@thrunet.com, mail@thrunet.com, mail@korea.com, news@thrunet.com, news@korea.com, newsabuse@thrunet.com, postmaster@

  • For those that do not know a large portion of the net in Korea is owned or operated by Chinese big companies..

    So is the influence of N Korea or China in this Real Name on boards requirement?

    • you're wrong... stop spreading lies. The copper infrastructure was deployed by Korea Telecom, the ILEC of Korea. Multiple CLEC now deploy infrastructure. Dacom and Hanaro are among a few. Where do you get your stupid crap idiot.

  • It's already that bad (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Apreche ( 239272 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @04:44PM (#5987749) Homepage Journal
    As you may know South Korea is king of the MMO. I tried to play one of them once. They all require you to provide your KSSN# in order to play. That is something which I could not get, being not a Korean citizen. The freaky part is that from the SSN using simple math, similar to the ISBN, you can figure out if the person is male or female. So in South Korean MMOs you are completely non anonymous.

    I'd like to have their pretty pretty games, but not at that cost.
  • It will be really interesting to log onto a Korean discussion forum and see that all the posts are made by Messrs Kim, Park, and Oh.

  • This is a good thing (Score:3, Funny)

    by tmark ( 230091 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @04:58PM (#5987850)
    Maybe the Korean government is going to look for people who are making way too many posts and make sure they're not about to die from sitting at their terminal for 8 hours in some Seoul baang.

  • Government Shoots Self in Foot... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Slur ( 61510 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @05:23PM (#5987992) Homepage Journal
    ...Again! Details at 11.

    Clearly the reasoning behind this rule is to suppress dissent. I dont know whether this is about N. or S. Korea, but neither one would surprise me.

    In North Korea, for example, everyone is required to have a picture of Kim Jong Il prominently displayed in their home. If an official comes to your house and finds the picture missing or displayed in a way which seems unsuitably reverent you can be arrested and jailed for up to two years.

    (And what is it about dictators that they insist on splashing their ugly monkey-faces everywhere?

    The policy of locking people up for their dissent is foolhardy, especially in a bankrupt country. Likewise, policies which suppress free expression prevent the free exchange and evolution of ideas. Considering that North Korea's best idea for helping their economy is to use nuclear weapons to extort help from the West, the region needs as much free exchange as it can get.

    If this new law applied to South Korea it would seem to indicate a sea change in the political climate. Such a shift is not unprecedented in their history. People there still hold to the ideals of Confucianism which values the needs of the collective over the individual. Nevertheless South Koreans value freedom and the right of protest, so this law could not be upheld there for very long.

    Here's a cool study [ttu.edu] about Political Protest in East Asia.

  • then I'll be happy to give you my name.

  • Case study in China (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 2Bits ( 167227 ) on Sunday May 18, 2003 @09:44PM (#5989152)
    Well, the Korean case is somewhat interesting. First thing I do is to find out who is pushing this ID scheme, and what interest do they have in doing so?

    This reminds me of a case that I ran into in China, a few weeks ago.

    I've just started a new software company in Shanghai, developing PKI-related software (no, we are not developing PKI infrastructure software, just PKI-related) for e-business. And obviously, we are looking for partners, especially PKI infrastructure software vendors. We met with the CEO of a local software company which develops PKI infrastructure software. They position themselves as vendor of PKI software for identity registration and ID verification. The company is quite well connected (i.e. with well positioned backers and investors).

    The scary thing is, they are pushing the government to adopt an ID scheme based on PKI, targeting those who go to internet cafe/bar. The scheme was to require everyone to register with a CA and purchase a digital certificate. And all internet cafe/bar computers must be modified to verify the certificate before allowing anyone to go online.

    This scheme would allow the government to control everything the users access, and monitor who is doing what.

    The good thing is, I doubt they would succeed (in Shanghai at least, but you never really know). There are all kinds of local protections here, although the company is quite well connected, but there's that company "Shanghai CA" which is even better connected, and basically the PKI market here. So that smaller company is basically pushed to the sideline, especially in Shanghai area.

    The bad thing is, they are going to other smaller cities, and try to push their scheme over there.

    So we'll see.

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