Slashdot Mirror
Korea Fighting Pseudonyms on the 'Net
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."
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.
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 ?
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
For those who always say how a national ID is a great idea, this example should provide some real proof of concept. National ID will only bring problems, and this is just one example.
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".
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
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 private ABI's don't fare much better.
So, we've established that there is an achilles' heel with regards to authentication--proving that citizen joe really is citizen joe.
Given that, I can see that any currently available implementations would make it far too easy for unathorized users to forge the ids of legitamate productive citizens.
I think that once we have the bandwidth to allow one-way always-on video streaming from the users' computers, then maybe we can re-visit this idea; but right now is just not the time.
im going to play devils advocate on this and ask you this question: why is it that asking people to give their real name before posting something is against free speech ? think about it. maybe a society where no one has to hide behind pseudonyms to speak their mind is more "pro-free-speech" than one where people feel the need not to compromise themselves or something by saying their opinion.
They made a wasteland and called it peace.
Tacitus, Roman historian. - 1st century AD
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...
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.)
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.
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
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.
That'll cover 45% of the population, according to the
1945 census
So not the entire population, but a lot more than the top 3 in the 1990 US census (Smith, Johnson, Williams) - about 8 million total, somewhere under 3%.
...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."
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 about Political Protest in East Asia.
-- thinkyhead software and media
As to whether or not the baa-baa-sheep-like-ness will prove to be seriously detrimental to Korean society in the future will require many decades of observation, and many hours spent watching the History Channel after those decades have passed. Who knows? Maybe they've got it right.
Well, after the "Asian Market Collapse" the "baa-baa-sheep-like-ness" did prove very beneficial. When the government called on Koreans to stop traveling and taking Korean money out of the country most Koreans complied. In fact, they put a noticeable dent in the Thai weekend excursion business. Also, when the government called on employees to continue going to work even though their employers had no cash to pay them, most complied. A good friends sister-in-law had a small business with about twenty employees. They continued coming to work despite not getting a paycheck for several months. The whole thing could have been much worse than it was if not for everyone making sacrifices "for the good of the group".
Samsung took back my unlocked bootloader because Google wants me to rent movies. They're both evil.
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).
uh, again you are proving the point even more.
Yeah I know. But if your political opinion is important enough, then it should be worth some inconveniences, in my opinion. My main point though, was that anonymous political opinion is mere noise. It doesn't mean anything. Write a letter to your congressman on an issue and sign it "JohnFluxx", and it will be completely ignored. I've actually been quoted in articles for a political opinion I posted online under my real name, but never once have I been quoted as "Arandir".
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned