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."

Comments

Almost always been like this

[Alex_Ionescu]

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

[djupedal]

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.

Re:Almost always been like this

[wljones]

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

[selderrr]

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 ?

Re:sillly

[selderrr]

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.

My prediction...

[visualight]

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".

No it wouldn't (Identity Theft)

[ironfrost]

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:Re[:My prediction...] Baa... Baa...

[visualight]

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".