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

NO!

[mrpuffypants]

But Mr. Puffy Pants IS my real name!

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.

Citizen ID Numbers

[GozerBrothers]

"Apparently, citizen ID numbers will be used to verify identity." Sounds like Big Brother to me. Would be effective in stopping SPAM though.

this is a good idea

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

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".

Re:My prediction...

[oogoliegoogolie]

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.

Ironically this was posted by an AC

[eberry]

Ironically this was posted by an AC.

Re:This is what happens...

[g4dget]

why is it that asking people to give their real name before posting something is against free speech ?

Because, apart from governmental repercussions, there is peer pressure and societal disapproval for unpopular speech. If you force people to use their real names, you will get much less disagreement. Which is, of course, just what repressive governments like.

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.

People have thought about this for a couple of thousand years. Many great works of literature, social criticism, reportage, and political science have been published under pseudonyms. Pseudonyms are essential for free speech.

If you want to get rid of the need for pseudonyms, you have to change human nature (peer pressure, retaliation, flaming, all that) first. Good luck.

wrong answer.

[pair-a-noyd]

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:You want my name?

[Rolo Tomasi]

Umm, OK.

omg too good to be true

[Flunitrazepam]

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

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.

Re:This is what happens...

[Selanit]

Personal liberty and the right to vehemently question one's leadership shouldn't be questioned . . .

Sooo . . . I should be allowed to ask about anything as long as I don't ask whether I should be allowed to ask? Phzzt . . . whoops, hold on a sec, my hippocampus is overheating.

Seriously though. I think what you're trying to say is that people should never be punished for asking questions. That I can agree with.

I think you're also trying to say that personal liberty is a value so fundamental that it would be foolish even to ask whether it might be a good idea to limit it in some cases. And that I do not agree with; there are plenty of cases where individual liberty is at odds with the interests of other individuals or those of society. As the old saw goes, "Your right to swing your arm ends at my nose." In the absence of any restraint on personal liberty, you have chaos; suppose I choose to exercise my personal liberty by murdering random strangers on the street? If you try to stop me, you are abrogating my liberty.

Establishing a good balance between personal liberty and the interests of others is an ongoing process, and questioning the premises on which the current balance is based is vital maintenance.

This Korean proposal is a perfect example. The government says "We should do this," and people say "Why?" and then you have a debate which hopefully ends up in a course of action acceptable to the interested parties. It's when that process is derailed that bad things start happening: when the government says "It's going to be this way" and pays no attention to the citizenry, the chances that the resulting legislation will be narrow, self-serving crap rise dramatically.

For that reason, we should always be allowed to question every facet of our political systems, without exception.

Korea's Stance: Pseudonyms No, Spam Yes

[Nova Express]

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@

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".

Korean Racism against Non-Koreans

[reporter]

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". 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:Hmmm

[Yotsuya]

Yeah, I mean, if it's not happening in America, it can't be important, right?