Slashdot Mirror
Why South Korea Is Shackled To Windows
baron writes with a blog post explaining in detail why 99.9% of S. Korea uses Windows. This amazing tale began in 1998 when Korea decided it couldn't wait for SSL to be standardized (which it was in 1999) and commissioned an ActiveX control for secure Web transactions. At first there was a secure Netscape plugin too, but we know how that story ended. Quoting: "This nation is a place where Apple Macintosh users cannot bank online, make any purchases online, or interact with any of the nation's e-government sites online. In fact, Linux users, Mozilla Firefox users, and Opera users are also banned from any of these types of transactions..." Now that Microsoft has made ActiveX more secure in Vista, every Web site in S. Korea is scrambling to get things working again and the government is advising citizens not to install Vista. At the end of all this work, they will still be a monoculture in thrall to Microsoft, with millions of users sitting behind some of the fattest pipes in the world.
But I thought Starcraft worked on Mac too...
Laugh. Its funny.
There is no mod option "-1: Disagree" for a reason. "Overrated" is not an acceptable substitute. Post something instead.
and how difficult to get it back
This is not just for Computing but the concept is more important than ever now, in Computing
... the NSA loves you when you do!
http://outcampaign.org/
Kinda makes you think that Massachusetts with their push for open formats, etc might
be on to something. (If you we're already thinking that.)
when the government jumps the gun and does what it thinks is best for everyone.
Kids, diversity is bad, MMMM KAY?
"But I thought Starcraft worked on Mac too..."
It's called World of Warcraft...
I don't think you realize the popularity of Starcrft in South Korea. It's almost a national sport, there are multiple cable TV channels that show tournaments live with play-by-play commentators.
Just break the glass and escape through the window.
In Soviet Russia, dots slash you!
Alternatively, from the better-than-what-they're-using-in-north-korea department
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
Anyone? I'd love to see a widescale analysis of how much vendor lockin actually costs. When it's this bad I imagine it's disastrous
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
Just imagine HAVING to use Windows, oh the humanity!
Yeah, I'm not getting how this is anybody's fault except S. Korea's. SEED is an open specification. There is no reason the Korean community can't develop a plug-in for other systems. All that is required is for the S. Korean CA to allow it. Again, that's S. Korea's fault.
The only fault of Microsoft's lies in an area that the author is grossly misinformed. He says "In IE 7 and in Vista, Microsoft has re-architected Active X controls in such a way to make them 'more safe' by requiring a user action for the control to run", and then links to a page about the Eolas patent resolution. Many places have had to recode websites and controls after this change. While it is Microsoft's fault for the implementation, the impact on S. Korea is entirely up to them.
Sorry, you made your bed.
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Being Korean and known as somebody who's good with computers, a lot of my friends and family members ask me to look at their computer because "it's running too slow". At first I was more than happy to, but now I dread looking at a Korean computer because:
1. it's running Windows with IE and at least 3 extraneous toolbars
2. it hasn't been defragmented since the computer was first built
3. EVERY website HAS to install software to make it run properly
4. EVERY website the user has bookmarked has at least 5 megabytes of flash (and they're all advertisements)
Everybody in Korea signs up for everything, not knowing how useless the service is, how dangerous it is on their computer, and how much traffic it eats up. Just go to www.daum.net or www.naver.co.kr, the two most popular media portals in Korea. What's worse is that Koreans prefer that kind of interface over Google.
I'm not trying to bash Koreans, Windows, or Internet Explorer at all. It's just that when you put the three together, bad things are bound to happen.
It shouldn't be a huge amount of work to get ActiveX controls working on Windows. .ocx activex control is just a COM DLL really, and ought not to be too much trouble to port to Linux Firefox (in conjunction with WINE perhaps), or to Mac OS possibly in conjunction with the Win32 api compatability layer (Darwin?). A plugin wouldn't be too difficult to write, as ActiveX is better documented than many other areas of Windows. I'm sure that if enough South Korean programmers, and there are a lot, get annoyed, the problem will be sorted, particularly with the Vista issue.
A
Personnely I doubt that Vista will break these Korean ActiveX modules indefinetely, as MS can release a patch after the OS is releashed and selling, at their leisure. MS would never create a situation where an entire country is put off their flagship product, especially a country with 99.9% MS Windows usage, as stated in the article.
While I find the prevalent MS monoculture in South Korea in itself quite alarming and surprising, I don't think that the compatability issues with Vista are a cause for major concern. Nobody is foring anybody to upgrade to Vista after all.
There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face - Ben Williams
This is exactly why the generalized use of proprietary and not standard software is a bad idea. Being the most common platform, doesn't make it a standard either since the all country relies on something you have totally no control about.
The first thing I wondered when I read this was, "Did they learn their lesson?" They standardized their entire country on a closed system, and when the vendor of that closed system initiates an arbitrary change, they're pretty much screwed and forced to rebuild things. In my mind, the smart thing would be to bite the bullet, drop Active X, and switch to Firefox and have a true multi-platform solution. Hell, if they can't do everything they require in an extension, they can go as far as making their own fork, and they'll retain that option in the future.
Really, this should be a lesson for everyone.
Just thinking about it makes me want to tell my firewall to shun all traffic from large swaths of the world...
Another question: Couldn't this be forced through liability? I.e. These companies need to switch to using the now much-more secure SSL to handle transactions, or find themselves liable when their customers identities are stolen through their weak quasi-encryption scheme. That's why US companies did it--they didn't want to get sued because a weak protocol was cracked.
Who did what now?
The Government of Canada uses a public key infrastructure system, that only works in some browsers. Famously for the past census, only some people could access it.
Some important sites, such as banks and airlines, don't support other browsers or require plugins as well. It is getting better with the important cross platform critical mass of Firefox, but far from perfect.
Is it a public highway, or something designed only for Ford Explorers(tm)?
In World of Warcraft, the Alliance and Horde characters don't speak the same language, so when one side says either "hahahah" or "lololol" (can't remember which), it shows up as "kekekeke" to the other side.