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Why Internet Explorer Still Dominates South Korea.
New submitter bmurray7 writes "You might think that the country that has the fastest average home internet speeds would be a first adapter of modern browsers. Instead, as the Washington Post reports, a payment processing security standard forces most South Koreans to rely upon Internet Explorer for online shopping. Since the standard uses a unique encryption algorithm, an ActiveX control is required to complete online purchases. As a result, many internet users are in the habit of approving all AtivceX control prompts, potentially exposing them to malware."
I know too much about this. I'm a Korea-phile, so last year I applied to a graduate school in South Korea and they required me to download like 2 or so add-ons to IE to even complete the online application.
My work's HR system requires an ActiveX control with our smart card system. To make things worse, this system barely supports IE7 (apparently IE8 in compatibility mode works, as well, but IE9+ absolutely does not) and they only upgraded it to support 7 because Microsoft stopped supporting IE6. I actually created a VM explicitly so I can log into the HR system (because I HAVE to have IE9 or higher for my other work, since I work in html 5 and need to test on most major browsers). My ops group thought it was odd that I requested key card software installed on a VM, but when I explained my situation they did it (in fact, they set up a lab machine specifically for others with similar circumstances).
Incidentally, nobody really uses IE except for the HR system, and everybody has an old version also because of the HR system. I believe the HR issue is money related and more related to SAP upgrade costs than key card (and I believe we paid SAP to integrate our key card access).
Well, according to the Wikipedia article linked in the summary, it is is supported in NSS, and hence in Firefox (since version 3.5.4).
As for whether or not there is something else required as well as the cipher itself, dunno.
AtivceX? Go, Timmay! You're a kickass editor!
You too, since you missed the chance to pick on him for:
- "first adapter"
- "South Korean's"
This is actually the most illiterate post in a few weeks!
As someone who did IT work in South Korea this year for couple of weeks, I never felt so defeated trying to upgrade 15 computers from XP to Windows 7. We basically had to give everyone admin rights just for them to do their job. Bank sites that had 11 (!) ActiveX plugins with 3-factor security (password, token, plus USB key with a cert) just for them to log in - and they routinely "update" their controls, which of course, require Admin rights.
The branch manager didn't understand at first why we were having so much difficulty. I had to explain to him that if we adhered by our security standards, we'd have to close the branch because there wasn't a single operation they did which would otherwise be allowed.
I should also add that no Java or ActiveX is required to do online banking in Finland. If you want to see how a nice, clean and secure bank website is created, Finns are not a bad choice to consult.
The summary is slightly miss-leading. There isn't 1 standard for ActiveX control, every single goddamn site uses their one ActiveX or Java applet, and you have to install it. I have never seen a more backwards methodology than what Korea has for online purchasing.
The strange thing is, if you use a phone, things are much simpler (generally there is an app). In addition, because of Naver's dominance in the country, almost all sites are integrated with it, and at least offer ways of finding information through it (but not purchasing).
Yeah even javascript isn't required, if I remember the last time I used it, a year or two ago (Nordea). Things are mostly similar in Estonia, Nordea's an even cleaner interace. My SEB needs javascript, but it's pretty lightweight. (And that SEB identity is enough for me to do all kinds of bill-paying, so is extremely useful.)
Finland was even more back-to-basics 20 years ago, IIRC, you could just SSH into the bank, and have an interactive banking session from a menu driven interface.
And some parts of the world still have cheques, sigh...
Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863