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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."
AtivceX? Go, Timmay! You're a kickass editor!
From TFA:
Holy crap!
W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
Banks here make you login to your online account by using a card reader with your ATM card. And of course, that requires an ActiveX control. The Cathay Bank site itself looks like it hasn't changed design since 1996.
Why hasn't the SEED cipher (RFC 4269) been reimplemented in Flash, Java, JavaScript, native code using an NPAPI plug-in (Netscape's counterpart to ActiveX, now used by Firefox), or native code using a PPAPI plug-in (Chrome's counterpart to ActiveX)? Without any chance of support for ActiveX on mobile phones or ARM-powered tablets, I'd guess it'd have to be.
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.
So IE 11 isn't a "modern browser"?
I've seen similar issues all over the place, someone designs some proprietary-yet-essential service to use a proprietary plugin or other technology that's very platform and version specific. One just ends up using two web browsers, the old one that's required in order to make the stupid proprietary thing work, and the new one for one's normal browsing. It SUCKS from a support perspective as both browsers fight to be default, and users can't keep track of what pages load with what browser, etc, and that's not even beginning to address the security problems.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
Even Microsoft is looking at SK and saying: "WTF? We don't even use ActiveX anymore."
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).
It's like a microcosm of what might have happened worldwide had ActiveX been as popular as they'd wanted to be.
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.
You do realize that(while it has its uses, for convenience sake) IETab is just a convenient wrapper for IE components from the underlying Windows system, not some kind of re-implementation of IE for Firefox. It's just more convenient than clicking on the E yourself. Doesn't do a thing on any platform where IE isn't.
A noble spirit emscriptens the smallest man.
M$ has made most of its profits from gov't contracts and users who don't know to expect better from a computing experience.
I taught ESL in South Korea in 2001/2002...it was right after 9/11 and during the World Cup. The country was burgeoning as a bankable international business player...competiting with **Japan** with companies like Samsung...no coincidence that they co-hosted with Japan that year ;)
Korea was **all about it**...they wanted the best of what was available...to them, the USA was the best at computer tech...so obviously they went with the most *popular* Operating System, and they **made sure** to buy **ALL** the expansion packs and do exactly as M$ suggested...
Which means they've been on a never-ending nightmare Mobeius strip of a ride to user hell.....that, b/c of their trusting nature has painted them into an IT Engineering corner...which was M$ plan all along!
Thank you Dave Raggett
You're wrong about Korean culture...
Well, partially wrong. They built their IT infrastructure based on the *best* available at the time: Microsoft
Blame Microsoft for making shitty products that lock-in users (and whole countries) to an inefficient half-assed software system.
caveat emptor? sure...but at some point you have to acknowledge that they culpability can't rest only on the consumer....M$ parasitic system design was/is truly evil
If you want to fault Korean culture, fault them for being too trusting of the USA in general....poor people actually take what we say at face value.
I lived there for 1 year...I know the ass-backwards way they sometimes adapt new technology...but this isn't that...the aren't inherently inefficient as a culture...they showed us what happens when a country actually does what M$ suggests...
Sort of like a 'Super Size Me' kind of project only with IT infrastructure for a whole country not fast food
Thank you Dave Raggett
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).
The tools aren't as great, but they're there at least. I prefer to debug in Firefox most of the time still.
I think it's nice that Chrome and Firefox update so fast, quickly adding HTML5/CSS3 features so after a short while the majority of people have browsers that can use those features. Even with the difference in release models, IE10 manages to get quite a lot of things right that Chrome still hasn't fixed, like CSS3 linear gradients over large areas without horrible dithering for example, and CSS3 font-stretch support.
Morphing Software
Korea is a tiny country
...on whose soil is headquartered the company that makes smartphones whose popularity challenges Apple's. Besides, the Republic of Korea has about as many people as the entire West Coast of the USA (California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii) combined.
there is no demand (and thus, no financial incentive) for anyone except the Korean government to implement SEED.
Or for anyone who wants to interoperate with Korea, such as users of web browsers that might get deployed on Korean devices. If Chromium supports SEED, for example, then Samsung phones, tablets, and phablets shipping with Chrome for Android will support SEED by default. Likewise with Firefox for Android.