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How Japanese Police Turned Cyber Prank into Arresting Cases

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101–110 of 112 posts

Re: How Japanese Police Turned Cyber Prank into Arresting Cases

#101

Sadder yet is that modern browsers let you disable these sort of dialogs. I know Firefox does it, I assume Chrome does as well. Wondering what the browser landscape looks like in Japan if it was serious enough to mandate police force?

For anyone who wants to try if their browser blocks it: javascript:for(;;){alert("am%20I%20bloc%20yet?");} Just copy that into the URL field of your browser (In a new tab, because it will block whatever site you do this from (duh))

Huh, I'm surprised it doesn't have the checkbox to block future alerts. (in chrome, also it stripped the javascript: when pasting)

Re: How Japanese Police Turned Cyber Prank into Arresting Cases

#102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wrong in this case. My actual wife is Japanese. She often gets me to help her out with very, very, very basic things on the computer. She's relatively smart outside of that, speaks fluent English and graduated uni both in Japan and overseas. But it's as if the basic foundation for working out new abstractions on a computer just aren't there. Which is how the discussion came up. I was curious why such a level of compu…

It might be a bit offtopic but I am just wondering, how did you two meet?

I was a regular at a Japanese/English conversation club in my area for many years. She came one time. I sat down and said hello.

Re: How Japanese Police Turned Cyber Prank into Arresting Cases

#103
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well they are reputed to be involved in drug trafficking with other groups outside Japan, but they maintain control over foreign gang activity inside Japan. Edit: just to clarify, Yakuza is not a single group. There are big differences between the various units. Many of them don’t touch drug trade, some are involved in human trafficking, and others seem to be mainly symbolic.

so, in effect, Yakuza is not that different from other businesses.

It’s easy to find their offices in most cities. They’re not hiding. The one in my neighborhood looks like it could be a software company or a bank office. The plaque outside identifies a gang that is centuries old. Many of the homes in the area announce the owner’s rank outside.

Re: How Japanese Police Turned Cyber Prank into Arresting Cases

#104
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The 99% figure is a common misconception. Prosecutors in Japan are underfunded, so they only try to convict rock solid cases, among other factors. This Wikipedia entry seems to flagrantly defy wiki rules but seems more informative for it. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criminal_justice_system_of_J...

isn't prosecuting a prank orthogonal to your argument of only prosecuting rock solid cases?

So far, I haven't heard that any of the 3 people in custody (補導) for these pranks have been prosecuted (起訴).

Re: How Japanese Police Turned Cyber Prank into Arresting Cases

#105
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does your comment really add to the discussion, aside from weirding some people out?

You know, when she told me that it weirded me out too. I was like... HOW!!?? I remember growing up in school we always had computers in the classroom and computer literacy programs. It must have meant that at all the schools she attended in Japan growing up they didn't have that. Else there's no way that'd be possible. Just mildly fascinating. Totally not what I expected. So when the minister in charge of the stuff s…

I wouldn't be surprised if the same happened in other countries. A lot more people use smartphones and tablets than desktop computers these days.

Re: How Japanese Police Turned Cyber Prank into Arresting Cases

#106

Just to remind you all, this is coming from a country whose cybersecurity minister claims to have "never touched a PC in his life". https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-46222026

That same minister is launching a cyber attack on unsecured IoT devices to get the country to strengthen its stuff. He seems far the from the worst guy for the job. https://www.google.com/amp/s/spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/tel...

Sounds like a white-hat stuff to me - probing the security and reporting found vulnerabilities to owners. Genuinely curious - why do you write it like this a bad thing? As long as they don't exploit what they find, of course.

Better let good-intended actors do that before ill-intended actors do the same.

Re: How Japanese Police Turned Cyber Prank into Arresting Cases

#107
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Another thing is the lack of understanding, or almost disdain of technicality when it comes to IT among politicians and high ranked officials. The tendency is probably common among politicians everywhere, but Japan is particularly bad as the majority of these committees members have only legal backgrounds and don't even know what HTML is (and their contempt of studying them).

Give me exemple of foreign politician that know HTML please (besides Taiwan ones). We got got a lot of funding for IT related stuff here from the government.

Off the top of my head, Ted Lieu has a CS degree, so it’s likely. There are 4 congressmen total who have CS degrees [1]. Not to say a music major can’t know this stuff, too.

[0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Lieu

[1] https://hurd.house.gov/media-center/in-the-news/we-asked-eve...

Re: How Japanese Police Turned Cyber Prank into Arresting Cases

#108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so, in effect, Yakuza is not that different from other businesses.

Calling them a business describes it spot on. Afaik they are pretty much to most "corporate" like crime syndicate out there. Complete with charity drives for good PR [0] [0] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-yakuza/yakuza-among-first...

I've always found the relationship between Japan and the Yakuza to be fascinating. You have a country with an ostensibly lawful-good alignment, collectivists with a strong sense of social order and responsibility, where what would be minor drug crimes anywhere else carry hard prison time, and guns and knives are strictly regulated. Actors and politicians with Yakuza ties are scandalized by the media, yet the Yamaguchi-Gumi give out candy to kids for Halloween as if they were Boy Scouts, if the Boy Scouts had merit badges for child porn, human trafficking, money laundering and drugs.

And they're apparently all over the video game industry in Japan, the way the Mafia was all over construction and sanitation in New York during the 1970s. I just kind of assume they made Konami an offer they couldn't refuse when that company recently decided to leave non-mobile games and pivot into pachinko and slot machines.

Re: How Japanese Police Turned Cyber Prank into Arresting Cases

#109
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freudian psychology has been mostly debunked and is not considered a valid tool for analyzing societies.

Ah, then use the Berne Transactional Analysis model. I provided that terminology as well. Do you have any problems with viewing the world through the `Parent, Adult, Child` simplified lens?

Yes I have problems with viewing the world through the "Parent, Adult, Child" simplified lens. It doesn't have any real scientific backing and doesn't make actionable, testable predictions.

Re: How Japanese Police Turned Cyber Prank into Arresting Cases

#110
post #53
post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Freudian psychology has been mostly debunked and is not considered a valid tool for analyzing societies.

The only people who think Freudian psychology (and Freud’s more general writings) don’t have value are those people who haven’t seriously studied them. Not to say that they are 100% true, but there’s a lot of (profound) truth there.

Could you please clarify what value you think Freud's writings have beyond historical interest? I am asking for something which meets the following criteria: 1. non-obvious, 2. supported by actual science, 3. useful in practical terms for dealing with other people.
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