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South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

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Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#71

Post by godelski »

AtlasBarfed wrote: post #64
godelski wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also worth noting the SK has some pretty terrible laws around the internet in general. Distribution of porn is illegal there and they do their best to block it from outside. They are pretty big on cyber defamation and will go after people who make fun of government officials[0]. They have a comparatively low internet freedom score because they do things like fine middle schoolers for having anti-government websi…

It's a lot easier to buy into a government when the most horrid example of one in modern history (arguable, I get it) is only 100 miles to the north with a huge amount of artillery pointed at you.

Not to mention when you were also very recently occupied by a neighboring country. And an extremely brutal occupation at that. I mean there's still a handful of women still alive who were sex slaves, it wasn't that long ago. Korea really has had it tough, but I wish that would be a drive for more freedom, not less.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#73

Post by katbyte »

arepublicadoceu wrote: post #15
pennybanks wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldnt competition naturally produce better products if there are 3 providers? from what i remember services from companies, or really any type of services were top notch in korea. due to culture, competition, etc. also noting pricing in general is very high in korea

I’m not sure how is the reality in South Korea but, if my country is anything to go by, these 3 companies are probably a hidden cartel that monopolizes the price and offers while offering the bare minimum.

Hello fellow Canadian?

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#74

Post by stephen_g »

jjmarr wrote: post #35
pennybanks wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

wouldnt competition naturally produce better products if there are 3 providers? from what i remember services from companies, or really any type of services were top notch in korea. due to culture, competition, etc. also noting pricing in general is very high in korea

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_monopoly Competition theory assumes that if firms are abusing their market position by overcharging consumers, competitors can enter the market and undercut them. When you have a market with very high barriers to entry (government regulation + physical infrastructure costs), you can't just start your own internet service provider to undercut existing Korean telecommunications, be…

Yes, this is called a ‘natural monopoly’. It’s the case with most infrastructure - basically there is little incentive for a private company to be more efficient than a public utility, since anybody building competing infrastructure is infeasible, but because they want to make profit there is incentive for them to charge more and to cut costs in other ways (like not investing in more than the bare minimum of maintenance). So it generally tends to work out worse for the customers.

Unfortunately some people genuinely believe the private sector will always deliver services cheaper and more efficiently than the public sector, so all around the world this mistake keeps being made. And the continual failures seem to never affect the firm belief of the adherents to that theory…

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#75

Post by petre »

seoulmetro wrote: post #68
yongjik wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

South Korea at least used to have blazingly fast internet infrastructure . Of course that didn't make up for shitty banking websites that you could only use by running Internet Explorer and allowing it to install "security plugins" that hook into Windows kernel, but at least the internet was fast, and it did give Korea an edge for its IT industry. That was, I think, about twenty years ago. I've been living in the US…

Korean internet is still extremely fast. It hasn't decreased in price sadly though.

How can prices decerease when every provider is a chaebol in bed with the government?

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#76

Post by petre »

godelski wrote: post #63
Aerroon wrote: post #2

Unsurprisingly, terrible Korean internet strikes again. ISPs try to charge companies insane fees because customers want to connect to their servers. Company decides to use peer-ro-peer instead so the ISP starts installing spyware on customer computers. Makes me wonder where this myth of "good Korean internet" even came from if everything ends up so bandwidth constrained. Is it because all the customers and services a…

It's also worth noting the SK has some pretty terrible laws around the internet in general. Distribution of porn is illegal there and they do their best to block it from outside. They are pretty big on cyber defamation and will go after people who make fun of government officials[0]. They have a comparatively low internet freedom score because they do things like fine middle schoolers for having anti-government websi…

> They are pretty big on cyber defamation and will go after people who make fun of government officials

Because cyber defamation would go rampant otherwise and people would end up killing themselves on lost reputation and cyber bullying. You have to understand Korean culture, where reputation and how you're viewed in society is extremely important.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#77

Post by petre »

ryandrake wrote: post #12
Aerroon wrote: post #2

Unsurprisingly, terrible Korean internet strikes again. ISPs try to charge companies insane fees because customers want to connect to their servers. Company decides to use peer-ro-peer instead so the ISP starts installing spyware on customer computers. Makes me wonder where this myth of "good Korean internet" even came from if everything ends up so bandwidth constrained. Is it because all the customers and services a…

> According to the news report, KT said it directly planted the malware on its customers that use Webhard’s Grid Service, as it was a malicious program and that “it had no choice but to control it.” Looks like the major ISP and some cloud service provider are having some kind of ridiculous fight, and they're using their customers' computers as the battlefield. I'd be pretty disgusted if I were a customer.

They should be dusgusted. KT's market share something like 80% of landline subscribers and 45% of high speed Internet usets. This is Korea's equivalent of AT&T. The National Pension Service owns ~13% of it.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#78

Post by jamil7 »

pennybanks wrote: post #13
chunsj wrote: post #10

South Korean internet had been one of the best and fast network in the world; especially up to the point before KT was privatized. After privatization, three internet service providers have been focusing on exploiting profits, not on making better and faster network infrastructure because they don't have to.

wouldnt competition naturally produce better products if there are 3 providers? from what i remember services from companies, or really any type of services were top notch in korea. due to culture, competition, etc. also noting pricing in general is very high in korea

This has been the argument for decades to justify privatisation of state infrastructure. Anything with high barriers or physical limitations instead just becomes monopolised. It’s a failed experiment at this point. I’d be highly suspicious of the motivations of anyone arguing for this in 2024.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#79

Post by makeitdouble »

quanto wrote: post #51
lifthrasiir wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It makes me sad that all of these started with US's restriction on the export of cryptography, which prompted South Korea (among others) to develop a domestic algorithm that was unsupported by contemporary browsers at that time.

The US export restriction applied to other countries as well. The question is what has made Korean internet uniquely bad.

One answer is internet banking being way more cumbersome and less advanced in other countries. At that time spending time on the phone or have the customer come spend a miserable time at the agency was the prefered way from the bank's perspective.

To this day many banks won't allow all operations from the online interface.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#80

Post by greesil »

petre wrote: post #76
godelski wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also worth noting the SK has some pretty terrible laws around the internet in general. Distribution of porn is illegal there and they do their best to block it from outside. They are pretty big on cyber defamation and will go after people who make fun of government officials[0]. They have a comparatively low internet freedom score because they do things like fine middle schoolers for having anti-government websi…

> They are pretty big on cyber defamation and will go after people who make fun of government officials Because cyber defamation would go rampant otherwise and people would end up killing themselves on lost reputation and cyber bullying. You have to understand Korean culture, where reputation and how you're viewed in society is extremely important.

That explains some managers I've had. Yeesh
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