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South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware
141–150 of 158 posts
Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware
#142Earlier 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…
> the great American past time is complaining about the government. But in SK there's a lot more trust of the government Are they really more trusting of the government in south korea or is that just what people will say if you ask them? If my government aggressively went after every youtuber and literal child who dared to say bad things about the government I'd probably lie and say I trusted my government too whenev…
My partner is Korean, yes, they actually trust their government more while being aware of these things.
Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware
#143Earlier 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.
> You have to understand Korean culture, where reputation and how you're viewed in society is extremely important.
I do understand it, and I think it is dumb. If it is to the point that it is causing people to kill themselves, it is dumb. This doesn't justify the people harassing others, but rather that the cultural element about getting so involved that leads to such harassment is also dumb. Cultures are hard to change, but at the end of the day it literally is up to people collectively deciding change is needed. There is nothing physical in the way. Habits are hard to change, but not impossible. And we should not excuse harmful behavior by claiming it is simply culture.
(There are many elements of Korean culture that are great. But they do not necessarily rely on such a strong notion of reputation. Reputation can still be important without going to this extreme, where it is excessively difficult to redeem.)
Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware
#144South 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
Who said it's a competition?
Three providers could simply build a cartel.
Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
I actually played one of those Korean mmorpgs that that an English version available ~2005 and I remember their website being a mess. It got wildly popular in the west to a point where the server started lagging and was down frequently, so they set up a second one. Then the cheating got out of hand so they added some anti-cheat software, and shortly after they wanted people to verify their identity by sending a scan…
Honestly I think the only way to get rid of cheating in online games is to use some form of identity vetting. I know of one place where there is zero spam and it’s because of the identity vetting infrastructure.
This is why all the Korean mmorpgs required Korean social security numbers but what ended up happening is Chinese gamers started to steal Korean identities to cheat and farm items which lead to its downfall, they simply could not deal with the large number of Chinese users.
Even source codes were stolen and Chinese mmorpgs would appear with the exact same gameplay but different skins and names.
Wild times.
Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware
#146Earlier quoted context omitted.
In early 2000s I used those Korean SIN number generators to access mmorpgs I stopped when my cousin told me it was illegal Have a lot of fond memories when there was a mini mmorpg bubble in korea N-age still going strong it seems in 2024 ! So many rare unique korean mmorpg that will never see the light of the day!
There were generators? I googled for hours to get Korean wow beta accounts.
In the early days of the internet you could download a generator written in simple visual basic im not sure how it was able to do this but worked well enough to signup and play on almost all the online games
Eventually was made illegal and what ended up happening was a huge korean social security numbers being traded online in Chinese forums (who had economic incentives to farm, hack, cheat items from korean mmorpgs)
Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Is it because all the customers and services are in the same city so it appears low latency? Yes. It's because the internet of Korea is so well done between nearly all areas of the country with great speeds. But it's true that Korean internet is super fast only within Korea, but the borders are also normal fast borders to other countries so they're just as fast as say a 1gbps connection in Australia. Good Korean int…
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40806633 As said, it was good/impressive 20 years ago, now it's just what everyone else has. And SK software is a joke, like the linked post elaborates. I don't know if it changed during the last 5 years, but when I was there I wanted to use Google maps for navigation and it looked like shit, so after some digging around I found because apparently there are some SK patents that pr…
The local variants of map apps are leaps and bounds ahead of Google Maps at any point in the last 10 years though. And that's not due to Google being restricted.
Google is free to do what it wants in Australia, but it still sucks pretty bad.
But yeah, SK software got sabotaged by people in power unfortunately. But the software also has some high standards from locals it has to live up to.
So it's stuck in a situation where the app is quite neat, but it will be as stubborn as a mule if it needs anything to spec.
Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware
#148Earlier 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…
I wouldn't comment over other statements, but... > Distribution of porn is illegal there and they do their best to block it from outside. Incorrect, it's yet another incorrect meme. Legal pornography is always possible in South Korea, and while the actual threshold varied over time (because you know, there is no objective metric for them anyway so it has to be a function of the approximate social consensus), legal po…
> Incorrect, it's yet another incorrect meme. Legal pornography is always possible in South Korea
I never said pornography is illegal.
Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware
#149South Korea information technology (as distinguished from hardware-related technology) is unbelievably bad. Much of it is purely technical: domestic firms like Naver are simply not as good as global incumbents like Google, but also they are terrible compared to other regional players (The Kakao chat app is vastly inferior to Zalo, a Vietnamese chat app). However, just as much is due to poor cultural and interpersonal…
> One of the biggest banks in South Korea blacklisted Amazon as a financial scammer because it's Prime subscription renews monthly and customers complained after seeing the renewal charge on their credit cards. The ban was national -- no customer of this bank could buy a product from Amazon unless he calls the bank personally and ask the charge to be approved. Again, the issue wasn't technical. It was cultural.
To be fair I can see why the practices of Amazon could be considered a scam. Every time you buy something you have to untick "I want Prime"
Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
So pornography threats national security? I don't think so. "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?"
Even NK advocacy sites do not threat national security either, but I meant that such restriction is allowed by the law which was ultimately passed the Congress and so you are wrong to claim that it's "illegal". See also my other comment for the background. Also the watchmen argument against such restrictions is so old at this point that there are lots of counterpoints available for you, if you wish.
which exception by the way? please explain which exception makes them `legal` to scan every communication for censorship. not everyone and not every network requests are related to national security and illegal action(i.e. gamble, drugs, etc.)