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South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

tomshardware.com

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Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#81

Post by kmeisthax »

Hell Joseon strikes again.

For context, the legal situation of network usage in South Korea is something akin to Ajit Pai's wet dream. Network operators are legally empowered to charge troll tolls on both ends of any connection they want. Infrastructure costs are to be borne by literally anyone BUT the network operators.

To compound this, South Korea is economically an authoritarian hellscape. Large megacorporations[0] own everything and the government is just a clearinghouse and mediator for their interests. Corruption is so rampant that even administrations run by ardent anti-corruption activists wind up being toppled by rampant and widespread corruption.

I guarantee you that not one SK Telecom executive will spend time behind bars for this blatantly illegal conduct. Anyone with the power to put people behind bars in South Korea will be unmade if they touch a chaebol.

[0] These are specifically called chaebols and the group includes LG, Hyundai, Samsung, Lotte, and a few others. Japan used to have something similar, but they ate their rich... and then brutally invaded and colonized half of East Asia.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#83

Post by RF_Savage »

yongjik wrote: post #24
shiroiushi wrote: post #18

>Police officials acted on the information and discovered it came from KT’s own data center south of Seoul. ... They’ve since identified and charged 13 individuals, including KT employees and subcontractors directly connected to the malware attack last November,... I'm actually very impressed. If this happened in the US, the police wouldn't care about it at all, and would just tell everyone affected that "it's a civi…

I think you're too optimistic. My reading is that the police is investigating low-level employees and subcontractors. I.e., profit for the corporation, consequence for the employees. And especially subcontractors. (Workplace discrimination against subcontractors has been a hot topic in Korea: subcontractors literally die in factories because they're pushed to handle dangerous tasks while "regular employees" get cushy…

Yeah. At they pulled a Sony on a smaller scale and have better relations with the local govt.

The people who ordered it done will be fine.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#84

Post by iforgotpassword »

localfirst wrote: post #52
xenospn wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I remember visiting SK back in 2005-6, and the only way to get online was to install an IE plugin.

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!

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 of their id/passport. This is when 99% of players left.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#85

Post by huimang »

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.

You mean the Korean netizen culture where celebrities routinely kill themselves? Where people not only still bully, but rapists can sue their victims for defamation and win?

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#86

Post by mrtksn »

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…

Wow, are they trying to have worse internet than DPRK?

Funny how both spectrums of fully controlled market and fully free market can be terrible. Apparently what they did was a crime but it shows the spirit, they though at least that they can do it and get away with it.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#87

Post by pezezin »

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…

> 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 are in the same city so it appears low latency?

Same here in Japan. The funny thing is that both me here and my parents back in Spain have gigabit fibre, yet my parents' connection is much faster than mine.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#88

Post by iforgotpassword »

seoulmetro wrote: post #67
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…

>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 prevent Google from using a lot of modern tech. So no wonder SK people compare that to naver and think their IT tech is top notch, but if you compare it to the "real Google", it's a joke.

It's the same in China actually, but there you simply can't access the western counterparts at all usually.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#89

Post by AlchemistCamp »

petre wrote: post #75
seoulmetro wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

The government could make upgrading the infrastructure and lowering prices a priority.

Re: South Korean telecom company attacks torrent users with malware

#90

Post by citrin_ru »

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.

Active-X was AFIK a common requirement for banking e.t.c. during crypto export restrictions but once they where lifted almost everyone switched to https. What different about SK is the laws which keep their IT security in the past.
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