Seltsame Welt: während hier die Opposition zumindest hörbar gegen den Wolfgang-Katalog wettert, ist die Welt in Südkorea verdreht. Dort diskutiert die Nationalversammlung offenbar demnächst ein sehr ähnliches Vorhaben. Die Opposition ist sich nicht zu schade, einen eigenen Gesetzentwurf für weitreichende Vorratsdatenspeicherung erstellen.

The South Korean Parliament is discussing a dangerous revision of the “Protection of Communications Secrets Act” on April 26. The revision would legally enforce telecommunications companies and internet service providers (ISPs) to retain ‘communications data’ for at least three months to one year and would require mobile phone service providers to redesign their networks to permit wiretapping. Currently, data retention is voluntary.

Communication data includes the following:
12 month retention

3 month retention
- date and time of user’s telecommunication
- date and time of the start (or end) of the connection session
- telephone numbers of caller and receiver
- location information for telecommunications base station to confirm the location of network access
- communications data for use of and access to the internet or log-files of internet user
- information to trace or confirm the location of a user’s equipment used to access a network or the internet

We are concerned that this revision will severely jeopardise the Korean’s people’s right to privacy and freedom of expression, and therefore support their actions against this legislation, request that the parliament halt the revision process and conduct a public hearing or consultation to solicit the opinions of the public, including those of civil society and human rights organisations.

Dasselbe steht uns bevor, wenn es weitergeht. Die Hintergrundinformationen könnten von hierzulande stammen, auch das Argument in Bezug auf 1984. Eine Blog-Kampagne ist unterwegs, und wer koreanisch kann wird bei blog.jinbo.net/1984/ fündig.

[via apc.org]

Das sind News: in Korea kochen Online-User auch nur mit Wasser. Daily Readers More Informed Than Netizens berichtet die englischsprachige “Korea Times“.

According to the research, those who mainly get information through newspapers had more knowledge of politics than those using the Internet or television as their main source of news.

Newspaper readers also participated in political discussions more actively than Internet users and television viewers.

Newspaper-oriented people were relatively older and earned more money than other groups. Those getting information through the Internet usually had high-level academic backgrounds, while television-oriented people were old but their education and income levels were the lowest, according to the survey.

Newspaper readers were also more active in posting comments for online news articles than those who mainly obtain information through the Internet.

Among 10 news sites including portals and major newspaper Web sites, 48 percent of the surveyed, or 409 people, preferred Naver, saying the portal provides the most varied news.

Also hüben wie drüben? Mal zusammenfassen: “Leser von Zeitungen, die zugleich auch Online-Medien lesen, sind besser informiert als ausschließliche Online-Leser”. Hmja. Vielleicht ist Deutschland ja doch nicht so weit von “führenden IT-Nationen” oder wie das immer heißt entfernt. Hier ist das ja auch so. Oder kenne ich die interessanten, breitband-politischen Blogs noch nicht? Der angekündigte, kommende Bericht “The Rise of Portal News and the Future of News” wird jedenfalls interessantere Details bieten, hoffentlich.

Wie AsiaMedia (UCLA) berichten kann, steigt die Zahl der Blogs weiterhin enorm. Direkt von der Taipei Times übernommen, schreiben sie: Japanese lead explosion of blogging:

The popular online personal journal technology, which exploded on the Web only about five years ago, has now spread around the world, with Japanese the biggest bloggers, ahead of English-language bloggers and the rapidly growing Chinese blogging community according to Technorati, which tracks blog content.

Blogging has also exploded in politically repressed countries, with Iran’s Farsi language also scoring high and rising in blogging rankings, the San Francisco company said.

In its State of the Live Web report, Technorati said the number of blogs around the world surged from 8 million in March 2005 to more than 72 million last month.

Also, die Zahlen, die so durch die Gegend fliegen, unterscheiden sich ja dann doch um Größenordnungen voneinander. Man sollte überhaupt nie nur einer Firma allein vertrauen, die Zahlen unter die Leute bringt.

[gefunden via SmartMobs]

Die Aversion des Hochtechnologielandes Korea (ich meine den Süden) gegen Microsoft Windows Vista könnte größer nicht werden. Nicht nur gibt es eine PR-bezogen unangenehm aussichtsreiche Sammelklage, der Ton wird insgesamt klirrender: ‘Open Web’ Movement Forces Government to Open Up to Non-MS Systems Aus dem Artikel bei The Korea Times vom 11.2.:

Kim Kee-chang, who teaches at Korea University’s law school, is filing three compensation and criminal suits against the Ministry of Information and Communication and the Korea Financial Telecommunication & Clearing Institute (KFTC). Kim claims that the agencies have neglected their duty of preventing a monopoly for Microsoft’s Windows operating system and Internet Explorer browser.

In his most recent action, Kim and his Open Web group have assisted in a 10-billion-won compensation suit against the KFTC. The suit is to be filed this week by Pay Gate, an online payment solutions company that sells open-platform Internet banking certificate solutions.

“We are going to shatter them completely,’’ said Kim, 44, referring to the KFTC, an Internet banking mediator that has stuck to Microsoft platforms only. “We are going to help Pay Gate as an auxiliary party. Our lawyers will brief the judges on how evil the KFTC has been.’’

Pay Gate has focused on developing open-platform payment solutions. But as the government and the KFTC are forcing the banking industry to adopt the exclusively Microsoft-oriented platforms, the company has lost many business opportunities, with an estimated worth of tens of billions of won, the company claims.

Zur besseren Einschätzung: 10 Milliarden Won sind in etwa 8′000′000 Euro, also noch mehr schlechter PR (wenn ich mich bei den vielen Nullen nachts um drei nicht verzählt habe), vermutlich dennoch nur Peanuts für die Bank. Dennoch, es hackt. Auf der Korean Studies Discussion List (bei koreanstudies.ws, durchsuchbar) wird das ganze so bewertet: “completely dependent [...] on bad technology”.

Many members of our List must be using Apple, Linux or Firefox and will therefore have realized years back that they could not do anything useful with most Korean sites, especially when financial transactions are involved, because only Microsoft platforms allow the use of the notorious Active X plugins, that have long been actively encouraged by the Korean government. They might like to know that there are (very faint) signs of revolt. The first sign I noted was an article in the Korea Times of February 11,
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200702/kt2007021117420210440.htm

but there had in fact already been an article a few days earlier, and even last year those in the know had begun campaigning, http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/200702/kt2007020518003910220.htm

The irony is that the new Microsoft Vista is designed to block the use of Active X and the government authorities are now desperately trying to prevent people in Korea installing it because then they will find out how completely dependent they have become on bad technology. There is ample room for conspiracy theories as to just why Korea sold its soul to Active X (or rather to MS) and they will be focussing on the less than clearly identified Mr Kim. It will be interesting to see what happens, but it is sad to see the usual response appearing, along the lines of “it would cost too much to change, and after all, most Koreans are perfectly happy with Microsoft.” I think that this issue is of some importance to us on this list, since quite a few might well want to be able to do online business with Korea without being forced to change computers or systems.

Das verzweifelte daran hatten wir bereits behandelt. Dazu passt, was man bei unifx.net schon länger nachlesen kann: die koreanische Saga vom Land, das offene Betriebssysteme und gerade auch Linux liebt, wie man gemeinhin glaubt: Stimmt alles nicht, von Augenwischerei abgesehen.

Spannend. Ich wünschte ich könnte koreanisch, um das besser zu verfolgen.

[Danke Niels!]

Südkorea plante schon 2005 Vorschriften, nach denen sich User online mit Realnamen ausweisen müssen. Die Argumente waren die üblichen, die man hierzulande hört, genau wie die Kritik. Alternativ sollten die Netiquette gestärkt und die gemeinen User erzogen werden, wenn die Technik unzulänglich funktioniert und Mißbrauch möglich bleibt.

Jetzt soll, wie AsiaMedia berichtet, das passende Gesetz veranschiedet werden:

The internet real-name system, designed to prevent cyber crimes such as libel and privacy infringement, will be applied to Web portals and websites of public organizations with over 100,000 visitors per day.

The system will require Web users to identify themselves with their real names when posting entries and commenting on others’ articles, the government said yesterday.

A revision bill of “the law on promotion of information and communications network and protection of information,” was passed by the National Assembly on Dec. 22. The bill will be promulgated this month, the Ministry of Information and Communication said.

Es soll im Februar bereits Anhörungen geben, und das Gesetz könnte womöglich noch im Juli 2007 in Kraft treten. Widerstand von den Usern könnte schwach ausfallen: Online-Umfragen von 2005 liefern beunruhigend geringe Skepsis.