The Internet Comes to North Korea!

According to the Chosun Ilbo and other media sources, North Korea will finally join the world wide web and provide internet service from next year.  Kim Sang-myung, the chief of the North Korea Intellectuals Solidarity, a group of former North Korean professionals, at a symposium in the National Assembly on Wednesday said, "According to the Internet Access Roadmap it launched in 2002, North Korea will begin providing Internet service for special agencies and authorized individuals as early as next year."   According to The Daily NK website, "Kim Sang Myung is an IT expert from North Korea who escaped from the country in 2004, while he was a Computer Science professor in the Engineering department of Kongsang University. He now works as a professor at Kyonggi University in Gyeonggi Province, South Korea."

The Chosun Ilbo article continues, "Implementation of the roadmap, which major agencies such as the Workers' Party, the Ministry of Post and Telecommunications, the Ministry of Electronic Industry, and the North Korea Academy of Sciences have pushed for under the instructions of North Korean leader Kim Jong-il since 2002, is now at its final stage, he said. First of all, North Korea will establish infrastructure for a super-speed Internet service network by laying optical cables between Pyongyang and Hamhung and extending them to Chongjin and Shinuiju this year. North Korea has recently succeeded in consolidating security solutions for the prevention of online leaks of data to foreign countries and of online intrusions, and in enhancing service stability. "  Kim Sang Myung is quoted as saying the following about North Korea's decision to proceed with development of the internet. "North Korea is strongly determined to be part of the global community through the Internet. After watching China and Vietnam control the Internet effectively although these countries have opened up Internet wireless networks since the early days of their opening, the North has concluded that it can now introduce the Internet service."

Leakage of Private Information a Major Problem

According to an article in the Korea Times, the unauthorized leaking of private information continues to be a major problem in South Korea. According to a member of the ruling Grand National Party, ".. unauthorized officials at public firms had searched and even leaked sensitive private information on numerous citizens.

He said officials at the National Health Insurance Corp. had inspected more than 12,000 citizens' private information such as home address, annual income and health conditions between 2002 and May this year, adding such illegalities have been rampant at the National Pension Service as well. Among the victims are famous entertainers and politicians including Bae Yong-joon, Kim Tae-hee and even President Lee Myung-bak. Males searched the data to check whether their girl friends had an abortion. Employees collected home addresses to dole out wedding invitation cards. Some workers sold a pile of such information to private financial companies." "A recent Korea Information Security Agency (KISA) report showed that of 700 public offices' Web sites, 54.1 percent or 379 were highly vulnerable to leaks. The report stated KISA collected more than 67,000 social security numbers through the Internet homepages." The social security numbers referred to in the Korea Times article are actually national citizen's ID numbers, the rough Korean equivalent of a U.S. social security number, but arguably even more personal and confidential than a social security number. The Korea Times article also notes that the government is updating regulations to prevent private information leakage on public institutes' Web sites. It also plans to spend $700 million to install anti-hacking tools on them. A new law will mandate every public and private organization handling private information to encode subscribers' information such as bank accounts, social security (citizen's national ID) numbers, IDs and passwords. The web site of Korea Information Security Agency (KISA) is a useful source of information regarding all aspects of internet security, including SPAM, identity theft, electronic certificates and privacy issues. Unfortunately, the English side of the web site has not been updated, for the most part, since 2006. However, it is still worth a visit.

Google Korea and the Future of Search in Korea

The dominance of Naver, Daum and Empas in the South Korean search market, along with the failure thusfar of Google to garner much market share here, has caught the attention of internet-industry watchers around the world. It is illustrated by the accompanying graphic generated by a search of Google Trends (click on graphic to see a full-size version).  How can it be, many analysts note, that  Google is struggling in the nation with the world's most advanced broadband internet infrastructure?  The answer is largely to be found in language and culture.   Naver is less a search engine than a social-networking internet portal.   It doesn't search the internet.  Instead, it relies on a growing database of Korean-language only material in order to answer queries by Koreans.  As a Korean colleague with considerable internet industry experience told me, "when Koreans search on Naver, they simply want to know what other Koreans are thinking."   Or perhaps they simply want an answer in their own language, and Naver is extremely successful in providing such information.  This explains why its "Knowledge-in" feature is one of the most popular parts of the site.

In broader, more global terms, the very strength of Naver is probably its weakness.  Because it was built by Koreans, for Koreans and in the Korean language, it serves them extraordinarily well for certain purposes.   However, for the same reason, it probably will not do as well in North America, Europe and other international markets.  Also, even for certain purposes here in Korea, Google is superior to Naver.  One example that comes to mind is the many students and parents who are looking for information about study abroad in English speaking countries.  In most instances, they will find more up-to-date information, in both English and Korean, by using Google as their primary search tool.  They will also avoid the pitfall of being overly influenced by "sponsored links" and the web promotion of private study-abroad agencies who pay to sponsor those links.  So, for the benefit of Koreans themselves as well as the future integration of Korea into global cyberspace, we should all hope that Google succeeds here, at least moderately.  More on this topic in future posts.

The Portable Internet: What's With WiBro?

The Korea Times chose an interesting headline for an article today about the prospects for Korea's homegrown portable internet technology, WiBro, as it is known domestically, and Mobile Wimax internationally.  "Will WiBro Sizzle or Fizzle?"  Although this may appear brash, I'm going to predict that, in the long run, WiBro or something very much like it will sizzle.  Furthermore, there appears to be no serious downside to the efforts of Samsung and other Korean companies to push for international approval of a mobile internet standard that originated here. 
At this moment in South Korea's rapid evolution toward the ubiquitous network society, it is a safe statement that there are two desireable characteristics of the future media environment:

• It will provide broadband internet access via mobile handsets, PCs and a variety of other devices.  The term broadband internet, as used here, means speed, as in access speeds currently available in Korea, Japan and a handful of other countries.
• To the extent possible, it will be cordless or mobile. 

As things currently stand, the only reason most people would want to plug in a cord or a network cable in order to access the internet, is to achieve an adequately fast connection.   WiBro, aka Mobile Wimax will succeed because it offers both speed and mobility.   Perhaps we're getting ahead of the story here.  There are other countries and companies in the world that may be pushing for their own versions of the "portable internet," as WiBro appropriately dubs itself.  The most notable of these is LTE, which is still several years off.
WiBro has an informative English language web site.  It contains links to several other sites that may be useful for those closely following the development of these technologies, approval of international standards, and related issues.   One is the Wimax Forum.   Another is the Telecommunications Technology Association.   Also of considerable interest is Intel's view of technologies that will enable the portable internet.  

Korea to Strengthen Online Etiquette Education

Officials from the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology have announced plans to strengthen online etiquette education in South Korea’s grade schools. Currently students receive instruction on internet ethics beginning in the fourth grade. Starting next year, such instruction will be given in the second and third grades. According to the Donga Ilbo, “Twenty-two pages on Web etiquette will be included in ethics textbooks and supplementary teaching material. The chapter “My Friend, the Computer” will cover prevention of overuse and addiction to the Internet, and teach students to use polite words on the Web. The ethics textbook for fourth graders to come out in 2010 will have 20 pages on Internet etiquette. That for fifth graders to be introduced in 2011 will also contain 20 pages on preventing Web addiction.”