Post by Sunday at midnight.
1. Mark Whitaker
2. A Positive Development: Removing an Online Monopoly in Microsoft Software in Korea May Make Us More Secure on the Internet
3. Microsoft's XActive software monopoly on online encryption (banking/shopping) in Korea is slowly being demoted by two banks. Now instead of merely depending on Microsoft to fix itself, there will be market incentive that they will loose more institutional users. Greater competition in this sensitive area of online security I think is good. Some of the comments at the weblink argue that the introduction of the Apple IPhone as a competitor may have been another encouragement to be more "open platform" about online encryption instead of a willing servant of the Microsoft Corporation. I told the story in class that an anti-virus software corporation manager was fired for one day opining in the media that Microsoft's monopoly is a bad thing because that means viruses innately spread in any software monoculture--and Microsoft's virtual monopoly on the virtual experience of the web is partially responsible for widespread data insecurity.
Some examples of the commonly known data insecurity under a Microsoft XActive regime are detailed in the article.
--------------------------------------
09-27-2010 20:07
[Korean] Online banking wiggles out of Microsoft chokehold
Woori Bank has been spearheading the ``open banking’’ movement, aimed at providing online banking services on computers that run on non-Microsoft operating systems like Linux and Apple’s Macintosh OS.
By Kim Tong-hyung
Microsoft had previously dominated the Korean computing experience and this had much to do with its virtual monopoly on Internet technologies used for encrypted communication like online banking and electronic commerce.
However, with local banks starting to allow their customers to move money online on non-Microsoft Web browsers like Firefox and Chrome, the country could be witnessing the beginning of the end of the Microsoft monoculture.
Spearheading the ``open banking’’ trend was Woori Bank, which expanded its online banking service beyond Microsoft’s Internet Explorer (IE) browsers in July to support Firefox, Chrome, Safari and Opera users, who were also enabled to access the services from computers run on non-Microsoft operating systems like Linux and Apple’s Macintosh OS.
And it now appears that the Industrial Bank of Korea (IBK) is looking to tweak its online banking service to make it available on Linux and Apple computers too. IBK’s revamped Internet services will be accessible on a variety of browsers and will also support Microsoft’s latest IE 9. The bank will sign a company by October to redesign its Internet banking system.
Although IBK’s Internet services for desktop computers are designed for the Windows operating system and IE browsers, the bank has already been providing non-Microsoft online banking services on data-enabled mobile phones like the Apple iPhone.
``There have been complaints from computer users with non-IE browsers and our goal is to provide our Internet banking services to those with any browser,’’ said an IBK official.
Existing local regulations require all encrypted online communications to be based on electronic signatures that are enabled through public-key infrastructures. And since the fall of Netscape in the early 2000s, Microsoft's Active-X technology, used on its Internet Explorer (IE) Web browsers, remains the only plug-in tool used to download public-key certificates onto computers.
This prevented users of non-Microsoft browsers such as Firefox and Chrome from banking and purchasing products online. And [1] computer security experts have also claimed that public-key certificates don't add anything to security beyond a simple password gateway, which make them worse than useless as they create the illusion of safety where there is none.
[2] The private keys are mostly stored on unprotected memory such as hard disks or USBs, and could be duplicated easily by just copying and pasting the NPKI folder on the computers to other storage devices.
[3] The security provided by Active-X plug-ins is only active during the banking session, which means that the computers are left vulnerable most of the time. [4] And the mandated security requirements [of not having a choice of online encryption in Korea] are rendered completely irrelevant when the user's machine has already been compromised. This had discouraged users from moving beyond the aging computing experience based on the decade-old technologies of Windows XP and IE6.
The Korean reliance on Active-X became a hot topic again last year when a massive Internet attack left more than 80,000 Korean computers crippled. It was pointed out that Active-X provided an easy route for cyber criminals spreading malware for the distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks.
Pressured by the calls to provide more flexibility in Internet security technologies, the Korea Communication Commission (KCC) announced it would allow other verification methods besides public-key certificates for protecting encrypted communication, which motivated companies like Woori Bank to differentiate.
Woori Bank’s new Internet banking system appears to be well-received, with the bank garnering 40,000 new customers just a month into the changes.
And with a variety of banks, including IBK, Shinhan, Kookmin and SC First Bank, already providing non-Microsoft online banking services for smartphones, the transition toward an open Internet banking structure appears to be gaining pace.
Of course, the independence from the Microsoft-shaped past is far from complete. Woori Bank’s Macintosh customers are still forced to install public-key certificates and keyboard encryption programs on their laptops as banks have yet to agree on how to replace their old security technologies.
Aside of the security issues, usability is also a problem for Active-X plug-ins. A computer user will need to install at least nine Active-X controls to access the online banking services of three or more banks, according to a recent report.
Even Microsoft seems ready to bail on Active-X, as it looks to phase out the technology over security concerns and compatibility issues. This leads to awkwardness whenever Microsoft introduces a new product here.
The release of Windows Vista in 2007 caused massive disruption when the Active-X programs used by banks and online retail sites didn't function properly.
thkim@koreatimes.co.kr
---
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2010/09/133_73601.html
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
Sunday, September 26, 2010
Wednesday, September 15, 2010
Week 3: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
Post by Sunday at midnight.
Remember, if your post doesn't appear, it is in the filtered area courtesy of Google/Blogger. I have to look at it first, and then push it to the blog.
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Will Electricity Be Delivered via Internet? Will the Internet have over 4 Billion Computers on It? (Thinking What Castells argued about "permanent developmental revolution" in an informational society.)
3. This short article has huge implications if this continues. Perhaps even electrical delivery will be made wireless, conducted via internet protocols? Castells argues that what makes these information networks of the current technological revolution (in comparison to previous ones) unique is that they penetrate everything of consequence in 'real life' in an endlessly revolutionizing manner of feedback loops between the four areas I described in lecture. This is a prime example of things that seem impossible that become real in 10 years?
Two related personal stories follows on how this endless revolution is changing me and my work styles. I have bought several external hard drives for years. Another 'impossibility' a few years ago was a 'one terabyte' storage drive (1 trillion bytes: 1,000,000,000,000 bytes on average or 1024 GB). My first one was 300 GB (gigabyes). Then one at around 500 GB. Hitachi invented and sold the first 1T drive in 2007. The price dropped last year, and I bought one. (Now at the same price for 2 terabytes. It is difficult to underestimate this endless technological revolution we are living in right now that it only at the most around 30-40 years old, with the mass web HTML experience only 15 years old.)
Second, I bought a laptop a few years ago even though I prefer a desktop computer. However, my laptop is faster than most computers that the university provides, so it has changed my work experience to move a laptop around with me sometimes. I bought a mini-netbook for a trip to Europe, which was crucial at several stages because 'keeping on the net' was important to me regarding work in Korea. I took the netbook everywhere on vacation, and I was seldom out of internet reach in reading or using Hangul characters, even if I was on the other side of Eurasia from Korea. I found it annoying though amazing nonetheless how "central" that little netbook was for my vacation--not only because I was using it, though everyone else was expecting me to be logged into the internet every day. Another change toward the informational world of digital technology: instead of taking printed documents about the trip, I took digital copies for reference.
However, among other topics, I worry about the health implications of more microwave radiation as a chosen communications medium when it is so damaging to human (and animal) bodies.
-------------------------
09-16-2010 16:54 여성음성 듣기 남성음성 듣기 News List
Korea to begin Web address overhaul in 2011
By Kim Tong-hyung
Korea will begin to roll out the next generation of Internet addresses for online devices next year to deal with the dwindling number of available Internet protocol (IP) addresses as the Web grows beyond computers.
According to officials at the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country will start updating its core Internet addressing system to a new format known as IP version 6 (IPv6) next June.
IPv6 will be first tested on commercial telecommunications services such as major search sites and electronic commerce (e-commerce) destinations, IP television (IPTV) and third-generation (3G) mobile telephony through a number of trial operations, KCC officials said.
The devices and networks for potential fourth generation (4G) communications systems Long Term Evolution (LTE) and mobile WiMAX will also be using IPv6.
However, the new format will not be immediately adopted on national communications networks such as electric power control systems and data communications networks where stability is paramount.
Internet service providers predict that about 45 percent of their subscriber networks will be switched to IPv6 by 2013, with their backbone networks completing the transition by then.
Every device that goes online is allocated a unique IP address, and the current format, IPv6, provides over 4 billion addresses. However, there are concerns that the pool of numbers is due to run out in the near future as more people around the world connect to the Web on an increasing number of devices.
The Korean government is just one of many that are pushing a switch to IPv6, which is hoped to provide billions of extra IP addresses as the Web begins to move beyond computers and mobile phones to virtually every consumer electronics device including televisions and domestic appliances [linked into the internet/network society].
The movement toward “cloud computing,” describing a new era of Internet usage in which information and software are delivered over the Web, rather than through desktop computers, is expected to accelerate the exhaustion of current Internet addresses as well by having more devices connected to the Web.
This has led to concerns about the possible shortage of addresses under IPv4.
The Korean aspirations to become one of the world’s first countries to convert its electricity networks into “smart grids” also explains the urgency for the IPv6 transition.
Smart grids, which can be bluntly described as the “electricity Internet,” deliver electricity from suppliers to consumers using information technology.
---
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2010/09/133_73164.html
Remember, if your post doesn't appear, it is in the filtered area courtesy of Google/Blogger. I have to look at it first, and then push it to the blog.
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Will Electricity Be Delivered via Internet? Will the Internet have over 4 Billion Computers on It? (Thinking What Castells argued about "permanent developmental revolution" in an informational society.)
3. This short article has huge implications if this continues. Perhaps even electrical delivery will be made wireless, conducted via internet protocols? Castells argues that what makes these information networks of the current technological revolution (in comparison to previous ones) unique is that they penetrate everything of consequence in 'real life' in an endlessly revolutionizing manner of feedback loops between the four areas I described in lecture. This is a prime example of things that seem impossible that become real in 10 years?
Two related personal stories follows on how this endless revolution is changing me and my work styles. I have bought several external hard drives for years. Another 'impossibility' a few years ago was a 'one terabyte' storage drive (1 trillion bytes: 1,000,000,000,000 bytes on average or 1024 GB). My first one was 300 GB (gigabyes). Then one at around 500 GB. Hitachi invented and sold the first 1T drive in 2007. The price dropped last year, and I bought one. (Now at the same price for 2 terabytes. It is difficult to underestimate this endless technological revolution we are living in right now that it only at the most around 30-40 years old, with the mass web HTML experience only 15 years old.)
Second, I bought a laptop a few years ago even though I prefer a desktop computer. However, my laptop is faster than most computers that the university provides, so it has changed my work experience to move a laptop around with me sometimes. I bought a mini-netbook for a trip to Europe, which was crucial at several stages because 'keeping on the net' was important to me regarding work in Korea. I took the netbook everywhere on vacation, and I was seldom out of internet reach in reading or using Hangul characters, even if I was on the other side of Eurasia from Korea. I found it annoying though amazing nonetheless how "central" that little netbook was for my vacation--not only because I was using it, though everyone else was expecting me to be logged into the internet every day. Another change toward the informational world of digital technology: instead of taking printed documents about the trip, I took digital copies for reference.
However, among other topics, I worry about the health implications of more microwave radiation as a chosen communications medium when it is so damaging to human (and animal) bodies.
-------------------------
09-16-2010 16:54 여성음성 듣기 남성음성 듣기 News List
Korea to begin Web address overhaul in 2011
By Kim Tong-hyung
Korea will begin to roll out the next generation of Internet addresses for online devices next year to deal with the dwindling number of available Internet protocol (IP) addresses as the Web grows beyond computers.
According to officials at the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country will start updating its core Internet addressing system to a new format known as IP version 6 (IPv6) next June.
IPv6 will be first tested on commercial telecommunications services such as major search sites and electronic commerce (e-commerce) destinations, IP television (IPTV) and third-generation (3G) mobile telephony through a number of trial operations, KCC officials said.
The devices and networks for potential fourth generation (4G) communications systems Long Term Evolution (LTE) and mobile WiMAX will also be using IPv6.
However, the new format will not be immediately adopted on national communications networks such as electric power control systems and data communications networks where stability is paramount.
Internet service providers predict that about 45 percent of their subscriber networks will be switched to IPv6 by 2013, with their backbone networks completing the transition by then.
Every device that goes online is allocated a unique IP address, and the current format, IPv6, provides over 4 billion addresses. However, there are concerns that the pool of numbers is due to run out in the near future as more people around the world connect to the Web on an increasing number of devices.
The Korean government is just one of many that are pushing a switch to IPv6, which is hoped to provide billions of extra IP addresses as the Web begins to move beyond computers and mobile phones to virtually every consumer electronics device including televisions and domestic appliances [linked into the internet/network society].
The movement toward “cloud computing,” describing a new era of Internet usage in which information and software are delivered over the Web, rather than through desktop computers, is expected to accelerate the exhaustion of current Internet addresses as well by having more devices connected to the Web.
This has led to concerns about the possible shortage of addresses under IPv4.
The Korean aspirations to become one of the world’s first countries to convert its electricity networks into “smart grids” also explains the urgency for the IPv6 transition.
Smart grids, which can be bluntly described as the “electricity Internet,” deliver electricity from suppliers to consumers using information technology.
---
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/tech/2010/09/133_73164.html
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
Week 2: Post your Blog Entries as Comments to my Main Post Each Week
Post by Sunday at midnight.
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Any Chance Dictatorship Returning in Korea via the Information Society? "Cyber Exile" and Tyranny Conjoined?
3. Korean elite/republican democracy is very novel. It was less than 25 years ago that open elections for the presidency occurred. It was even less before there were multiple parties and a change of power without military sponsorship. It has only been around 10 years since dictatorship-era political appointees in the military were removed. It is perhaps within my student's lifetimes that political activists were sentenced to death for writing their thoughts or politically organizing against government policy.
In class, we talked about the 'disaggregation of the state'--that instead of the state withering or going away with the information society, some aspects may be made stronger, depending on how the history turns out. I argued in class that a form of privacy is required in a democratic system, otherwise political state corruption tends to abuse its powers to make sure it is politically unchallenged (and unrepresentative, as a consequence). I worry about the fate of South Korean multi-party representative democracy, under any informal president currently or in the future, if something like this is made the law:
-------------------------
09-10-2010 18:19 여성 음성 듣기 남성 음성 듣기
Will telcos be forced to help government spy on citizens?
By Kim Tong-hyung
Telecommunications companies here may become an arm of the government for spying on South Korean citizens, should the Grand National Party (GNP) have its way in rewriting the Communications Privacy Act, according to concerned civil liberties advocates.
A bill submitted by GNP lawmaker Lee Han-sung mandates the nation’s telephony and Internet providers ― KT, SK Telecom and LG Telecom _ to provide equipment, facilities and technology required for law enforcement and intelligence officials to conduct all allowable forms of surveillance.
GNP lawmakers claim that the suggested changes merely intend to legalize the tracking of mobile phones, which are quickly replacing traditional fixed-line telephones as the main medium of voice communication.
Critics claim that the proposal, should it go through, will enable the interception of every type of electronic communication, from telephone calls, fax messages, e-mails and chat transcripts to shared peer-to-peer (P2P) files. The bill also requires telecommunications companies to keep all telephone conversation records and Internet protocol (IP) addresses or face a maximum fine of 30 million won.
``Lee’s draft does not limit the expanded scope of surveillance to mobile telephony. The changes will basically force telecommunications companies to install equipment that would enable the monitoring of every type of communication they provide,’’ said an official from Jinbo Network, an activist group.
``The proposed bill allows the President full authority to decide what type of communication methods are to be monitored, and this would be an unprecedented move for any democratic country. Austria recently tried but failed to require the nation’s telecommunications companies to provide surveillance equipment.’’
The Lee Myung-bak administration has already been considering more ways to monitor the Internet, with most of the measures focused on limiting online anonymity [and pre-arresting people merely thinking or meeting to later participate politically against him],.... This has many Korean Internet users switching to e-mail and blog services provided by foreign companies like Google in a move dubbed as ``cyber exile.’’
Controversy erupted earlier this year when it was found that the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the country’s spy agency, had been conducting real-time tracking of Internet communications through packet sniffing, or monitoring data traffic on computer networks.
[As well as the now failed investigation into who in the GNP has been spying on thousands of politicians illegally.]
---
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2010/09/123_72893.html
1. Mark Whitaker
2. Any Chance Dictatorship Returning in Korea via the Information Society? "Cyber Exile" and Tyranny Conjoined?
3. Korean elite/republican democracy is very novel. It was less than 25 years ago that open elections for the presidency occurred. It was even less before there were multiple parties and a change of power without military sponsorship. It has only been around 10 years since dictatorship-era political appointees in the military were removed. It is perhaps within my student's lifetimes that political activists were sentenced to death for writing their thoughts or politically organizing against government policy.
In class, we talked about the 'disaggregation of the state'--that instead of the state withering or going away with the information society, some aspects may be made stronger, depending on how the history turns out. I argued in class that a form of privacy is required in a democratic system, otherwise political state corruption tends to abuse its powers to make sure it is politically unchallenged (and unrepresentative, as a consequence). I worry about the fate of South Korean multi-party representative democracy, under any informal president currently or in the future, if something like this is made the law:
-------------------------
09-10-2010 18:19 여성 음성 듣기 남성 음성 듣기
Will telcos be forced to help government spy on citizens?
By Kim Tong-hyung
Telecommunications companies here may become an arm of the government for spying on South Korean citizens, should the Grand National Party (GNP) have its way in rewriting the Communications Privacy Act, according to concerned civil liberties advocates.
A bill submitted by GNP lawmaker Lee Han-sung mandates the nation’s telephony and Internet providers ― KT, SK Telecom and LG Telecom _ to provide equipment, facilities and technology required for law enforcement and intelligence officials to conduct all allowable forms of surveillance.
GNP lawmakers claim that the suggested changes merely intend to legalize the tracking of mobile phones, which are quickly replacing traditional fixed-line telephones as the main medium of voice communication.
Critics claim that the proposal, should it go through, will enable the interception of every type of electronic communication, from telephone calls, fax messages, e-mails and chat transcripts to shared peer-to-peer (P2P) files. The bill also requires telecommunications companies to keep all telephone conversation records and Internet protocol (IP) addresses or face a maximum fine of 30 million won.
``Lee’s draft does not limit the expanded scope of surveillance to mobile telephony. The changes will basically force telecommunications companies to install equipment that would enable the monitoring of every type of communication they provide,’’ said an official from Jinbo Network, an activist group.
``The proposed bill allows the President full authority to decide what type of communication methods are to be monitored, and this would be an unprecedented move for any democratic country. Austria recently tried but failed to require the nation’s telecommunications companies to provide surveillance equipment.’’
The Lee Myung-bak administration has already been considering more ways to monitor the Internet, with most of the measures focused on limiting online anonymity [and pre-arresting people merely thinking or meeting to later participate politically against him],.... This has many Korean Internet users switching to e-mail and blog services provided by foreign companies like Google in a move dubbed as ``cyber exile.’’
Controversy erupted earlier this year when it was found that the National Intelligence Service (NIS), the country’s spy agency, had been conducting real-time tracking of Internet communications through packet sniffing, or monitoring data traffic on computer networks.
[As well as the now failed investigation into who in the GNP has been spying on thousands of politicians illegally.]
---
http://koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2010/09/123_72893.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)