nanoomi

Leave the car at home on the 11th.

Shakespeare once said that brevity is the Seoul soul of wit. In modern times, nowhere is this more apparent than with Twitter. It is amazing how, with just 140 characters, biting satire and political commentary can now wing its way around the world faster than you can say interfering paternal state propaganda.

The G20 summit is in Seoul next week and in preparation the city and central governments have been preparing Seoulites for the inevitable delays and inconveniences, which is pretty swell as governments go.

But along with warnings about traffic have come some interesting and, some might say, insecure messages along with some totally nonsensical ones.

Reminding that Seoul will have the eyes of the world on it next week, the city’s denizens have been asked to NOT throw away unsightly (and malodorous) food waste, NOT to drive – as noted above, and NOT be afraid to speak to foreigners.

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By Melanie Ehler

As an expat in Seoul, part of what drew me to this city was its exciting social aspect, its dizzying array of clubs and bars, the ability to dance all night and hang out with large groups of people. You too? Well, I’m willing to wager: My Seoul nightlife is nothing like yours.

“BK, how many days has it been?” I ask the Korean guy standing across from me. He grins widely at me, like always. BK has about a thousand teeth and he shows all of them in his smile.

“I dunno,” he replies. “I lost count a couple weeks ago.”

By my own estimation, based on the number he presented to me last month, BK must have been dancing over 100 days at this point. More than 100 days of dancing in a row.  While my remark about the number of BK’s teeth is hyperbole, my calculation of his dancing days is closer to exact. (I recently e-mailed BK about this. With the ultimate goal of dancing 200 days straight, he eventually had to stop at day 155, after a cold – and most likely exhaustion – claimed him.)

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In case you didn’t know, we were recently in Toronto for three weeks for our summer vacation. Oh, how we missed Canada! Funny thing is, when we were in Canada, we missed Korea as well. We felt kinda homesick, in a reverse homesick kinda twisted way. Luckily for us, since we were in Toronto there were two different Koreatowns for us to visit to get our fix for Korean culture.

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In this, the second of three posts looking at Android, I look at the situation in Korea.

Android in Korea is characterized by one letter and one letter only: “S”, as in Galaxy S and Samsung, but while Samsung has a long pedigree in Smartphones (I can’t say I miss my BlackJack II or my Mirage) and indeed Android outside it’s domestic market, it wasn’t first to market with an Android handset in Korea. That dubious honour goes to Motorola who, despite falling sales world wide, launched the Motorola Roi back in January.

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Kushibo points to a story by AFP with the headline S. Korea Ends Microsoft’s Online Shopping Monopoly. My Arch-Nemesis and crippler of The Interwebtubes, Active X, is in the news yet again after the Financial Services Committee has stated that it will not require operators of websites to use Active X for security during financial transactions.

The financial services commission has said it would allow the use of either the original security software or equivalents that are as good or better.

And this came in to affect yesterday 01 July. (I’ll note, visiting the Immigration website this morning and attempting to partake of a financial transaction for some multi entry visa goodness I had to install an Active X control).

It will take some time to rid The Internet of Active X altogether. Indeed I have been going on about it since 2008 2007. A (not so) brief history:

Windows Vista seems to b the beginning of the downfall of Active X, back in 2007 Engadget had this to say :

South Korea’s Ministry of Information and Communication, Ministry of Government Administration and Home Affairs, and Financial Supervisory Service have all come out against widespread Vista upgrades, advising Joe Consumer — er, Kim Consumer — to hold off on upgrading until ActiveX compatibility issues can be worked out.

According to the Korea Times that took about 2 months to fix. Then a year later upon the release of Google Chrome in 2008 it had this to say:

When tested on popular portals such as Naver www.naver.com or Daum www.daum.net, Chrome was quick to load the main pages. However, the log-in security programs on the sties, which are installed through Active – X, didn’t function.

Sound familiar? The times concluded thus:

Another worry is that Microsoft will reduce its support of Active – X in the soon-to-be released IE8, the latest version of its Internet browser.ActiveX controls require full access to the Windows operating system,which represents a serious security risk as malicious Web sites can direct the browser to download files that compromises the user’s control of the computer.

I like to think that it was at this point that Korea started to get a clue as to how dangerous, above and beyond annoying, the use of public key encryption deployed through Active X plugins can be.

However it was always going to be a long road to hoe with Internet Explorer – and in particular Internet Explorer 6 being the dominant web Browser in Korea – used by some 98.66% of Koreans in October 2008. Still, I should have placed my faith in Korea’s pragmatism (if not timeliness) – less than a month later it was announced that Korea was to unwind Microsoft’s “chokehold” on The Internet

Well not particularly. While the The Korea Communications Commission (KCC), was intent on making websites render properly in browsers like Chrome that were gaining popularity, especially among foreigners who couldn’t log in to sites like Naver:

The Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country’s broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, will enforce new rules in December that will allow users to subscribe to Internet sites without submitting their resident registration numbers, the Korean equivalent of social security numbers.

-Korea Times

There solution was to use Active X:

To receive I-Pin, users are required to download a keyboard security module that prevents the codes from being intercepted. However, the program can only be installed through Active-X controls, forcing users of non-Microsoft browsers to convert to Internet Explorer.  Public key certificates, which are required in the process of producing I-Pin numbers, are also reliant on Active-X controls.

-Korea Times

You can imagine my response:

Oh For Fucks Sake!

Enter the iPhone and the rise of Smartphones. iPhone has had some significant cultural (well in terms of The Internet - but then in Korea these are often one and the same) in terms of adoption of social networks like Facebook and Twitter and Foursquare and Who’s Here, and with over 800000 of them out and about in Korea people are wanting to use them to their full extent – including being able to do things like buy stuff off the internet and do their banking.

But of course up until yesterday that was not possible (emphasis mine):

..all financial transactions on these advanced handsets should be subject to the same security requirements that control online transactions by computers.

Say what you will about the Korea Times’ reporting on foreigner / education issues, but the KTimes doesn’t pull punches when it comes to tech:

Intelligent smartphones may end up rendered [sic] retarded by Korea’s crusty Internet regime.

but that wasn’t all:

“The FSS made a shockingly unwise move, considering that the measures won’t add anything in improving the security of transactions on mobile devices,” said Kim Kee-chang, a Korea University law professor who has led a series of legal actions against the financial authorities for their insistence on overwhelming Active-X use. He claims the country’s computing experience is being held hostage by “tech-ignorant” government officials and opportunistic security software makers.

“Every problem will disappear once the mandate for public-key certificates is lifted, which will make every transaction on computers, smartphones and other data-enabled devices easier and safer. This is a rule that has worsened the country’s Internet environment for over a decade, caused an immense amount of inconvenience, and retarded the advancement of local Web technology.”

-Professor of Law Kim Kee Chang

Wow! That was February this year. In March the wheels really started rolling and picked up speed and while IE 6 still made up 50% of browsers used in Korea (and IE7 and IE 8 made up another 48%) The JoongAng Daily came out just as critical in its condemnation of the FSC requiring the same security on phones as Desktops – something that isn’t even technically possible!

All in all this latest move effective yesterday, might be the final push that makes the Korean version of The Internet more accessible, but more importantly safer (No more Chrome blocking The Korea Herald as a malware site?).

I live in hope. (Like i ave for the last 3 years!)

That’s right!

We’re nearing episode #100, and we want to celebrate it with our listeners. So mark your calendars for June 19th and meet us at the rooftop of Roofers in Itaewon for alive show with a live audience (you, really).

In order to entice you there, the kind folks at Roofers have set up a deal where you can get a burger and beer for W10,000.

Stay tuned here and on our Facebook and Twitter pages for details as they arise.

I’m just going to come out and say it. The Korean iTunes Store sucks. In fact you can only buy Apps there, you can’t even buy music, and there is no way in hell you are going to be able to buy TV shows. (Even if they are a bit expensive).

If you want your fix of Paduk or Go Stop, then the Korean store should suffice. However there is a “work around” to getting access to the veiled USA version of the App (and music) stores, and I’m gonna tell you how.

The first thing you need to do is create an account on iTunes with an American address, for argument’s sake I have used 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California, 95104. (Apple’s Headquarters)

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On Monday I sent out a press release, and posted on ATEK’s website, that I’ve applied for, and been appointed, ATEK’s National Communications Officer.  (link to press release).  This is an interesting opportunity for me, and I’m pretty excited about the possibilities right now.  Last time I wrote about ATEK (Association for Teachers of English in Korea), I wrote that:

The area where ATEK is failing so far is in communication, in my opinion. There isn’t enough knowledge in the general population about what they’re on about, about the kinds of connections that are being formed, and the reasons why things seem to be going slowly. Meeting notes ought to be published somewhere on their websites, and regular national council meetings should be announced, with their agenda and notes published, at least in some form that doesn’t impinge on the privacy or trust of the people involved in certain ATEK actions.

I still think that.  From the conversations I’ve had (and I’m still learning the ropes right now. Patience, please!) ATEK has a lot of good people, and they’re doing a lot of good things, and I’m looking forward to being a part of letting the world, or at least those who care, know what ATEK’s about, what they’re doing, what they want to do, and how people can get involved.  Hopefully soon, people will no longer be able to say that ATEK’s main failing is a failure to communicate… If I do my job well enough, people will know enough about ATEK that they’ll be able to criticize finer points of its organization or bylaws or goals, and we’ll be able to learn a lot from those public discussions, if they’re productive.

So stay tuned: I’m getting my feet under me right now, but I’ve been sharing a lot of interesting ideas with a bunch of people. (You can read some of them here, from Jason, who wrote a nice post about my appointment.)

But I’d like to be clear to my readers that I do not intend to use Roboseyo as ATEK’s mouthpiece blog, nor any of the other blogs I’m involved with.  That would be unfair to my readers at Roboseyo, who come here for Roboseyo, not for ATEK, and it would be unfair to other bloggers and news sources who write about ATEK, to be scooping them any time with inside information. It would also be unfair to whomever comes after me as National Communications Officer if I use the Roboseyo media empire (tee hee) for ATEK publicity, rather than trying to set up ATEK-specific communication mechanisms that are separate from Roboseyo, so that I can cleanly pass them on for the next person to use effectively, when my term expires (the bylaws give a maximum term).  Now, if I go to an ATEK event that rocks, I might post photos and talk about it, because that’s something that happened in my life, and it rocked.  If ATEK is doing an event that I think is cool, you might hear about it at the 2S2 Blog or here, but I’ll continue posting non-ATEK events that I like, and photos of non-ATEK stuff as well, so long as it’s awesome (because that’s the only real standard here at Roboseyo: awesomiousity).  This will be very remain my personal blog, with my personal opinions.  Because of my new official position, I’ll actually be talking about ATEK less here (for example, in posts like this), because now that I’m in an official capacity, I should be writing about it along official channels.

So why, Roboseyo, are you taking on such a big task?  (And dear readers, it IS a big task… with a sharp learning curve.  I’d never written a press release before until Monday, and I made some mistakes that will be corrected in the next one.)  Well, here’s why: I’m getting married, readers.  You know that.  To a wonderful Korean lady, no less, whose job prospects are mostly limited to Korea because of the kinds of re-training she’d have to undergo to do her job in other countries (she’s pretty specialized).  I’m probably going to be living in Korea for most of my adult life, if things go the way they have been.  The wind blows, and the wheel turns, but for the foreseeable future, Korea’s it.  For a lot of that future, I may well be involved in education, and if that’s the case, then helping out an organization whose goal is to improve the lives of English teachers seems kind of logical.  At this point, I think ATEK is the organization I can get involved with, that has the best chance of affecting tangible improvements in the quality of life of English teachers in Korea.  I have a big stake in Korea, so I’m doing a favor for my future self, folks.  Also, when I have a bad Korea day (and everybody has them), thinking that I’m doing something meaningful with my free time makes me feel better about the prospect of living in Korea for a long long time.  It won’t always be easy: The time management challenge alone will be a biggie, and I have a wedding coming up, but I think I can do a good job of it, and I’m excited to be part of an organization with a lot of cool people who are passionate about making life better for English teachers.  Plus, I get business cards!

If you want to talk to me about personal or blog stuff, write me at the address on the right: roboseyo at gmail.  If you want to write me about ATEK stuff, I’m going to try to keep them separate, so please send it to media[@]atek[.]or[.]kr   If you have some advice, some suggestions, or if you want to help me out as a volunteer, because you like me so much, or just because you’re awesome, some of the ideas I’ve been tossing around for improving communications will take some help, so drop me a line.

Have a great day, readers.

Roboseyo

It’s time for a bravo my life update, readers. A few weeks ago, I got word about a new website called HiExpat. It’s a page run by a guy named Dan, and he and his buddy are working to get it off the ground, to carve out a little corner of the Koreanet for themselves.

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