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Korea, pound for pound, has to be one of the most poorly legislated technology states in the world. Everything is in absolute bizarro land in Korea when it com

Korea, pound for pound, has to be one of the most poorly legislated technology states in the world. Everything is in absolute bizarro land in Korea when it comes to technology. Here are just a few of things I’ve encountered in Korea: - You have to have a phone number to sign up for any type of account. (Hasn’t discouraged any toxicity either.) - Foreigners can’t use things like delivery apps because they can’t make accounts due to the phone number thing or they can’t use their international credit cards. - Most people own windows PCs because in order to do any banking in Korea you have to install software that is tantamount to the bank’s spyware on your computer. - All mobile phones have non-mutable shutter sounds. - Location services like find my iPhone are banned. - cellular data usage costs an arm and a leg, making free WiFi a necessity at any business - The quality of FaceTime calls is extremely throttled. For the longest time FaceTime just didn’t even work. KakaoTalk video calls never had that problem. - contactless pay via Apple Pay was only introduced this past year You’d think Korea would be bleeding edge when it comes to technology it’s far from a technocracy, It’s just a stumbling, bumbling, corrupt state that can only get out of its own way to clear space for the large conglomerates. I feel so sad for the Korean people. What should be a thriving, entrepreneurship-driven economy is the exact opposite - an oppressive, corporatist hole that sucks up peoples economic dreams and emits zero-sum, despair-driven ambition.

throwaway2037 3y ago
All mobile phones have non-mutable shutter sounds. Japan has similar legislation that came from men taking up-skirt photos in public places (trains, etc.). Workaround: Buy a phone overseas. It will still work on the Japan mobile networks. I assume Korea has a similar backstory. Please correct me if wrong. Location services like find my iPhone are banned. I assume this is related to North Korean spying.
- laborcontract 3y ago
  It’s not entirely clear that the location stuff is related to North Korea. A lot of the heavily restrictive laws are done under the guise of privacy. It’s funny how the two things you mentioned are related to a particular quagmire of mine which was that my baby son misplaced my phone inside our place in Korea. I had absolutely zero way of finding it. I didn’t want to buy a shutter-compromised phone so I just waited a month to buy a phone in the US. It’s just absolutely bizarre that, in this modern age, an iPhone briefly going out of sight means losing it forever. (I think he threw the phone away, as he started to enjoy putting things in the trash can.)
  - brigade 3y ago
    Isn’t the location thing that if Apple were to store any location data, it would have to keep a lasting record of said data for the government to access instead of its 24 hour deletion policy?
    - laborcontract 3y ago
      Yeah, I've read the same, which is that Korea's supposed privacy policies actually decrease privacy and security because they mandate retention policies that, supposedly, Apple et al aren't willing to comply with. It's like the whole ActiveX debacle. I just don't understand what's in lawmakers' heads.
      - Alex4386 3y ago
        Actually that is mandated by Korea Financial Telecommunications & Clearing Institute (consisted of banks). Looks like it's mandated just to play a ping-pong game of "who is the culprit of this data leak" that usually concludes into user's improper installation of "Security Software".
  - novok 3y ago
    They don't even enable the 'play a sound' feature and "you are connected to your phone from your watch"?
  - oceanofsolaris 3y ago
    Can‘t you do it the old-fashioned way and call the phone? If it’s on silent, it might make it harder, but it still makes a buzzing sound since it vibrates.
- astrange 3y ago
  > Japan has similar legislation that came from men taking up-skirt photos in public places (trains, etc.). It does not. This is a carrier requirement, not the law. That's why you can evade it so easily.
- n1b0m 3y ago
  Although an overseas Android phone will work on Japanese networks you won’t be able to use Google Pay. In order to use Google Pay you need a phone that has NFC-FeliCa support and only Android phones sold in Japan have it.
  - joecool1029 3y ago
    iPhones support it anywhere. Newer Google Pixel (at least 5 and 6?) devices would need to be modded to Japanese SKU for it to work. Comes down to manufacturers having to pay Sony for it to be enabled and while FeliCa 4.1 supposed to support provisioning after the fact, they just don't have a system setup like Apple does.
  - 29jm 3y ago
    I'm in Japan now, and from my experience, that's incorrect. Google pay works just fine everywhere for regular payments. But you won't be able to use your phone to replace anything IC card related (like contactless payment cards for transportation).
- joecool1029 3y ago
  > Japan has similar legislation that came from men taking up-skirt photos in public places (trains, etc.). This seems to be incorrect, it appears to be a network policy from the carriers not binding legislation. More info on it can be found here: https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_frameworks_base/+/305659 https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_frameworks_...
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- indrora 3y ago
  It's related to data sovereignty laws, I'd bet. South Korea is very VERY paranoid about the GIS data about the country, to the point that there are laws that basically say "if you get GIS data from Korea you are not allowed to export it in any way." The Korean language OSM page for mapping SK is an interesting place to start: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Ko:첫_걸음 https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Ko:첫_걸음 It would not surprise me if "Find My iPhone" would have to be completely and totally rebuilt from the ground up in SK and run on SK infrastructure in order for it to not be considered exporting of survey data. Every map of South Korea must be served from... South Korea up until a certain point. You can see this if you open up Google Maps and zoom in. There's a special version of OSM that has military bases conveniently ignored for the purpose of in-country usage: https://tiles.osm.kr/ https://tiles.osm.kr/ Here, South Korea is only visible as a series of indiscernible land shapes -- North Korea has more detail: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7704632,128.4760504,6.94z?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7704632,128.4760504,6.94z?en... Zoom in one level and if you're on a particularly bad internet connection, South Korea will slowly chug its way into existence: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7701121,128.6819944,7.94z?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7701121,128.6819944,7.94z?en... Bing's view of South Korea is even weirder, since they don't use vector graphics for that part of the world. You can see where the labels will overlap, with English labels being covered by English vector labels: https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=35.883894%7E127.933616&lvl=9.0 https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=35.883894%7E127.933616&lvl=9.0 ( https://i.postimg.cc/SRnZfgHC/image.png https://i.postimg.cc/SRnZfgHC/image.png ) At some zoom levels in Bing Maps, you can see they're using a VERY old render, sometimes old enough that destroyed buildings are still visible or routes that no longer exist are still there. It uses American-style highway signs and with a high resolution screen such as a modern 4K panel you can easily see where the bitmap graphics that have been hauled over are falling apart.
WatchDog 3y ago
This wikipedia article[0] covers some of the history and ongoing issues with weird Korean technology policies, bizarre indeed. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_compatibility_issues_in_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_compatibility_issues_in_So...
xpressvideoz 3y ago
> - You have to have a phone number to sign up for any type of account. (Hasn’t discouraged any toxicity either.) While unfortunate, this is not required by the law. It is just that many Korean services abuse phone numbers to control users. A cultural problem, not a legislative one. > - Most people own windows PCs because in order to do any banking in Korea you have to install software that is tantamount to the bank’s spyware on your computer. Things have changed, and most banks support macOS too. Personally I don't mind them supporting anything, because smartphone bank apps work and it is more convenient than those of PC's. > - All mobile phones have non-mutable shutter sounds. It is not a legislation, but a voluntary restriction imposed by mobile carriers. I also hate it, but there's huge concerns among South Koreans regarding hidden cameras, and although I think those concerns are excessive and even paranoid, before the Korean people change their mind, the voluntary restriction won't go away. > - Location services like find my iPhone are banned. Only Apple's does not work. Samsung's and even Google's work. > - cellular data usage costs an arm and a leg, making free WiFi a necessity at any business I use an unlimited plan for 30 bucks a month in South Korea. I have no idea how much the carriers of other countries charge for an unlimited plan, but I don't think the current cost is too much. > - contactless pay via Apple Pay was only introduced this past year It was just because Apple and Korean credit card companies couldn't agree upon a fee. If legislation was the reason, why were there many contactlees pay services in South Korea before Apple Pay? Even China's UnionPay had been allowed in South Korea. I assume you were angry because you could not use Apple's services in South Korea. Blame Apple's predatory strategy rather than South Korea, I guess.
- thepra 3y ago
  Heck! 30 bucks (dollars?) per month? Here(Italy) I'm paying like 7 Euro
  - cannonpalms 3y ago
    And what speeds do you receive in exchange for €7?
    - thepra 3y ago
fomine3 3y ago
And known for censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_South_K...
thriftwy 3y ago
This is weird how in just 15 years Korea has turned from the most Internet-enabled country and into this backwards state. That happened to Japan on even earlier timeframe and I wonder if China will follow that path - whether we are seeing the top Internet-enabled China right now (in fact, a few years back before they started cracking down on gaming)
csomar 3y ago
So... the whole country sounds like a Samsung product.
dishsoap 3y ago
> - You have to have a phone number to sign up for any type of account. (Hasn’t discouraged any toxicity either.) It turns out that this is pretty much the case everywhere these days, doesn't seem to be exclusive to a particular country.
ssnistfajen 3y ago
The non-mutable shutter sounds exist for a reason, a good reason at that. It's not an oppressive policy. Requiring phone numbers to sign up or activate accounts is increasingly common outside Korea as well.
- phendrenad2 3y ago
  Sure it exists for a good reason, but the solution may be worse than the problem.
  - grotorea 3y ago
    What's so bad about shutter sounds? Isn't it just mildly annoying?
  - ssnistfajen 3y ago
    Don't take creepshots of people in public and mandatory shutter sounds will no longer be a thing. "Oppressive" policies exist because people can't behave. Simple as that.
    - phendrenad2 3y ago
      I wish it were more oppressive actually, like maybe they could arrest and charge people who take upskirt photos instead of tacitly accepting that it's normal and trying to make it impossible.
ponorin 3y ago
> You have to have a phone number to sign up for any type of account. (Hasn’t discouraged any toxicity either.) Note that this isn't just confirming that you have *a* phone number. They check who actually owns the number by phoning the mobile service provider which is tied to the national ID (which encodes date of birth, sex and before 2020, place of birth registration). Online age verification in South Korea is therefore quite effective, since they check the actual age according to the phone subscription (and in turn national ID) rather than just a "please don't lie" button. Before this it was even worse; they straight up requested the entire national ID (unchangable except after 2017 under very extreme data-leak circumstances, subjective to review) before it became illegal.

throwaway2037 3y ago

All mobile phones have non-mutable shutter sounds. Japan has similar legislation that came from men taking up-skirt photos in public places (trains, etc.). Workaround: Buy a phone overseas. It will still work on the Japan mobile networks. I assume Korea has a similar backstory. Please correct me if wrong. Location services like find my iPhone are banned. I assume this is related to North Korean spying.

laborcontract 3y ago
It’s not entirely clear that the location stuff is related to North Korea. A lot of the heavily restrictive laws are done under the guise of privacy. It’s funny how the two things you mentioned are related to a particular quagmire of mine which was that my baby son misplaced my phone inside our place in Korea. I had absolutely zero way of finding it. I didn’t want to buy a shutter-compromised phone so I just waited a month to buy a phone in the US. It’s just absolutely bizarre that, in this modern age, an iPhone briefly going out of sight means losing it forever. (I think he threw the phone away, as he started to enjoy putting things in the trash can.)
- brigade 3y ago
  Isn’t the location thing that if Apple were to store any location data, it would have to keep a lasting record of said data for the government to access instead of its 24 hour deletion policy?
  - laborcontract 3y ago
    Yeah, I've read the same, which is that Korea's supposed privacy policies actually decrease privacy and security because they mandate retention policies that, supposedly, Apple et al aren't willing to comply with. It's like the whole ActiveX debacle. I just don't understand what's in lawmakers' heads.
    - Alex4386 3y ago
      Actually that is mandated by Korea Financial Telecommunications & Clearing Institute (consisted of banks). Looks like it's mandated just to play a ping-pong game of "who is the culprit of this data leak" that usually concludes into user's improper installation of "Security Software".
- novok 3y ago
  They don't even enable the 'play a sound' feature and "you are connected to your phone from your watch"?
- oceanofsolaris 3y ago
  Can‘t you do it the old-fashioned way and call the phone? If it’s on silent, it might make it harder, but it still makes a buzzing sound since it vibrates.
astrange 3y ago
> Japan has similar legislation that came from men taking up-skirt photos in public places (trains, etc.). It does not. This is a carrier requirement, not the law. That's why you can evade it so easily.
n1b0m 3y ago
Although an overseas Android phone will work on Japanese networks you won’t be able to use Google Pay. In order to use Google Pay you need a phone that has NFC-FeliCa support and only Android phones sold in Japan have it.
- joecool1029 3y ago
  iPhones support it anywhere. Newer Google Pixel (at least 5 and 6?) devices would need to be modded to Japanese SKU for it to work. Comes down to manufacturers having to pay Sony for it to be enabled and while FeliCa 4.1 supposed to support provisioning after the fact, they just don't have a system setup like Apple does.
- 29jm 3y ago
  I'm in Japan now, and from my experience, that's incorrect. Google pay works just fine everywhere for regular payments. But you won't be able to use your phone to replace anything IC card related (like contactless payment cards for transportation).
joecool1029 3y ago
> Japan has similar legislation that came from men taking up-skirt photos in public places (trains, etc.). This seems to be incorrect, it appears to be a network policy from the carriers not binding legislation. More info on it can be found here: https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_frameworks_base/+/305659 https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_frameworks_...
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
indrora 3y ago
It's related to data sovereignty laws, I'd bet. South Korea is very VERY paranoid about the GIS data about the country, to the point that there are laws that basically say "if you get GIS data from Korea you are not allowed to export it in any way." The Korean language OSM page for mapping SK is an interesting place to start: https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Ko:첫_걸음 https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Ko:첫_걸음 It would not surprise me if "Find My iPhone" would have to be completely and totally rebuilt from the ground up in SK and run on SK infrastructure in order for it to not be considered exporting of survey data. Every map of South Korea must be served from... South Korea up until a certain point. You can see this if you open up Google Maps and zoom in. There's a special version of OSM that has military bases conveniently ignored for the purpose of in-country usage: https://tiles.osm.kr/ https://tiles.osm.kr/ Here, South Korea is only visible as a series of indiscernible land shapes -- North Korea has more detail: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7704632,128.4760504,6.94z?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7704632,128.4760504,6.94z?en... Zoom in one level and if you're on a particularly bad internet connection, South Korea will slowly chug its way into existence: https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7701121,128.6819944,7.94z?entry=ttu https://www.google.com/maps/@35.7701121,128.6819944,7.94z?en... Bing's view of South Korea is even weirder, since they don't use vector graphics for that part of the world. You can see where the labels will overlap, with English labels being covered by English vector labels: https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=35.883894%7E127.933616&lvl=9.0 https://www.bing.com/maps?cp=35.883894%7E127.933616&lvl=9.0 ( https://i.postimg.cc/SRnZfgHC/image.png https://i.postimg.cc/SRnZfgHC/image.png ) At some zoom levels in Bing Maps, you can see they're using a VERY old render, sometimes old enough that destroyed buildings are still visible or routes that no longer exist are still there. It uses American-style highway signs and with a high resolution screen such as a modern 4K panel you can easily see where the bitmap graphics that have been hauled over are falling apart.

WatchDog 3y ago

This wikipedia article[0] covers some of the history and ongoing issues with weird Korean technology policies, bizarre indeed. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_compatibility_issues_in_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_compatibility_issues_in_So...

xpressvideoz 3y ago

> - You have to have a phone number to sign up for any type of account. (Hasn’t discouraged any toxicity either.) While unfortunate, this is not required by the law. It is just that many Korean services abuse phone numbers to control users. A cultural problem, not a legislative one. > - Most people own windows PCs because in order to do any banking in Korea you have to install software that is tantamount to the bank’s spyware on your computer. Things have changed, and most banks support macOS too. Personally I don't mind them supporting anything, because smartphone bank apps work and it is more convenient than those of PC's. > - All mobile phones have non-mutable shutter sounds. It is not a legislation, but a voluntary restriction imposed by mobile carriers. I also hate it, but there's huge concerns among South Koreans regarding hidden cameras, and although I think those concerns are excessive and even paranoid, before the Korean people change their mind, the voluntary restriction won't go away. > - Location services like find my iPhone are banned. Only Apple's does not work. Samsung's and even Google's work. > - cellular data usage costs an arm and a leg, making free WiFi a necessity at any business I use an unlimited plan for 30 bucks a month in South Korea. I have no idea how much the carriers of other countries charge for an unlimited plan, but I don't think the current cost is too much. > - contactless pay via Apple Pay was only introduced this past year It was just because Apple and Korean credit card companies couldn't agree upon a fee. If legislation was the reason, why were there many contactlees pay services in South Korea before Apple Pay? Even China's UnionPay had been allowed in South Korea. I assume you were angry because you could not use Apple's services in South Korea. Blame Apple's predatory strategy rather than South Korea, I guess.

thepra 3y ago
Heck! 30 bucks (dollars?) per month? Here(Italy) I'm paying like 7 Euro
- cannonpalms 3y ago
  And what speeds do you receive in exchange for €7?
  - thepra 3y ago

fomine3 3y ago

And known for censorship https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_South_Korea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_censorship_in_South_K...

thriftwy 3y ago

This is weird how in just 15 years Korea has turned from the most Internet-enabled country and into this backwards state. That happened to Japan on even earlier timeframe and I wonder if China will follow that path - whether we are seeing the top Internet-enabled China right now (in fact, a few years back before they started cracking down on gaming)

csomar 3y ago

So... the whole country sounds like a Samsung product.

dishsoap 3y ago

> - You have to have a phone number to sign up for any type of account. (Hasn’t discouraged any toxicity either.) It turns out that this is pretty much the case everywhere these days, doesn't seem to be exclusive to a particular country.

ssnistfajen 3y ago

The non-mutable shutter sounds exist for a reason, a good reason at that. It's not an oppressive policy. Requiring phone numbers to sign up or activate accounts is increasingly common outside Korea as well.

phendrenad2 3y ago
Sure it exists for a good reason, but the solution may be worse than the problem.
- grotorea 3y ago
  What's so bad about shutter sounds? Isn't it just mildly annoying?
- ssnistfajen 3y ago
  Don't take creepshots of people in public and mandatory shutter sounds will no longer be a thing. "Oppressive" policies exist because people can't behave. Simple as that.
  - phendrenad2 3y ago
    I wish it were more oppressive actually, like maybe they could arrest and charge people who take upskirt photos instead of tacitly accepting that it's normal and trying to make it impossible.

ponorin 3y ago

> You have to have a phone number to sign up for any type of account. (Hasn’t discouraged any toxicity either.) Note that this isn't just confirming that you have *a* phone number. They check who actually owns the number by phoning the mobile service provider which is tied to the national ID (which encodes date of birth, sex and before 2020, place of birth registration). Online age verification in South Korea is therefore quite effective, since they check the actual age according to the phone subscription (and in turn national ID) rather than just a "please don't lie" button. Before this it was even worse; they straight up requested the entire national ID (unchangable except after 2017 under very extreme data-leak circumstances, subjective to review) before it became illegal.