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Typical of most MS bashing articles - this article is troll-bait at best and false at worst. Internet Explorer is not mandated by law. What happened was, the

by ksk 13y ago

Typical of most MS bashing articles - this article is troll-bait at best and false at worst. Internet Explorer is not mandated by law. What happened was, the US had banned export of 128bit encryption software. The Korean government said screw that and created browser plugins - for BOTH Netscape and IE - to use 128bit encryption for online transactions. Netscape died and IE remained. I guess their implementation is proprietary enough that nobody else has managed to implement it on other browsers.

thenerdfiles 13y ago
You think there's an open market for bar code encryption?
- ksk 13y ago
  What have bar codes got to do with anything? Sorry, I don't understand your comment.
edwintorok 13y ago
Why can't they just use TLS encryption that is available in all browsers and supports more than 128-bit?
- ksk 13y ago
  I think there are some government regulations around selling stuff online over there. You need to register as a seller and they issue you a digital certificate - probably another thing that keeps people locked into their own encryption standard.
huxley 13y ago
The 128-bit export restriction ended 13 years ago, so the use of the home-grown encryption standard has been a choice made by the Korean government and corporations. Yes, the export restrictions were stupid, but there has been plenty of time to switch over. NPAPI is supported in most browsers, so the SEED implementation had to have been pretty tied to Netscape Navigator/Communicator implementation as it existed pre-Firefox If the government implementations are the de facto standards and the Korean government has only maintained an ActiveX version for the last 10 years, I can't see how you can interpret it as anything other than an IE mandate.
- ksk 13y ago
  >If the government implementations are the de facto standards and the Korean government has only maintained an ActiveX version for the last 10 years, I can't see how you can interpret it as anything other than an IE mandate. Because the government is not mandating IE? The public overwhelmingly used IE over Netscape which caused the government to go "okay since nobody is using netscape we're going to only maintain one plugin". I think its a pretty important distinction to make. Anyway, we disagree. No biggie :)
  - guard-of-terra 13y ago
    Having to choose between dead Netscape and alive IE is a fake choice. May I have my third choice please?
    - ksk 13y ago
      What they should really do is open source their plugin or at the very least their spec.
corresation 13y ago
The article is generally correct. Until 2010, all e-commerce had to use the SEED protocol (which is only implemented via an ActiveX control after Netscape fell), by law. Which means Internet Explorer. Yes, it originated in the days when SSL was 40-bits, and yes there was once a Netscape plugin. However the world changed, and for the next decade the law remained the same. The spirit of the article is absolutely correct, despite minor discrepencies: Long after far superior alternatives were available, the law mandated the use of Internet Explorer, which is an inertia that carries the country today.
- ksk 13y ago
  >Long after far superior alternatives were available, the law mandated the use of Internet Explorer, which is an inertia that carries the country today. The law does not mandate IE. The government would have maintained both plugins if people would have continued to use netscape. They didn't.
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - beagle3 13y ago
    By not developing such a plugin for firefox and chrome (which now account for much, much more than IE everywhere else in the world), they are, effectively, mandating IE. How is the situation today any different than if Netscape never existed? It is really important to look through the dry definitions. e.g., the super rich -- like the super poor -- are forbidden from panhandling. But effectively, it's a law that only applies to the poor; The wording does not matter.
    - ksk 13y ago
      But you're looking at it globally which has no bearing in Korea. Locally ofcource its a chicken and egg problem. IMO they should just opensource their technology.

by ksk 13y ago

thenerdfiles 13y ago

You think there's an open market for bar code encryption?

ksk 13y ago
What have bar codes got to do with anything? Sorry, I don't understand your comment.

edwintorok 13y ago

Why can't they just use TLS encryption that is available in all browsers and supports more than 128-bit?

ksk 13y ago
I think there are some government regulations around selling stuff online over there. You need to register as a seller and they issue you a digital certificate - probably another thing that keeps people locked into their own encryption standard.

huxley 13y ago

The 128-bit export restriction ended 13 years ago, so the use of the home-grown encryption standard has been a choice made by the Korean government and corporations. Yes, the export restrictions were stupid, but there has been plenty of time to switch over. NPAPI is supported in most browsers, so the SEED implementation had to have been pretty tied to Netscape Navigator/Communicator implementation as it existed pre-Firefox If the government implementations are the de facto standards and the Korean government has only maintained an ActiveX version for the last 10 years, I can't see how you can interpret it as anything other than an IE mandate.

ksk 13y ago
>If the government implementations are the de facto standards and the Korean government has only maintained an ActiveX version for the last 10 years, I can't see how you can interpret it as anything other than an IE mandate. Because the government is not mandating IE? The public overwhelmingly used IE over Netscape which caused the government to go "okay since nobody is using netscape we're going to only maintain one plugin". I think its a pretty important distinction to make. Anyway, we disagree. No biggie :)
- guard-of-terra 13y ago
  Having to choose between dead Netscape and alive IE is a fake choice. May I have my third choice please?
  - ksk 13y ago
    What they should really do is open source their plugin or at the very least their spec.

corresation 13y ago

The article is generally correct. Until 2010, all e-commerce had to use the SEED protocol (which is only implemented via an ActiveX control after Netscape fell), by law. Which means Internet Explorer. Yes, it originated in the days when SSL was 40-bits, and yes there was once a Netscape plugin. However the world changed, and for the next decade the law remained the same. The spirit of the article is absolutely correct, despite minor discrepencies: Long after far superior alternatives were available, the law mandated the use of Internet Explorer, which is an inertia that carries the country today.

ksk 13y ago
>Long after far superior alternatives were available, the law mandated the use of Internet Explorer, which is an inertia that carries the country today. The law does not mandate IE. The government would have maintained both plugins if people would have continued to use netscape. They didn't.
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- beagle3 13y ago
  By not developing such a plugin for firefox and chrome (which now account for much, much more than IE everywhere else in the world), they are, effectively, mandating IE. How is the situation today any different than if Netscape never existed? It is really important to look through the dry definitions. e.g., the super rich -- like the super poor -- are forbidden from panhandling. But effectively, it's a law that only applies to the poor; The wording does not matter.
  - ksk 13y ago
    But you're looking at it globally which has no bearing in Korea. Locally ofcource its a chicken and egg problem. IMO they should just opensource their technology.