[News] Korea Gets Punished for Permitting Monoculture to Happen
Roy Schestowitz
Hash: SHA1
Korea Cottons on to the Microsoft Monoculture
,----[ Quote ]
| That is, by instituting a monoculture, and becoming
| completely dependent not just on one manufacturer, but on
| one particular - and very unsatisfactory - technology used
| by that manufacturer, the Koreans find themselves trapped,
| left behind even by Microsoft, which wants to move on.
|
| There could be no better demonstration of why mandating
| one proprietary technology in this way, rather than
| choosing an open standard with multiple implementations
| with the scope for future development, is folly.
`----
http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/10/korea-cottons-on-to-microsoft.html
Korea Paying Price for Microsoft Monoculture
,----[ Quote ]
| The article goes on to cover a lot of the issues affecting
| web users in Korea and how many valiant efforts have gone
| into trying to affect change, most significantly the 3
| lawsuits that Dr. Keechang Kim has brought against various
| Korean policy-making bodies, without success.
`----
http://blog.mozilla.com/gen/2009/10/02/korea-paying-price-for-microsoft-monoculture/
Recent:
S Korean court rules Microsoft broke anti-trust laws, again
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2525615/
S Korean court rules Microsoft in breach of anti-trust laws
,----[ Quote ]
| A South Korean court ruled that global software giant Microsoft
| Corp. broke anti-trust laws by bundling programs with its Windows
| operating system, local media reported
| Monday.
|
| In a case filed by local software company Dideonet, the Seoul
| Central District Court ruled against Microsoft on Friday, saying
| its bundling the Windows Media Service with
| the Windows operating system violated fair competition regulations
| by infringing upon consumers' right to free choice and obstructing
| fair competition among rival firms.
`----
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-09/14/content_12049004.htm
Court Rules Against MS Monopoly
,----[ Quote ]
| A Korean court ruled Monday that Microsoft Corp.'s bundling
| practice was disruptive to the market, but stopped short of
| ordering it to pay damages.
|
| The ruling can be seen as Microsoft's latest victory in
| warding off lawsuits seeking damages and aimed at breaking
| up the software giant's monopoly on the market. But the
| losing parties have vowed to appeal the decision, meaning
| the Redmond, Calif.-based multinational's legal troubles
| have not ended just yet.
`----
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/nation/2009/09/117_51816.html
Microsoft (MSFT) Gets Hit In South Korea
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewarticle/articleid/3478540
Local court blames MS for abusing leading status
http://www.koreaherald.co.kr/NEWKHSITE/data/html_dir/2009/09/15/200909150046.asp
S. KOREAN COURT SAYS MICROSOFT BROKE ANTI-TRUST LAWS, AGAIN
http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2525542/
Korean Court Finds Microsoft Guilty in Anti-trust Case
,----[ Quote ]
| A South Korean court ruled Thursday that Microsoft violated anti-trust
| regulations by bundling programs with its Windows operating system, but
| dismissed demands for monetary compensation from rival companies.
`----
http://www.telecomskorea.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=7401&Itemid=2
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Matt
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Korea Cottons on to the Microsoft Monoculture
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | That is, by instituting a monoculture, and becoming
> | completely dependent not just on one manufacturer, but on
> | one particular - and very unsatisfactory - technology used
> | by that manufacturer, the Koreans find themselves trapped,
> | left behind even by Microsoft, which wants to move on.
> |
> | There could be no better demonstration of why mandating
> | one proprietary technology in this way, rather than
> | choosing an open standard with multiple implementations
> | with the scope for future development, is folly.
> `----
>
> http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2009/10/korea-cottons-on-to-microsoft.html
primary reference:
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.html
(((((
> 09-23-2009 23:11
> Korea Paying Price for Microsoft Monoculture
>
> By Kim Tong-hyung
> Staff Reporter
)))))
bbgruff
Thanks for that Matt - that's a fascinating article.
Not just Lock-in, but with a vengeance!
amicus_curious
"bbgruff" <bbg...@yahoo.co.uk> wrote in message
news:7iotjmF...@mid.individual.net...
>
> Thanks for that Matt - that's a fascinating article.
> Not just Lock-in, but with a vengeance!
>
So here is a problem without a current solution and what is the attitude of
the COLA mavens? Criticize Microsoft. If you all weren't so backward, you
would think about a solution that met the market need. This should be a
golden opportunity for someone to make a lot of money by providing a badly
needed solution to an entire country, but you all choose to waste your time.
Matt
yer welcome
> Not just Lock-in, but with a vengeance!
don't forget the abandonment
7
That is so dangerous.
The people there are sheep being led to the slaughter house.
The Korean government should mandate all banks and
all major commercial organisations MUST support third party
main stream browsers or risk being fined and government agencies
must use open ODF standard for document interchange to cut costs.
bbgruff
Not at all.
We who did *not* totally embrace the Microsoft Embrace, who backed away from
the precipice with the introduction of Firefox (and who adopted Safari on
Macs after MS pulled the IE plug there), who advocated Open and Free
competition and adherence to agreed standards, who preached diversity but
inter-operability to those standards, can now sit back and smile, and use
the North Korean experience as a superb example of what happens when one
accepts monopolistic practices, lock-ins, and proprietary software and
formats which are not to Open Standards.
Let the folks who got them into it get them out of it, I say.
That would include *you* - while we simply say "I told you so".
In short, and as the title says, this is the result of acting like a lemming
(as *you* advocate!), and not challenging monoculture.
bbgruff
> ....can now sit back and smile, and use the North Korean experience as a
That should read "South Korean", of course!
amicus_curious
Vista for a couple of years now and haven't run into any situation where it
failed to do something that I had been doing fine with XP. Of course I do
not live in Korea and maybe they have something we don't. Regardless, your
notion of sitting smugly back and congratulating yourself on avoiding
problems may soothe your psych, but that is all it achieves. The world is
an endless set of problems providing opportunities for corrective work to be
done and that is very exciting. Be content, but you miss the spice of life.
Have you actually ever done anything that was considered worthwhile by a
group of customers willing to pay some of the benefits that they received
from its use?
bbgruff
(snipped)
1. You may well think that there isn't a problem, but you are wrong.
2. What you do with Vista now, compared with what you did with XP is not
relevant to that problem, other than the fact that Vista made the S. Korean
problem much worse.
3. The South Koreans certainly have something that nobody else has.
They have an enormous problem brought about by whole-heartedly embracing
Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and what went with it.
"What went with it" was Active-X.
The South Koreans were so confident of MS promises wrt the security (I jest
not!) that this offered that they legislated that it must be used for all
on-line banking and e-commerce throughout the land.
This completely ties S. Korea into Internet Explorer and its compromised
Active-X. S. Korea now regrets this. MS themselves are trying to walk
away from the mess. It's a disaster.
The only bright spot about it is that so many other countries could have
gone the same way, but pulled back from the brink. Fortunately, not
*everybody* was listening to you and your ilk when you were telling people
(over 5 years ago) that 96% of people used I.E., and that there was no
other way to go.
amicus_curious
All you have done here is rehash the same blather that was in the original
post. Left undefined is why Korea should be so far up the creek and not
others who have the exact same Windows programs used by the Koreans and have
the exact same functional need and the exact same network environment.
Somehow, whatever the problem, it is blamed on Microsoft and the failure of
Microsoft to solve it and some claim that Microsoft has abandoned Korea.
But Microsoft in Korea is no different than Microsoft in the UK or Microsoft
in the USA, so what exactly is the reason why Korea has an unsolvable
problem and the others do not seem to have one? It is OK to just say that
you do not understand and it is a lot less posting effort too.
I think that the real problem is just a ghost and there is someone ranting
on about some possible condition that has not yet occurred in practice and
likely will never occur. There is no doubt that some tortured set of
circumstances could allow a nefarious hacker to get into some person's
account and steal money from that account or from many accounts. But the
issue does not end there and never has. Regardless of the ballyhoo
associated with identity theft and phishing scams and other malware attacks,
it does not seem that anyone has actually lost any money thereby or that any
crook has gotten rich doing such things. Banks commonly remit charges to
credit card or other account holders that have been misappropriated and
large scale offenders do get caught and sent up the river.
People have been stealing from banks since banks were invented, I think, and
it is not just because Microsoft refuses to deal with it.
bbgruff
(sigh) Try here:-
http://www.koreatimes.co.kr/www/news/biz/2009/09/123_52401.html
When you've done that, Google on:-
Korea Activex
Then come back, and tell me what part of "the Korean government's mandate on
the use of Active X programs for the internet banking and other public web
services" you don't understand.
> I think that the real problem is just a ghost and there is someone ranting
> on about some possible condition that has not yet occurred in practice and
> likely will never occur. There is no doubt that some tortured set of
> circumstances could allow a nefarious hacker to get into some person's
> account and steal money from that account or from many accounts. But the
> issue does not end there and never has. Regardless of the ballyhoo
> associated with identity theft and phishing scams and other malware
> attacks, it does not seem that anyone has actually lost any money thereby
> or that any
> crook has gotten rich doing such things. Banks commonly remit charges to
> credit card or other account holders that have been misappropriated and
> large scale offenders do get caught and sent up the river.
What the blue blazes are you on about?
- "it does not seem that anyone has actually lost any money thereby"
- "or that any crook has gotten rich doing such things.
- "Banks commonly remit charges to credit card or other account holders
that have been misappropriated"
- "and large scale offenders do get caught and sent up the river"
So nobody got rich, but some large-scale crooks get caught?
Nobody lost any money - because the banks reimbursed them?
> People have been stealing from banks since banks were invented, I think,
> and it is not just because Microsoft refuses to deal with it.
1. The Korean government *mandated* the use of ActiveX years ago
2. This in effect mandated the use of Microsoft IE
3. MS ActiveX is considered to be insecure.
4. The Koreans have an entire infrastructure that depends on it.
5. They are stuck - it will take years for them to get away from it.
Hence the title of this thread
amicus_curious
changed their policies years ago when apparently others did? How is that
Microsoft's fault?
> 2. This in effect mandated the use of Microsoft IE
>
Everyone else uses IE, too. Where is there a problem?
> 3. MS ActiveX is considered to be insecure.
>
On what basis? Is it not used by many others? Where is the proof of this?
> 4. The Koreans have an entire infrastructure that depends on it.
>
Was that a bad decision by the Koreans or was it somehow Microsoft's fault?
Why are they alone in this?
> 5. They are stuck - it will take years for them to get away from it.
>
Is this a case of pay me now or pay me later? Did the Koreans try to get by
on the cheap and fail to follow others?
> Hence the title of this thread
>
It is similar to "Driver is punished for operating while intoxicated" and
saying General Distilleries is to blame because there is alcohol in whiskey.
Matt
Sounds like the error is understandable in a software context.
Matt
Good point. Without evidence to the contrary, we should assume it is
NOT Microsoft's fault that the Korean government mandated the use of
Microsoft's crappy technology.
Matt
When you interact with amicus, you can pretty sure you will get a
reply---one that is very unlikely to indicate both a capacity and a
desire to understand.
amicus_curious
"Matt" <ma...@themattfella.xxxyyz.com> wrote in message
news:R63ym.222852$sC1....@newsfe17.iad...
>
>
> Good point. Without evidence to the contrary, we should assume it is NOT
> Microsoft's fault that the Korean government mandated the use of
> Microsoft's crappy technology.
>
You say crappy, but who are you to say? Are you at all qualified? How so?
Windows is what Windows is, after all, and anyone who designs a system based
on some component should be careful enough to evaluate that component in
terms of fitness of purpose.
I do not agree that ActiveX or anything else is necessarily bad, only that
the issues with ActiveX have been know for over a decade and anyone who
still suffers from those issues isn't very competent at what they are doing
or choosing to use or in how they use it.
Homer
> amicus_ignoramus wrote:
>> All you have done here is rehash the same blather that was in the
>> original post. Left undefined is why Korea should be so far up the
>> creek and not others who have the exact same Windows programs
Idiot.
If those "others" are as dependent on ActiveX, one of the most insecure
technologies in history, as the Koreans, then yes - they are indeed "up
the creek".
What part of "Even Microsoft seems ready to bail on Active-X" didn't you
understand?
>> Regardless of the ballyhoo associated with identity theft and
>> phishing scams and other malware attacks, it does not seem that
>> anyone has actually lost any money thereby
You really are a world-class ignoramus:
[quote]
Costs
There are difficulties in accurately measuring the impact and extent of
fraud in the UK in general, as only detected fraud is recorded.
However, the figures available show that:
. At the latest estimate, identity fraud cost the economy £1.2
billion in one year (Identity Fraud Steering Committee figures,
2008).
. The Department for Work and Pensions estimated that £800m was lost
to benefit fraud in 2006/7, and SOCA's 2008/09 Threat Assessment of
Serious Organised Crime stated that identity fraud is a "major
threat in this area."
. Identity fraud accounts for a criminal cashflow of £10m per day.
. In March 2008 there were 76.8 million National Insurance numbers in
the UK, with a population of 61 million.
. Plastic card fraud losses totalled £535.2 million in 2007 - with
card identity theft accounting for £34.1 million of this figure.
. There are proven links between identity fraud and organised crime.
Identity fraud is not exclusive to one particular type of criminal
activity and cuts across most criminal sectors, including illegal
immigration, drug trafficking, money laundering, vehicle theft and
fraud against the public and private sectors.
[/quote]
http://www.cifas.org.uk/default.asp?edit_id=561-56
[quote]
Gartner puts phishing tab at $3.2 billion
More than $3 billion was lost due to phishing attacks in 2007, according
to a survey conducted by Gartner.
For the 12 months ending in Aug. 2007, 3.6 million adults lost $3.2
billion due to phishing attacks. About 2.3 million people were hit with
phishing attacks in 2006.
[/quote]
http://blogs.zdnet.com/security/?p=755
[quote]
UK online banking fraud losses hit GBP 39 million, up 55 percent in H1 2009
Online banking fraud losses have skyrocketed in the UK, jumping 55
percent during the first half of 2009 to GBP 39 million, the BBC reports
quoting figures released by Financial Fraud Action UK.
According to the same source, the increase can be attributed to
fraudsters now employing technically sophisticated strategies and
methods such as malware scams to attack online banking users’ PCs rather
than the banks’ IT infrastructure. It has proven easier to exploit PC
and operating system vulnerabilities than to break through the
protection set in place by banks, Financial Fraud Action UK
representatives have indicated.
The same industry body has revealed that card fraud losses dropped
significantly during the same six-month interval, as did telephone,
internet and mail order fraud levels. The biggest area of rising fraud
was in online banking.
[/quote]
> What the blue blazes are you on about?
He's just spouting gibberish, in a pathetic attempt to diminish
Microsoft's responsibility for this mess.
> So nobody got rich, but some large-scale crooks get caught? Nobody
> lost any money - because the banks reimbursed them?
Sometimes.
Sometimes not, and even when they do they don't reimburse the peripheral
costs associated with being the victim of fraud, such as legal costs,
loss of earnings due to having to take time of work, and the cost of
reinstating one's credit rating through credit reference agencies.
And what value does one put on one's well-being, as it declines due to
the stresses of being a victim of fraud? What about the value of one's
reputation, which declines as it's tarnished by the criminal behaviour
of some impersonator?
> 1. The Korean government *mandated* the use of ActiveX years ago
>
> 2. This in effect mandated the use of Microsoft IE
>
> 3. MS ActiveX is considered to be insecure.
>
> 4. The Koreans have an entire infrastructure that depends on it.
>
> 5. They are stuck - it will take years for them to get away from it.
>
> Hence the title of this thread
Even someone as thick as Hadron would understand something this simple
and obvious, but apparently it's too difficult for amicus_incredulous.
--
K.
http://slated.org
.----
| "What's the point of supporting a large, faceless corporation that
| doesn't give you the good service you should get? We have MS for
| that..." ~ DFS, http://tinyurl.com/doofy-admits-truth-about-ms
`----
Fedora release 8 (Werewolf) on sky, running kernel 2.6.26.8-57.fc8
22:27:54 up 132 days, 2:25, 4 users, load average: 0.27, 0.17, 0.16
Matt
If you're going to KF somebody, why are replying to them by way of
somebody else's reply?
Oh, I think the idea is that the commoners can filter for you so that
you only see the opposition stuff that others thought was worth replying to.
chrisv
>If you're going to KF somebody, why are replying to them by way of
>somebody else's reply?
Because he wants to, "Matt". Difficult to figure out?
>Oh, I think the idea is that the commoners can filter for you so that
>you only see the opposition stuff that others thought was worth replying to.
Not a bad thing, at all, although your disparaging use of the word
"commoners" was uncalled-for.
Some of want to view the newsgroup without seeing all the shit
left-behind by disgusting assholes like "Hadron" and "Moshe".