EDIT: I’m guessing this is related https://www.reuters.com/technology/google-netflix-under-scru...
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.
All mobile phones have non-mutable shutter sounds.
Location services like find my iPhone are banned.
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.)
It's like the whole ActiveX debacle. I just don't understand what's in lawmakers' heads.
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".
It does not. This is a carrier requirement, not the law. That's why you can evade it so easily.
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_...
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/
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?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?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://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.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_compatibility_issues_in_So...
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.
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)
It turns out that this is pretty much the case everywhere these days, doesn't seem to be exclusive to a particular country.
Requiring phone numbers to sign up or activate accounts is increasingly common outside Korea as well.
"Oppressive" policies exist because people can't behave. Simple as that.
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.
[0]: https://about.netflix.com/en/news/sk-telecom-sk-broadband-an...
[1]: https://www.reuters.com/business/media-telecom/skorea-broadb...
This all brings up to up-to 100 times expensive internet than Europe in Korea. (not Residential, but for CPs. Residential internet services are cheaper, but if you operate any servers your service will be terminated.) fyi, I kinda estimate the twitch should pay upto 300K USD/mo. (if they got lucky and got "domestic business deal") to just make sure their service up and running
Thing is: charging the data center/content provider above global average pricing and also charging the end customer for the same service again.