North Korean Heir is Behind the Cyber Attacks on South Korea and U.S.?

from an Email to JZ;

The future, or rather the current state of the internet is bleak here in Korea, what with the recent ddos attacks and anticipation of a third “wave” coming soon. Amid speculation that North Korea is behind the attacks, a North Korean specialist said that the cyber attacks were conducted by a posse of North Korean cyber specialists who went to China to plant the evil seeds in June and return in time for the anniversary of Kim Il Sung’s death.

The funny (or perhaps sad) thing about this is that South Koreans didn’t even bat an eye when N. Korea fired those missiles or detonated what could have been a nuclear bomb, but this cyber attack has people terrified. Of course, the government is afraid that their “special technologies” and “secret information” will be leaked, but normal people (kind of including me) are concerned because the bank sites were down. All of Korea’s banks are wired and Internet/mobile banking is quite the norm. It kind of gets me worried sometimes because my assets are not physical, and I wonder what would happen if all electronic records were to be erased completely.

I know Americans don’t really care about what happens in other parts of the world, but because the attacks included several U.S. sites, some sites like Nasdaq.com have blocked access from Korea and are currently inaccessible (reported it on Herdict!)

Update: Munhwa Ilbo,  one of the six big daily newspapers in Korea, has a scoop quoting Ha Tae-kyong, head of North Korean Radio, which is a South Korean-based short-wave radio service for people in North Korea. [In North Korea, broadcasting is controlled by the government, so one can imagine the lack of diversity in programming] According to the article, Ha says that a high-ranking North Korean government official told him that Kim Jung-woon, the alleged heir of the current leader Kim Jong Il, initiated a posse of less than 10 N. Korean cyber specialists to carry out this cyber attack operation. Of course, the North  had to send its agents to China because it doesn’t have a good enough infrastructure to do it on its own. From big areas like Beijing, Shanghai, and Dalian,the cyber attackers routed their viruses through servers in other countries including Singapore and Indonesia.

Ha said that the cyber terrorism was in line with the North’s nuclear experiments and missile shootings, and part of a strategy to solidify Jung-woon as the heir. It was not a coincidence that this year is the 15th anniversary of Kim Il-sung’s death. (Il-sung is father of Jong-Il, grandfather of Jung-woon)

北 김정운, 사이버테러 진두지휘”

북한문제 전문가 “北공작조 10여명이 중국서 주도”

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한국과 미국의 주요기관에 대한 사이버테러는 북한의 사이버 공작조 10여 명이 중국의 주요 도시에서 주도한 것이라고 북한 문제 전문가가 주장했다.

열린북한방송 하태경 대표는 9일 북한 내부 고위 정보 소식통을 인용해 “이번 사이버테러는 김정일 위원장의 후계자로 알려진 김정운의 주도로 10명 미만의 북한의 사이버 공작조가 지난 6월 중순 이후 중국에 입국해 주요 도시들을 거점으로 이번 작전을 실시했으며, 핵심 요원은 김일성 주석 서거일 기념행사에 맞춰 7일 평양으로 귀환했다”고 말했다.

하 대표는 “이번 사이버테러는 북한의 핵실험과 미사일 발사 등 전반적 도발 계획 과정에서 김정운을 후계자로 확실히 세우려는 기획 속에서 진행된 것”이라면서 “김일성 주석 서거 15주년을 맞아 시점을 택해 작전을 집행한 것”이라고 주장했다.

하 대표는 “북한 자체는 인터넷 인프라가 충분히 구축돼 있지 않은데다, 사이버테러 후 추적하면 바로 드러나기 때문에 북한 해커들은 북경, 심양, 대련, 상해 같은 대도시에서 활약하고 싱가포르나 인도네시아 등 동남아 제3국 서버를 경유하고 있다”고 설명했다.

그는 또 “지난 2009년 5월에 일어난 한국외환은행과 국민은행 인터넷 뱅킹으로 4백만 원 정도를 인출하려다 미수에 그친 사건도 당시에는 중국에서 시도된 것이라고 알려졌으나, 북한 해커들의 소행이라는 정보를 갖고 있다”고 전했다.—-

Are Digital brats are middle aged?

I am beginning to notice that the digital brat phenomena is not so prevalent among younger users of technology. In fact, not only are young people more adept at using technology, they also have better etiquette. For instance, younger people tend not to speak so loudly on their cell phones in public or use loud ring tones. Another example is the young girl who was texting while making a video call on her mobile phone because she didn’t want to be obtrusive (I wrote about this a couple years ago). I think this is extremely interesting because the etiquette that the young people develop are not from education, but developed amongst themselves.

This isn’t something that one can generalize, especially because the people that I know are brats are also those who have huge egos; so maybe it’s more of an ego issue than an age issue. Maybe it’s because I haven’t gone into a high school classroom where all the kids are texting each other instead of listening to the teacher. But to some extent, I have the feeling that the so-called middle aged early adapters are more “noisy” about their use because they’re unconsciously flaunting it, whereas younger people take the new technology for granted so it’s not so much of a big deal.

why aren’t women’s bathrooms bigger?

You’ve probably noticed that in large public areas, there is always a line in front of the women’s restroom, but never in front of the men’s. If you haven’t, you now know. If you are a man, this is important knowledge, because there is a reason your wife/girlfriend/daughter/friend takes so long in the bathroom. Of course, some women spend a fair amount of time primping in front of the mirror, but even if she were not to look at the mirror at all, she will still take longer, because there is almost always a line.

I don’t understand why architects cannot do the math. If you make men’s and women’s bathrooms the same size, it’s not going to work. A men’s bathroom will facilitate far more stalls than women’s. Then take into consideration the average time it takes to defecate. I’m going to eliminate no.2 (the act of pooing) because we can assume that the average time it takes to poo is approximately the same for both genders. However, if you think about how long it takes to pee, women take much longer, because taking off pants and sitting down, standing up, putting pants back on, etc. takes longer than unzipping and zipping up whilst standing up. Then, the act of actually opening and closing the bathroom stalls, looking for empty stalls, and locking stalls is something men don’t have to deal with. You may not think that these slight differences amount to much, but even a few seconds taken with each additional procedure adds up to at least one minute. In addition, women also have things to do in the bathroom that men don’t have to do– such as the process of using feminine products.

So if there are the same number of men and women who want to go to the bathroom, it will take longer to process all the women than all the men, just by calculating the average time.

In addition to that, it widely known that most women have smaller bladders than men and thus have to pee more often than men. That means that in a 24 hour timeframe, you will have more females going to bathrooms than men.

So, if more people are using women’s bathrooms than men, and women take more time in the bathroom than men, why are the bathrooms the same size? It’s something that puzzles me and I’d really like architects to explain this to me– especially female architects (they should know!) and those architects designing public venues with high bathroom traffic in limited timeframes (such as theaters).

On a final note, men’s bathrooms should also have changing tables. It is extremely gender-discriminating that only women’s bathrooms have changing tables.

Paper uploads

I’ve uploaded the Second Life Sex paper to be presented at IADIS later this month on SSRN.

I’m trying to finish up various papers based on my past two years of research in Second Life so I can wrap up Second Life before starting my PhD. I think Second Life is great, but I really want to move on to other platforms, and I’m more interested now in children’s virtual worlds. Maybe it’s a biological thing– since two days ago, I’ve been officially over the hill.

I’ve also been spending a lot of time on Playaslife.com. There’s so much that can be done with that site. I like immersing myself in new things, but the problem is that I lose interest once I feel the growth slowing down.