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problems</title></head><body>
<div>Thanks to Brother Anthony and Owen Miller!</div>
<div>The online article by Anil Dash that Owen Miller refers to is
brilliant, including the title. Anil Dash, vice president of SixApart,
is an absolute geek in that area (Microsoft monoculture). What's more,
his own newest development in Movable Type blog software will work for
businesses that use Microsoft Office 2007 under the just released
Windows Vista. In short, he won't be able to sell his own web
publishing software to the Korean market (which is pretty big) if
Koreans won't install Vista. We can imagine that he got the right
"drive" for writing that article when visiting Korea -); But
that's by no means to say that he isn't right on the point with his
article -- he sure is.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>For those less technically involved, 128-bit "SSL
encryption" is what the entire world uses -- any http<font
color="#0000FF"><b>s</b></font>://... secure site (other than in
Korea) you visit to make an online payment, online banking, etc. uses
SSL encryption. Active X control technology (that allowed to download
SEED) was short-lived and was some internal attempt preceding SSL
encryption that not even Microsoft was interested in after SSL
encryption was finalized. The fact that Microsoft discontinues its use
could be anticipated since years and does not come as a surprise. As
Anil Dash writes: "SEED is, of course, used nowhere else except
South Korea,<u> because every other nation waited for the 128 bit SSL
protocol to be finalized</u> (and exported from the US) and have
standardized on that." I have little doubt that Korean businesses
would have shifted to SSL encryption 15 years ago had not the ROK
government regulated encryption and bet on the wrong horse.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>In a way, what we see here is a marriage of Korea's monoculture
with Microsoft's monoculture. How do their children look like? Dash
points to Dan Geer's older report (also see:
http://www.eweek.com/article2/0%2C1895%2C2013820%2C00.asp) that warns
of software monoculture resulting in similar problems than biological
(inbreeding). In the end this is a problem child of Korea's political
culture, not a technological problem.</div>
<div><br></div>
<div>Frank</div>
<div><br></div>
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<div>--------------------------------------<br>
Frank Hoffmann<br>
http://koreaweb.ws</div>
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