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Seoul districts monitoring what you download?
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MollyBloom



Joined: 21 Jul 2006
Location: James Joyce's pants

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 5:35 pm    Post subject: Seoul districts monitoring what you download? Reply with quote

So...I was just innocently downloading some stuff (Simpsons episodes with Korean subs for future lessons and Twin Peaks for me) and all of a sudden a pop-up showed itself. It was a Seoul gov't notice from my district, and it said I could not download some files because they were not for people under the age of 19. It deleted the files, and I know this because some episodes that I already downloaded were missing.

First of all, do torrents have age-appropriate tags on them? Second, how the hell would my district know what I am downloading unless they are spying on me. Third of all, how the hell does the district even know the age of the person using the computer?

I can see getting a warning for downloading pornos, but Twin Peaks and Simpsons episodes? Considering I see co-teachers downloading/watching Nip/Tuck, the files I downloaded shouldn't be a problem!


Has this happened to anyone else?

Edit: I was just thinking about how much the Korean gov't snoops into people's computers. Beware.


Last edited by MollyBloom on Thu Sep 08, 2011 5:51 pm; edited 1 time in total
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eamo



Joined: 08 Mar 2003
Location: Shepherd's Bush, 1964.

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 5:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Shocked

What??

Sounds like your ISP has introduced a new child-safety feature and it has been activated for your IP address.......but how would it even know that the content of the torrent files were 19 certificate?

Really weird.

How does your internet? KT? Hanaro?
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MollyBloom



Joined: 21 Jul 2006
Location: James Joyce's pants

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 6:14 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

It's KT. Yeah. I have no idea....Rolling Eyes

That's my point too; how would they know what is appropriate? Unless for some reason "Twin Peaks" was tagged as being inappropriate and the computer system caught on to that. As far as I remember, there's no nudity in the episodes. "Fire Walk With Me" was more graphic and there was nudity, but I wasn't downloading that.

And the Simpsons episodes?! Absurd.

I have nothing to hide, so they can investigate all they want. However, what freaks me out is the thought that they *could be* remotely accessing people's computers and viewing people's files. I'm more pissed about the Simpsons episodes because I am using those videos for teaching and they are interfering with that. It's not a technical problem because I can just use Gom and get the videos that way, but what if the videos were more of a challenge to find?

edit: If anyone wants to watch Twin Peaks online, you can find it here:

http://tv.blinkx.com/show/twin-eaks/Y1cySLTOG2XmEOiBPj5FNjAUHuU#s1
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Jake_Kim



Joined: 27 Aug 2005
Location: Seoul

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 7:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I constantly tap into materials of questionable legality and/or appropriateness in the eyes of the censorship authority through KT network - both hardline and wireless - yet I've never seen any such intervention. And yeah, I use torrent all the time.
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MollyBloom



Joined: 21 Jul 2006
Location: James Joyce's pants

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 8:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Jake_Kim wrote:
I constantly tap into materials of questionable legality and/or appropriateness in the eyes of the censorship authority through KT network - both hardline and wireless - yet I've never seen any such intervention. And yeah, I use torrent all the time.


At home or at school? It could just be my district in Seoul, but I doubt mine is the only one that censors like this.
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TheUrbanMyth



Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired

PostPosted: Thu Sep 08, 2011 9:30 pm    Post subject: Re: Seoul districts monitoring what you download? Reply with quote

MollyBloom wrote:
So...I was just innocently downloading some stuff (Simpsons episodes with Korean subs for future lessons and Twin Peaks for me) and all of a sudden a pop-up showed itself. It was a Seoul gov't notice from my district, and it said I could not download some files because they were not for people under the age of 19. It deleted the files, and I know this because some episodes that I already downloaded were missing.

First of all, do torrents have age-appropriate tags on them? Second, how the hell would my district know what I am downloading unless they are spying on me. Third of all, how the hell does the district even know the age of the person using the computer?

I can see getting a warning for downloading pornos, but Twin Peaks and Simpsons episodes? Considering I see co-teachers downloading/watching Nip/Tuck, the files I downloaded shouldn't be a problem!


Has this happened to anyone else?

Edit: I was just thinking about how much the Korean gov't snoops into people's computers. Beware.



These pop-ups are automatic. It's not like the government hires people to sit at a computer all day long to monitor foreign teachers at public schools. It's just a safety feature. Which can be gotten around as you pointed out.

Given that the Korean government recently introduced a law that people had to log in with their ID number for certain sites ...why would they have to do that if they could just remotely control the computer and access the sites? Plus you know how many computers are here in Korea (given all the PC cafes and all)? You think it's remotely feasible to access them all in any detail?

If anything it only looks for certain keywords (much like the USA does) and anything else is uncensored.
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PatrickGHBusan



Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -

PostPosted: Fri Sep 09, 2011 5:06 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Standard automated safety feature.

No one is actively watching you OP.

As a side note, I would say one should be careful about what they download or use on school computers or on computers connected to the school's network as these things belong to the school.

Far betetr to use your laptop or smartphone on your own connection to download stuff, esp via torrents.
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Illysook



Joined: 30 Jun 2008

PostPosted: Thu Sep 15, 2011 6:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Download at home.
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Ribena



Joined: 07 Apr 2011
Location: UK

PostPosted: Fri Sep 16, 2011 11:26 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wait this person was downloading at school? Right? Because if they were, that explain alot.
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Draz



Joined: 27 Jun 2007
Location: Land of Morning Clam

PostPosted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:36 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Ribena wrote:
Wait this person was downloading at school? Right? Because if they were, that explain alot.


Yeah. It's just something in schools (public schools) the government isn't spying on your home usage. Kind of like how a lot of sites are blocked on the internet at school but you can look at them when you go home, even if you have the same internet provider (KT) as your school.
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Murakano



Joined: 10 Sep 2009

PostPosted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:52 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Draz wrote:
Ribena wrote:
Wait this person was downloading at school? Right? Because if they were, that explain alot.


Yeah. It's just something in schools (public schools) the government isn't spying on your home usage. Kind of like how a lot of sites are blocked on the internet at school but you can look at them when you go home, even if you have the same internet provider (KT) as your school.


ridiculous some of the things that are banned/cant get through the filters.

At my current school, I can't even access The Guardian / The Telegraph newspaper sites as well as a few ESL websites bizarrely.
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FDNY



Joined: 27 Sep 2010

PostPosted: Mon Sep 19, 2011 9:53 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I live for porn. Recently I have noticed sites like tube8.com and youporn.com have been blocked. But there are a myriad of others to choose from.
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TheUrbanMyth



Joined: 28 Jan 2003
Location: Retired

PostPosted: Tue Sep 20, 2011 6:04 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Watch this be the very next thread to be translated into Korean and put up on the Internet.

And then watch for the new regulations stating that from now on FTs are no longer allowed to use a computer at school and must get special permission every time they want to use one.
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MollyBloom



Joined: 21 Jul 2006
Location: James Joyce's pants

PostPosted: Wed Sep 21, 2011 4:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

TheUrbanMyth wrote:
Watch this be the very next thread to be translated into Korean and put up on the Internet.

And then watch for the new regulations stating that from now on FTs are no longer allowed to use a computer at school and must get special permission every time they want to use one.


I'll start taking pics of my Korean co-teachers sleeping at their desks and/or watching Chinese/Japanese dramas and upload them to by blog:
www.lazycoteacher.com
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PatrickGHBusan



Joined: 24 Jun 2008
Location: Busan (1997-2008) Canada 2008 -

PostPosted: Thu Sep 22, 2011 11:42 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Just for the record, every job I have worked at had limitations, restrictions and monitoring of how their computers were used by staff. Thats to be expected and really it is their (employer) equipment, their connection...
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