Koreans Advised to "Avoid Vista" for Now

An anonymous reader writes "The Chosonilbo reports that several government ministries in South Korea are advising users not to install Windows Vista, at least until popular online services can be made compatible. The problem is that ActiveX is pervasive in the Korean webspace, employed by everyone from web games to online banking. Upgrading to Vista is expected to render many of these services unusable. Portions of the popular "Hangul" word processor, a major competitor to Office in that country, are also not functioning under Vista. The Ministry of Information is planning to publish compatibility information for popular websites, and urging users to carefully research the implications of upgrading."

Oh noes!

The Chinese Purification [slashdot.org] has alrady begun in Asia!!!

Server side FTW!

Many people ask me why I insist on server side web apps unless there is absolutely positively no way around it. Now they know why. Client side processing means client side requirements. Server side processing means the client can be using anything from a PC with Firefox to an iPhone with... oh wait :P

Re:Server side FTW!

Uhhh... you really cannot offload security to a client. Trust me. I work for a fortune 500 with more than 150,000 employees. We have converted most of our apps to be web apps. All security was brought to the server side because we had so many issues with clients systems. Any one that offloads security to a client is a dolt IMO. It will come back to bite you big time. :-)

why even use ActiveX?

ActiveX is pervasive in the Korean webspace.
They should move to something that work in linux, mac os, and windows.

Re:why even use ActiveX?

Of course they should, but reality is not there.

They must be undergoing some sort of existential crisis.

Client-Side VBScript.

Some sites even insist on using VB, in place of Javascript - ugh!

Don't I know it!!! I assume you mean client-side VBScript, which only works in IE. Server-side VBScript (in ASP, or VB.NET in ASP.NET) works just fine, since plain HTML is sent to the browser.

Recently, while troubleshooting an error in one of our customer's server-side code, I came across a web-form with a client-side VBScript validator. Underscoring the fact that the "developer" didn't understand what was going on, there was a disclaimer on the page that the form only works on "Internet Explorer and other browsers that support ASP". Of course, ASP had nothing to do with the incompatibility, it was the client-side VBScript.

It almost goes without saying, but the code had FrontPage written all over it!!

Re:why even use ActiveX?

Short version: they use Active-X because of US export policy.

Long version: Before Clinton allowed export of strong encryption, web browsers outside US only supported 40-bit encryption. So instead of using ssl with 40-bit keys, the Korean government adopted something called SEED, a homegrown algorithm with support for longer keys. So all the online banking stuff was done with it. This was around when IE was taking over the browser market, so banks used Active X to implement SEED. People liked it because it allowed them very nice and frequently updated widgets, and most people were running windows anyway.

Fast forward 10 years, the whole country is dependent on Active-X and therefore MS, with *zero* support for alternatives. As everyone is using IE, most web sites (including Korean Government sites) are designed only for IE+Acitve-X. All banking, shopping, stock trading, is done through Active-X, with no alternatives. This discourages people from using anything but Windows, perpetuating the monopoly. Korea is the only country where the stock market and most financial system shutdown because of the MS-SQL slammer worm (back in Jan '05). With help from rampant software piracy, MS is *the* dominant player in *all* software markets, and Korea's culture of homogeneity has simply perpetuated the monopoly.

I'm hoping people learned their lesson and will shift to more standards compliance and alternative implementations, but somehow I don't think so. In fact, the Korean Government will demand MS "fix" "their" problem, as obviously it is MS's fault for breaking "the Internet".

That's the problem with Vista's

The more promising the view, the steeper the cliff...

Only prudent.

I'm actually a MS user and I don't have a rabid irrational hatred of them like many around here. However, I'm not moving to Vista anytime soon. First, there's no compelling reason for me until DX10 games start hitting. Second, Vista is new and has many known issues, including performance issues. Third, all kinds of crap is going to break.

I think we're going to see Vista be the most slowly adopted OS Microsoft has ever released.

Re:Only prudent.

"I don't have a rabid irrational hatred..."

I don't have a rabid irrational hatred of Microsoft either, just a rational one.

Re:Only prudent.

I'm actually a MS user and I don't have a rabid irrational hatred of them like many around here.

Neither do we. We have a perfectly rational rabid hatred of them.

Seriously though, that preamble was unnecessary: it's perfectly okay to be a happy MS user and not be so hot about installing a new product from them. But hot or not, one of these days you'll have to bite the bullet anyway.

Re:Only prudent.

I'm actually a MS user and I don't have a rabid irrational hatred of them like many around here.

Congratulations on the purchase of your first computer!

Firmware...

Did someone forget to install the memory and update Korea's firmware again?

Windows or Linux...

I never upgrade when there is a new release. This is responsible thinking and planning on the Korean government's part. Now, if we could only convince our government and other consumers to follow suit.

I used to think...

I used to think Korea was a pretty technologically advanced place. Till I read this:

ActiveX is pervasive in the Korean webspace, employed by everyone from web games to online banking

Re:I used to think...

Cross browser/OS compatibility isn't important at all?

Re:I used to think...

It may just be a word, but it's a word that has negative connotations for a lot of informed people. Just recently Acer admitted to there being a glaring security hole in an ActiveX control installed on their computers that could have allowed malicious websites to download and execute rootkits, trojans etc.

Let us not forget that you are also locking out anyone not on Windows and not running Internet Explorer. Gone are the days when we can put "This site works best in Internet Explorer" on a site and expect people to think that's O.K.

Uh oh

Wait, Battle.net isn't compatible with Vista?

In Korea...

In Korea only old people use ActiveX.

Old People?

I thought only old people in Korea used ActiveX components.

Ministry of Information?

So says the Ministry of Information? Like, the Ministry of Truth? "Don't install Vista. Drink Victory coffee."

Heaven Forbid

Install Vista? In Korea? Heaven forbid! They might get...get [whispers] security. OMG!!! Repent, repent, ye lost souls! Let ActiveX be thy savior!

Why Upgrade

Why would anyone upgrade yet anyway? Doesn't everyone remember all of the many problems XP had when it was first released? I didn't upgrade my PC to XP until SP1 was avaible and probably won't upgrade to vista any time soon either.

Microsoft shooting themselves in the foot?

I thought the whole point of ActiveX was to be incompatible with anything but Microsoft products. Apparently their Embrace-Extend-Extinguish strategy worked a bit too well.

Anyone know what this is all about - they must still be aiming to support old ActiveX stuff, right?

The real reason: a security problem

The real reason is that Windows Vista does not yet offer in-built protection against attacks by giant North Korean rabbits [slashdot.org].

upgrade?

What the heck are they using now?!?!?

Korea is stuck using Microsoft

Ran into this with my partner, who is Korean. Her online banking uses incredibly invasive, poorly conceived and programmed software called nProtect. Which installs a bloody device driver to function. It actually blue screened Vista randomly. It does not install without Administrator level access to the machine (obviously). In addition, it required that you run IE7 in Administrator mode when attempting to log in. Also, many many websites did not function reliably with Vista and IE7, their ActiveX controls expecting to have administrator level access to the machine. Advanced technologically? Hardly. Just proprietary and locked in, and not very security conscious. The amount of times I had to click "Allow this website to install an ActiveX control" is just insane, I don't want to think of the amount of remote code execution vulnerabilities present on a machine with all these controls installed. They're pretty much conditioned to allow the website to install any old thing, really, since so many of their websites require it.

Re:Korea is stuck using Microsoft

I wonder if this has anything to do with the large amount of spam originating from South Korea? For my less internationally inclined clients, I sometimes suggested using the DNSBL cn-kr.blackholes.us to help fight some of the unwanted spam.

I spent a month at a S. Korean University, and there was a lot of junk installed on the public computers on campus. Every evening they rebooted, and and started with a clean image each morning - so IE was clogged after a day's worth of surfing. Needless to say, I rebooted before using one.

Where Did You Want to Go Today?

If the execs running Red Hat or another Linux distro had the killer instinct that Gates and other Microsoft execs have always had, then every single obstacle to "upgrading" Windows to Vista would be greeted as an offramp to Linux. Packages that reinstalled Linux would be marketed as "Windows recovery tools" to people evaluating Vista. Bundled with Office workalikes and training videos, and clickable data conversion tools.

It's easy to blame MS for being bad. It's harder to blame Linux distros for being bad at being as good at being bad.

MS just can't win can they?

They create ActiveX; it's has its uses but the security flaws are far too large to ignore.

People criticize MS for ActiveX, so...

They remove ActiveX; now there's less of a push for it but existing ActiveX systems are screwed.

People criticize MS for removing ActiveX, so... ...

PROFIT?

Wow, MS blew off a whole country

One would think that the PHB's in Redmond would have considered the ramifications of being sooooo special that it disconnects a whole high tech country from your product. I'm am so glad I dumped all my MS stock 3 weeks ago.

why mention korea?

When i listened to national public radio the other day they were advising the same thing. To wait on Vista until all the bugs are worked out. I really fail to see why the fact that Koreans were advised the same thing makes that big a difference. The title should have been "Users warned to wait until upgrading to Vista".

Vista isn't done.....

... until Hangul don't run! (there goes my karma!)

Not Vista's fault

The problem is that Vista doesn't play well with a software program called Active-X that is widely used in Korean Internet sites.

No, the problem is that incompetently created websites use delicate nonportable nonstandard proprietary software that is only interoperative with one single obsolete platform.

Don't blame Vista; blame people who aren't responsible, experienced, or forward-looking enough to see why complying with standards is so necessary.

Now let's see how people will fix their glaring mistake. Will they "fix" it by repeating it (i.e. rewriting ActiveX controls to be compatible with Vista, so that they can get paid to screw their customers again in 5 years when the next version of Windows comes out) or will they fix it by removing the irresponsible dependencies?

For now?

This assumes that one of two things will eventually happen:

• MS will give ActiveX in Vista the freedom it had in previous versions of Windows
• All these sites/applications will move to something less Windows-centric

As for the first, it's possible that MS can decide later that it "degraded the user experience" with Vista with regard to ActiveX and loosen the restrictions on it with SP1 (thus, degrading the user experience when the next generation of ActiveX exploits get into the wild).

For the second, it would take a lot of time for these things to get ported to non-MS (not necessarily Open) solutions such as Flash.

Which will come first?

Seems MS has created quite a dilemma for themselves. No doubt Korea isn't the only country where this will happen.

And why is proprietary MS junk bad again?...

Hmmm, making web stuff with proprietary MS crap like "ActiveX" is now bad? That is not the story that MS would say. This is exactly what the companies of Korea that used MS-only crap deserve. Using MS-Only crap will only bite you in the end. Using _any_ proprietary MS-crap has always wound up being a bad choice IME. To bad most business shills give in to the MS marketing machine and continue to use MS-only junk.

Using standards is the _only_ way to go. Every time anyone buys into MS-only crap, they _will_ get burned in the end. As a programmer with more than a decade of experience, I never recommend MS-only junk. I always push for standards, regardless of platform. Too bad the programming market is flooded with a bunch of MS-only, VB-only "programmers". In the past decade, the biggest problems I have seen with systems have all come from "programmers" that only know MS stuff.

All of the programmers I have met that know Linux or Solaris or Mac in addition to MS have all been top notch. All the MS-only, VB-only "programmers" I have met have been _rocks_ and do not deserve a job. Sometimes I am ashamed to be a programmer because of how the market is flooded with all these MS-only, VB-only "programmers". I was hoping that Microsoft's move to .Net would have put all the VB-only "programmers" out of a job. However, MS gave in and brought VB to the .Net platform. What a shame.

Please spare me the "VB is a 'real' programming language now" bunk. It is still a _basic_, overly verbose, child-like language for bottom of the barrel, dime-a-dozen, "programmers".

Mark me troll if you want. However, anyone with any real programming abilities out there would agree.

Korea:

So smart... yet so ActiveX...

The other way around!

The Korean governmnent isn't telling the people to wait until Vista's security policy changes.
It's the other way around - the Korean government is telling them to wait until third party vendors (including the Korean governmnent itself) adopt to the new Vista security model.

I actually hope Vista adopts a REALLY harsh security model, so that the ill-designed, ActiveX-cluttered website designers have no choice but to design their site so that they have no administrator privilege.

National Lampoon's Information Technology

Vista salesman to Chevy Chase...

Tell you what, you give me half the money you were going to pay for Vista and Office 2007, we go out back, I kick you in the nuts and we'll call it a day!

"Hangul" word processor?

You know, I could have sworn Hangul was a writing system used for the Korean langauge, and that various word processors supported it. I seem to recall knowing a guy in college who had the Hangul version of Word Perfect, for instance.

Is there really also a word processor _called_ "Hangul", or is the article writer just deeply confused?

Push for change?

Now it could be that I am crazy and don't understand the absolute dependence that koreans have for activex, but surely it would be benifical for everyone to change to vista while activex isn't functional so that internet developers HAVE to create programs that use other technologies, even if they aren't open they have to be better than activex.

An entire country infested with ActiveX?

I want to wake up from this nightmare.

On the other hand, the irony that heavy reliance on a proprietary Microsoft standard is now preventing people from buying the latest Microsoft product is delicious.

Deja Vu

Vista is not done until Hangul won't run.

Intelligent communities

Just in case you needed a confirmation on that Seoul is on of the World's most intelligent cities, here it is. :)

Not Good News!

Now where will I download my hacked copy of Vista?

Korean SNAFU

Sounds like the Koreans had no concern for security, and went bonkers on worst security practices.

Problems with Starcraft?

Is that why Korea can't upgrade to Vista... it doesn't play Starcraft correctly?

Oh well, I guess that means they have to wait for the Vista enabling patch.

Users != businesses

I thought all businesses were avoiding Vista...

Perhaps they are. While businesses are computer users, not all users are businesses.

Re:Users != businesses

Good point. I got fixated on the ActiveX comments about games, banks and forgot about the users.

Then again, I always forget about the users. If it weren't for the pesky users, the computers would run fine!

Re:isn't everyone?

I've been telling all my friends buying new PCs to avoid Vista as well, until at least the first service pack is released.

Re:isn't everyone?

I've been telling all my friends buying new PCs to avoid Vista as well, until at least the first service pack is released.

Microsoft must be devastated. Hold on, I'm selling all my shares!

Re:isn't everyone?

I thought all businesses were avoiding Vista...

Maybe you shouldn't use Slashdot as your source of news? Just a thought.

A company in the midwest I do some consulting for just did a 1,200 desktop test rollout to one of their divisions. They didn't have any legacy problems and were upgrading to Office 2007 anyway, plus they had fairly new machines.

Like XP vs W2K before, Vista uptake will necessarily be slow, but eventually it will be installed everywhere. In fact, I'm guessing it will be even a bit more successful than XP because all those Windows 2000 holdouts are probably overdue for a machine upgrade as well.

Re:isn't everyone?

I'm surprised to find a windows consultant claiming that a new version of windows will be successful. It's almost as if his business depends on people paying him to install this kludgy piece of crap, but that just makes no sense.

Okay, sorry for the sarcasm and the cheap shot.

I think perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Vista will not be a complete flop, but it will sell well under what Microsoft expects.

Re:isn't everyone?

Vista will be Microsoft's best seller ever. You wait and see.

In fact, I will bookmark this comment and see when that statment will come true.

Re:isn't everyone?

I think perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Vista will not be a complete flop, but it will sell well under what Microsoft expects.

Unfortunately, build quality and commercial success are quite unrelated. It will be a success. Windows is too entrenched for any other outcome. If Vista is proven to cause spontaneous human combustion then maybe, just maybe, it will be unsuccessful from a sheer number-of-deployments stance.

Re:isn't everyone?

I think perhaps the truth lies somewhere in the middle. Vista will not be a complete flop, but it will sell well under what Microsoft expects.

Legal copies of Vista will be bundled with most new computers, and this alone will make it a best seller. Also, many corporations will upgrade just for the sake of upgrading.

I believe Microsoft has a very good idea of what's going to happen. They understand the business and marketing aspects of selling software better than anyone else.

Re:Korea.. what a strange place

Most of them still using CRT's yet high spec computers for gaming.

Maybe you didn't get the memo, but CRTs are superior to LCDs for gaming in every way but the usual reasons to buy LCD, size and weight. LCDs have one resolution, CRTs can do many resolutions (and true multisync CRTs, which are admittedly a rarity these days, can do all KINDS of things.) The best LCD has a refresh rate and is chunky compared to a CRT, which has persistence due to phosphors.

SED is supposed to address the issue of persistence, but won't solve any of the other issues.

Why flamebait? Stupid mods.

See the title.