Re:why even use ActiveX? (Score 1)

Excerpt from "Korean Bank Rolls Out Online Service," October 10, 2001, Bank Systems & Technology http://www.banktech.com/showArticle.jhtml?articleI D=14701736

Internet banking applications for consumers typically use Secure Sockets Layer, or SSL. Instead of SSL, mandatory Korean government standards call for Internet banking applications to use the 128-bit SEED security protocol announced in 1999. "At that time, ITAR International Traffic in Arms Regulations was restrictive and DES Data Encryption Standard was not reliable for security," said Joo-won Jung, senior researcher at INITECH, Seoul, South Korea. "So SEED was developed and used as Korea's mandatory cipher."
SEED (not an acronym) typically operates through an ActiveX plug-in for Internet Explorer, the predominant browser software. Although Java and Netscape implementations of SEED exist, [Korean] banks prefer to secure their sites with ActiveX.

Guess they're going to have to dust off those Java implementations. -Ivan