PSPD in English Socio-Economic 2003-02-21   1462

“The Failure of Internet Services, No Accountability Without a Finding of Fault”

On January 25th, an unprecedented incident took place. Korea’s entire Internet and e-mail services were completely paralyzed by a fast-spreading worm virus. Although many countries had similar problems, Korea suffered the greatest damage. It is shocking that Korea, a so-called “IT powerhouse”, was the most vulnerable to random virus attacks.

The network failures created financial losses for local business and inconvenienced over ten million internet users. The search for those responsible continues. The Ministry of Information and Communication has been hampered in their search for a precise cause and Korea’s Internet Services Providers (ISP) and Microsoft have fled from responsibility.

People’s Solidarity for Participatory Democracy (PSPD) decided to file a class action lawsuit against Korea’s major ISPs including Korea Telecom and Hanaro Telecom for the losses caused by the web meltdown. For this, PSPD has searched out victims who are subscribers to ISPs and want to participate in the claim through its web site, https://peoplepower21.org. According to the terms of service contracts that bind the telecommunications operators, they are liable for damages in the case of communication obstructions. [However as they have blamed clients mistakes for this incident, a conflict might be held between them. This sentence needs to be clarified. Who is in conflict-the companies with other companies, or companies and clients?] With the participation of internet users, PSPD will first file its claim for collective compensation with the Communication Committee [of the National Assembly?]. If it is refused, a new suit will be filed against the ISPs, Microsoft , and the Korean government.

By January 29th, the very next day after the release of PSPD’s solicitation for claimants, over 2,600 internet users registered as co-plaintiffs. As of February 19th, 6,600 internet users have registered as co-plaintiffs. Many co-plaintiffs told of hardships created by the internet outage and claimed that Korea needs to strengthen a sense of security in the areas of information and communication on which Korean society depends.

The Chief Coordinator of PSPD’s Citizens’ Rights Campaign Han Jae Kak said “Even though the government, ISPs, Microsoft, and people using SQL (Structured Query Language) server share some responsibility for the incident, each side has been shuffling off responsibility onto each other. While the blame game continues to drag on, internet users remain as victims. Therefore we are forced to call all parties to account to prevent another such national crisis in the future. Through feedback from internet users we became aware of how they were damaged and angered.”

PSPD has issued a statement entitled “The Failure of Internet Services: No Accountability Without a Finding of Fault”. The statement urges the Ministry of Information and Communication to announce the cause of the calamity within the week, which the ministry promised to do after two weeks of investigating. It also promises protests from internet users in the absence of a clear finding of responsibility by the Ministry. PSPD has also asserted that a finding of responsibility for the problem should precede the process of creating new ways of averting future problems.

A press conference to further elaborate on these views is scheduled on February 22, 2003.

Restoration of Citizens’ Rights Campaign

정부지원금 0%, 회원의 회비로 운영됩니다

참여연대 후원/회원가입


참여연대 NOW

실시간 활동 SNS

텔레그램 채널에 가장 빠르게 게시되고,

더 많은 채널로 소통합니다. 지금 팔로우하세요!