Lineage leaks may spur end to use of IDs online

The number of Koreans reporting that their identity had been stolen for strangers to sign up with the online game Lineage snowballed from 1,200 on Monday to over 60,000 yesterday. The game’s operator, NCsoft Corp., and the government came up with emergency measures to prevent any worsening of the major cyberspace mishap. The company said it would adopt a new signup system next week that would require people to enter their mobile phone numbers along with resident identification numbers. The site will send “certification numbers” to mobile phones and users will be required to type the multi-digit number on the Web site for user verification, NCsoft spokesman Kim Joo-young said. The new system will help allocate only one account to one individual, he explained, adding that the company has no plans to change its policy of requiring players to sign up with their government ID numbers. In response to the public outcry over the identity security issue, the Ministry of Information and Communication yesterday said it would form a task force this month to try to force Internet firms to adopt one of several means of online identification that would replace the resident registration numbers. The measures, prepared last October as public pressure mounted to drop the use of resident IDs, were ignored by major game sites such as Nexon and Hangame. They said the financial burden of complying would be too high, and the number of new users would drop. The complaints focus on the allegation that domestic Internet firms are collecting more personal information than is necessary for the sake of their own convenience. Kim Min-seop from the Korea Information Security Agency said the initial adoption of resident ID numbers for Web account creation was simply out of custom. He said there were several political and social elements behind the Korean resident ID numbers that do not exist in other countries. But Korean Internet firms think the ID numbers are the easiest way of verifying a user’s identity. “Because the numbers show the gender and age of individuals, companies may use them as a source for targeting marketing activities,” he said. “And the fact that the numbers are being traded on the black market where dealers trade the databases for cash is the biggest threat.” In addition to measures for replacing resident ID numbers, the Information Ministry will push for adoption of laws that would crack down on that trade. Experts also assert that the government should strengthen punishment of people involved in the leakage of private information. “Under the current legal system, only those who earn profits from stolen identities are punished. No legal case can be made against those who use strangers’ identities for Internet site membership,” said a researcher from a government institute. Because of the general public’s escalating fears about identity theft, the nation’s private information security protection agencies are enjoying boom times. The agencies, for a price, will search the Web for you and find out what sites you are registered at, knowingly or not. The Korea Information Service said yesterday that it signed up 15,000 new subscribers last Wednesday alone. The company had average about 100 to 200 new members a day. But the service is not without limitations; it has only about 10,000 Web sites in its database and each agency has a different list of sites, experts say. A check by one company may not as all-encompassing as Internet users here might wish. by Seo Ji-eun