KT Accused of Hacking Own Customers

            The Korean internet service provider KT is accused of hacking its own customers in order to prevent piracy. Unlike other countries that practice standard internet law, Korea does not practice net neutrality, which states that all online content must be treated equally. A net neutrality principle prohibits a telecommunication company from charging different prices to different types of content being hosted. Since this principle has not been enacted in Korea, Korean internet providers charge large online content providers such as YouTube, Netflix, Hulu, and etc. under a fair share policy. The fair share policy argues that both the content supplier and the internet service provider should bear the cost of distribution instead of the internet service provider alone bearing the cost. The fair share policy enables telecommunications company to charge both the consumer and supplier of any major internet content. The fees that Korean telecommunications companies charge directly correlate to the amount of traffic a content provider is bringing in.

            More traffic on streaming services such as Netflix means more profit. Unlike American and European companies that do not directly benefit from targeting pirating, Korean internet service providers are financial incentivized to crack down on online piracy. A hack on a service that is commonly used to pirate files would only benefit Korean internet service providers. Many users of a popular service called Webhard which is a combination of the terms “web” and “harddrive”, which has a Grid Service feature that allows users to store files on the cloud and share them with other users. Unlike regular cloud services, the Grid Service is backed by BitTorrent which uses peer to peer file sharing. This type of file sharing transfers the files from users that already have the target file to be shared to another user. This other user then becomes a seeder and joins the file transferring effort. Recently, a hack that targeted users on the Grid Service with malware that bricked their computers and corrupted their files was discovered due to many complaints on the service’s public forum. After a thorough investigation of the attack, the company discovered that all of the 600,000 victims were using KT internet lines. The specific details of how the attack was executed are still unknown, but KT has admitted to directly planting malware onto the Grid Service. Although the investigation is still ongoing, thirteen KT employees have already been charged for this crime.

            This case highlights the importance of net neutrality laws that prohibit internet service providers from charging fees to suppliers, making internet service providers merely messengers and distributors instead of gatekeepers of a market and bringing more user freedom.