Is This Really the IT Capital??!!

So, I was reading about this new service from the government in the 중앙일보 (Joongang Daily). It lists all the places your citizenship number is registered. This is easy in Korea because to register for any online service, you need to enter that number, which is then checked against a government database, so the government knows when it has been checked, and by which site (in theory). I will not comment here on how stupid this is and what a big security risk it makes for your number, that is for another post. Anyway, so I thought I would check me and my wife's numbers, but you go to the site, click on the three places that provide the service, and they each give you similar messages:

안녕하세요.행복한 사람들의 좋은 습관 크레딧뱅크입니다.행정자치부와 함께하는 주민번호(ID) 클린 캠페인 내 주민번호를 찾아라! 서비스 사용자 증가로 서비스가원활하지 못한 점 양해말씀드립니다. 원활한 서비스 제공을 드리기 위해 최선을 다하겠습니다. 잠시 후 다시 접속하여주시기 바랍니다.

A rough translation says: "We are dumb-asses and therefore did not anticipate that in the most wired country on earth, which a large netizen population, that more than 200 people would try this service. Therefore we did not prepare very well and you cannot connect right now. Try back in three years when we get together enough budget to buy a real server. --The government (we are just as smart as our head of state).

Well, that is not an exact translation, but you get the idea. They turned it off because there were too many people and it was crashing the server. Hmm... You would think they could come up with something in the most wired country on earth. this happens a lot here though. Just because they are very wired, does not mean they are secure or reliable. I watched another MBC news story over the weekend that said banks and government ATM service machines all use Windows as their O/S, and thus are all vulnerable to hacking. They showed how on the government ones, and then said they could not get permission to try on the bank ones, but that it was the same system, thus very possible. Hmm... maybe we should move our assets to a bank that we can sue, like citi Bank or something.