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There are rumors that prosecutors and police are particularly monitoring KakaoTalk messages, checking activists' private information such as bank account PIN numbers and private conversations with lawyers.
The prosecution has refuted these rumors, saying that they are only monitoring malicious commenters on major portal websites instead of messengers, but Koreans are still reacting strongly to the news, uninstalling Korean messengers like KakaoTalk and finding alternative foreign messengers like Telegram instead.
Telegram is a German messenger that boasts its security features. Koreans have been commenting on Telegram's app page explaining their reason for switching over. These users are criticizing their country for the lack of democracy, for attacking their right to privacy, and for denying their freedom of speech.
NoCut News has recently interviewed KakaoTalk lawyer Gu Tae Uhn. In the clip above, the interviewer asks, "Is it true that there is real-time monitoring?"
"It's not practical due to strong technical reasons, and it's impossible due to legal reasons," the lawyer states, denying the rumors. "Through the Protection Communications Secrets Act, the real-time monitoring would require an 'interception warrant'. If later a court intercepts [messages] without a warrant, it's a serious crime."
He continues, "We did not make a technical facility to provide real-time monitoring for investigative agencies." He emphasizes, "Honestly we didn't receive an 'interception warrant'."
As for the comparisons to Telegram, he states, "Telegram says it's encrypting [all of its messages], but it only encrypts one on one 'secret chats'. For general chats, because of technical reasons, they can't encrypt the messages."
He ends the interview by criticizing Telegram's "self-destruction" feature, in which messages disappear after a fixed amount of time (a la Snapchat), saying that it is not very advantageous and can cause misunderstandings between users.
Recently at a press conference regarding the merge between KakaoTalk and Daum Communications, KakaoTalk CEO Kim Suk Woo further clarified that KakaoTalk does not provide real-time monitoring for prosecutors, but rather cooperates with the prosecutors when there's cases of legitimate investigations.
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