[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-yoon] The police have identified the personal information of the main operator of the website ‘Digital Gyodoso’ that arbitrarily discloses the identities of criminals and others, and are tracking their whereabouts. The police also plan to investigate the second-phase operators of the site as accomplices.
On the 21st, Kim Chang-ryong, Commissioner of the National Police Agency, said at a press conference, "The Daegu Metropolitan Police Agency was designated as the dedicated investigative agency by the National Police Agency, and we have identified the personal information of the main figure involved." He added, "Since the individual is currently residing overseas, we are taking multifaceted measures including cooperation through Interpol, and we will apprehend them early and ensure their repatriation to Korea."
He continued, "The Digital Gyodoso site was temporarily shut down and then reopened, and we consider those involved as accomplices and will proceed with investigations," adding, "Regardless of the Communications Standards Commission’s decision, we will continue comprehensive investigations."
The police have requested cooperation from Interpol in a foreign country based on access records of some first-phase Digital Gyodoso operators whose identities have been confirmed. A red notice has been issued for that individual. Along with the Interpol notice, the police are narrowing the investigation by requesting passport invalidation for those identified.
However, compared to the first-phase operators whose identities have already been partially confirmed, information on the second-phase operators remains shrouded in mystery, making tracking more difficult. The newly reopened Digital Gyodoso posted a notice stating, “To protect users, the CDN service has been changed. We judged that using Cloudflare is risky and have switched to the Russian CDN service DDOS-GUARD.” This appears to be a measure to evade police tracking.
Originally, Digital Gyodoso’s site access was suddenly blocked on the 8th. Then, on the 11th, a statement was posted on the homepage main screen by a person claiming to be a second-phase operator.
In the statement, they promised, “From now on, we will only disclose personal information when there is clear evidence visible to anyone, such as court rulings or media press releases,” and added, “We have ruthlessly deleted any posts uploaded so far that we judged to lack sufficient evidence, and some posts will be re-uploaded after supplementing evidence,” signaling their intention to continue operating the site.
Until operations resumed, this statement was the only content visible on the homepage, but the site reopened the very next day, on the 12th, and full operations resumed. It is understood that some of the previously disclosed personal information was erased.
Meanwhile, on the 14th, the Korea Communications Standards Commission held a telecommunications review subcommittee and decided not to block the Digital Gyodoso site. Instead, they decided to request correction (access blocking) for 17 posts containing potentially defamatory or privacy-infringing content. They judged that blocking the entire site based on some legal violations identified so far (17 out of 89 cases) would be excessive regulation.
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