So, I go to pay my rent online... I dread doing it. I know that it will be nothing but pure PAIN! And no, this is not a self fulfilling prophecy. I've just done this stuff too many times and know better.
I can at least say that I no longer get the ol' BSOD because of the shitware the banks install on my computer. Those days seem to be gone. (Cross fingers! No jinxes! No jinxes!) Seriously -- I used to get BSOD's regularly on the KEB site (Korean side). That's pretty hard to do on Windows 2000 (which I was using at the time).
Well, the last time I paid a few bills online, everything went to pot. It took me over 1.5 hours to get my computer back to normal working order. Stuff was just screwed up after using the site.
This time around, it only took me 1 hour to get things done... Here's where I went wrong...
So I login to the Korea Exchange Bank site in the Korean language part - not the English one. I get so far and guess what? My security certificate has expired... Blast it! Just another PITA to deal with. Oh well, I'm feeling lazy so I go over to the English site. Rinse. Repeat. Same error. Drat. Well, I expected that anyways. But at least I have the error code to look up... Cross fingers again...
I get to the FAQ where it talks about certificates, blah, blah, blah. Fortunately I understand hard core Konglish enough to get through almost any blood-bath that someone somewhere would call English... Follow the directions... Nope. Not there. None of it. I try every possible path I can see to find how to reissue a secure certificate for myself. Can't do it on the Korea Exchange Bank English site.
I'll admit, I've tried to use the English site before and given up. It's useless. You're better off poking your eyes out with white hot chopsticks then doing a swan dive off of the 63 Building. You'd get further. And it would be less painful than the KEB English site.
So, after wasting all that time, I go back to the Korean side of the KEB site, login, get an error code, look it up in the FAQ, run around following directions that get me nowhere but frustrated, then finally try something different. Well, lo-and-behold. I'm done in 5 minutes or so.
With my shiny new certificate, I can finally get things done again. And within minutes all is well... Or at least I hope so... I've been scared to check that machine to see if the 'security software' has messed it up again. I just don't want to deal with that pain yet again.
Oh, for those that don't know, security certificates do have expiry dates, but that doesn't make them any less secure. Whether or not a certificate is in the root, or expired has no bearing on the validity of it doing it's job (encryption that is -- security certificates are a total joke when it comes to authentication, and are entirely and completely and utterly broken in that regard). Those that run secure web servers over SSL will understand this if they've ever done much work with certificates.
Sigh...
The Korean side of the KEB web site is actually pretty good in a lot of ways. Sure if it were up to me, I'd likely fire most everyone involved in the decision making of it for using ActiveX all over the place (not entirely their fault though as the companies that make the software lobbied to have it made law), but overall, things work more or less ok if you follow the exact way that they want you to do things.
One of the really nice things that the KEB site has implemented is the ability to get all your records with a simple search. It's actually very typical of Korean sites to do things this way, and not a surprise at all. However, if you're used to the way most western web sites work, it's a sheer joy to get things done the Korean way. Western web sites generally have some of the worst interfaces for accessing data that I've seen. There's simply too much pagination and too many searches are required to get a data set. Korean sites will generally return a complete data set (although still paginated of course) where on many western styled sites you'll need to do several queries to get the complete data set.
The point of all this? No. "It ain't 'all good'!" Some is good. Other stuff is just plain rotten.
I'll skip my rant on the JuMinDeungNokBunHo (Citizen Registration Number -- similar to an SSN) as I'm not even remotely capable of staying cool on that issue. Then again, maybe I should save that rant for another time when I'm good & liquored up! ;)
Cheers,
Ryan