On the AETACK

On November 11, 1997, Stars and Stripes published the following article about AETACK .


AETACK's online postings can be found in Google Groups here. It's rather impressive that you can still read it after all this time.

The Korea Times article that is referred to above may be this one, from November 6, 1997:

Korea's International Image Faces Abuse in Cyberspace

Korea's international image has recently faced abuse on the Internet and in computer games sold in the U.S. A group calling themselves the American English Teachers Attacking Corrupt Koreans (AETACK) have sent random inflammatory anti-Korean electronic mail to subscribers on the Internet.

In one poison missive sent to members of America On Line entitled"No Visa Waiver For Korea," the message said "(We) feel that Korea does not deserve this privilege because of its behavior toward us and other foreign workers," adding that "the Korean economy is sinking into debt oblivion so they don't have much money to spend...there is also the threat of opening the door to Korean Mafia-style criminals who are acknowledged to be a problem by the FBI."

The group, apparently based in Korea, has become also the center of controversy for anonymously posting similar messages on opinion boards on the Internet.

One letter on the site of a local English newspaper said, "Some members may take other views. The common thread that holds this loose knit organization together is our shared desire to improve the working conditions of ESL teachers in Korea."

In another posting, Jeffrey M. Whitbread of Puchon, Kyonggi-do wrote in reply, "(AETACK is) using this as an excuse to bash Korea and make derogatory statements about Koreans, nothing more."

Another unidentified Korean-American also added, "(AETACK) crosses any lines, race or sex, and has a kinship with the Ku Klux Klan, skinheads... (those) who feel they have a legitimate cause but who are on the order of magnitude worse than whatever evils they are trying to eradicate."

The giant software company, Microsoft, was also recently condemned for creating and selling a computer game which depicts Koreans as a primitive race who go about without any clothing and live in makeshift homes made of coconut leaves.

Kim Chae-min, head of Microsoft Korea, asked for greater tolerance of the Korean public since it was a game and not any form of historical documentation.

Microsoft had earlier caused a public outcry in Korea for identifying the island of Tok-do, off the east coast, as Japanese territory on one of its CD-ROM products.

AETACK = KKK. Thanks Korea Times. Too bad a little bit of sugar wasn't used to make the "shared desire to improve the working conditions of ESL teachers in Korea" aspect go down better. Obviously their tone guaranteed a 'circle the wagons' response, not that it takes much to get that, wherever one is. And obviously no one took their complaints about Microsoft further than an 'outcry'...