Chapter 448 |
OTK Company sent a cooperation request to internet service providers and telecommunication companies under the name of the Vice President to block illegal sharing sites.
SSK Broadband, CL Internet, GH Good Morning, SSK Telecom, CL Telecom, KTT, and other companies that received this were surprised.
There are all sorts of illegal sites on the internet. The companies were trying their best to block them, but there were limits.
But suddenly, the Vice President of OTK Company took issue with this problem.
Due to his investment in OTK Games, his debate with the Minister of Gender Equality and Family on behalf of the game industry, and his support for VRMMRPG production, the Vice President's reputation had risen to a level comparable to Kang Jin-hoo. And he was famous for always doing what he set his mind to.
How many companies in Korea right now can afford to ignore OTK Company's wishes?
Emergency meetings were held at each company, and orders were given.
"Block access to that Helltokkaeng site or whatever it's called!"
"We will monitor 24 hours from now on!"
They even decided to cooperate with their competitors to build a joint monitoring system.
***
With a single cooperation request sent by Oh Taekgyu, the website blocking was carried out in a flash.
As the sites that had been accessible until then became unavailable, posts complaining about the Helltokkaeng access failure started popping up on webtoon communities.
-Is Helltokkaeng not working for anyone else?
-No, why can't I access it?
-Damn it! Today's the day 'SSS-Class Transfer Student' comes out ㅜㅜ
-LOL, just pay to read it.
-No, I have my pride as a Helltokkaeng user.
-Are there any other sites besides Helltokkaeng?
-You can bypass the block if you just install a program. I'm watching it just fine that way~
-Why does the access keep getting blocked?
-It's probably because the greedy webtoon artists keep reporting it.
-If I find it interesting after reading it for free, won't I buy it anyway? If they keep doing this, they'll be cutting off their own lifeline.
-Just wait. It's probably a concentrated crackdown period. It'll be unblocked after it passes anyway.
-I'll have to binge-read it after it's unblocked.
The immediate fire was put out, but the problem was not solved. The server was still fine, and access from overseas or through a bypass was still possible.
The operator of Helltokkaeng posted a notice saying that there was an access failure. But they had no intention of shutting down, as they kindly provided instructions on how to bypass the block and distributed a program that could neutralize the block.
Well, it would be a shame to shut down a popular site.
Taekgyu blocked access for everyone else, but he himself bypassed the block and spent hours looking at the site. Of course, it wasn't to read webtoons for free; he was busy digging through the community.
A moment later, Taekgyu's head shot up as if he had discovered something.
"Heh! I've figured out your operating pattern."
"What is it?"
"It's not weak, weak, strong, strong, weak, weak, medium, weak... it's that this guy is an otaku."
"Huh?"
"He's been posting webtoon recommendations and reviews under the nickname Arirang. He even has a separate section for the operator's recommended works on the site. I've read all of his posts, and he's an expert on games, manga, and anime."
This active community involvement by the operator was a great help in growing Helltokkaeng in its early days.
"And his email address starts with 'arirang'. People often use the same ID, nickname, and email address, right?"
"That's probably true."
Why Arirang of all things? Is he a patriot?
"Just in case, I searched for all IDs and nicknames related to Arirang on Ruliweb and the DQ Gallery, which are frequented by otakus."
"Did you find anything?"
Taekgyu showed me the screen.
"Yeah. This guy, Ari_rang_Na, is active on Ruliweb, and his hobby is collecting figures. I think he's the operator of Helltokkaeng."
I was surprised.
"Why do you think so?"
"The way he talks in his posts is similar. The jokes and expressions he uses for analogies. Otakus have a habit of pushing what they're into, no matter what anyone says. And the time he started seriously collecting figures and resin kits is similar to when Helltokkaeng took off. He says he works for a small IT company, but he has a figure that costs 2 million won. If you add up everything he's posted, it would be over 20 million. Wouldn't that be difficult on a small company's salary?"
To someone who doesn't know, it might seem strange to buy that for that price, but that's what collecting is all about, isn't it?
Taekgyu opened another screen.
"This is an Akina figure he posted a month ago to show off. It's a limited edition sold by LC Soft in Korea."
"So?"
"It's highly likely that he's in Korea."
"...Huh?"
Taekgyu explained again.
"It's a domestic limited edition. You can't get it delivered to a foreign address."
"He could have bought it secondhand at a premium."
"It's not valuable enough for that. It probably hasn't even been fully released yet. And if he's hiding overseas, would he be in the mood to collect this many figures? What if they get damaged while moving them later?"
That's a pretty convincing argument. Above all, who would know an otaku's heart better than another otaku?
"So how are you going to catch him?"
"I have a plan."
Taekgyu called Team Leader Jung Gi-hong and gave him instructions.
"Please find me a skilled programmer."
***
Park Jeong-seon.
After graduating from a university in a rural area, he moved to Seoul and lived in a gosiwon while preparing for the civil service exam. But like most civil service exam takers, he failed every time.
His hobbies were watching games, anime, manga, and webtoons.
A paid webtoon usually costs 200-300 won per chapter, but this was a big burden for him. So he usually used illegal sharing sites that didn't cost any money.
But these sites had problems. The connection was slow, the UI was messy, the search didn't work properly, and new releases were often delayed. And the pop-up ads were so annoying.
'They must be making a lot of money from ads, so why don't they manage it better? I could make a better one myself.'
One day, on a whim, he decided to create his own illegal sharing site.
With the programming skills he had taught himself, he created a website called Helltokkaeng and scraped webtoons from various sites. He also put effort into the community. He personally wrote recommendations and reviews, and made some 19+ content accessible through points earned from community activities.
The result was a great success. The pirates who had been tired of the shabby illegal sharing sites went wild for Helltokkaeng.
-Thanks for the great read.
-It was a webtoon I really wanted to see, thank you so much!
-Are you not going to upload Sam-pyeon-dol-i's webtoons?
-Please upload Pil-yu's 'The Saber'~
-I use a lot of sharing sites, but this one is the cleanest!
-Please continue to provide good materials in the future ^^
-Thank you, operator!
As the number of users increased, advertising inquiries poured in from all over. Since it was an illegal sharing site, the ads were naturally illegal as well.
[Night King, promoting a healthy sexual culture!]
[VVIP Casino, Macau Nara!]
[Live betting on overseas casinos! No betting rules, no exchange rules, no rolling restrictions!]
[Screen horse racing! 100,000 won for new members!]
[100% payout sports toto! Let's go to toto!]
[Top 1% secret meetings, water mill...]
As the advertising revenue started to roll in, his life became more comfortable.
'I would have been in big trouble if I had become a civil servant.'
There was no longer any reason to cling to the civil service exam. He quit studying and focused on running the site.
He even created a program that automatically extracted new works from the official sites and uploaded them to his own.
When the business grew to the point where he could no longer manage it alone, he brought in three acquaintances he had met while preparing for employment.
Two of them set up an office in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, hired a Vietnamese programmer to manage the servers, and one of them managed the test server in Korea.
And Park Jeong-seon was in charge of all of this.
As he diligently grew the site, Helltokkaeng eventually surpassed Neotin Webtoon, the strongest player in the webtoon industry, and became the number one webtoon site.
It even ranked 13th in terms of the number of visitors among all sites in Korea!
Considering that Helltokkaeng was the only illegal site among the top 20, it was a great achievement.
As a result, the advertising revenue skyrocketed. The price of a banner ad went from 100,000 won to 10 million won, and the ad unit price for the main page and pop-ups exceeded 20 million won!
Nevertheless, there was a frenzy of requests to place ads. But he did not forget the inconvenience he had experienced as a user.
'Too many pop-up ads can inconvenience the users. The user comes first!'
He was a manager with a long-term vision rather than immediate profit. (Even though it was illegal)
Excluding various operating expenses and the money he gave to his colleagues, he was making well over 100 million won a month.
Studying for exams in a cramped gosiwon was a thing of the past. He moved his home and office to a luxury officetel and bought the Porsche he had always dreamed of.
Outside, he acted like a young IT entrepreneur. He even had a plausible-looking business card made.
'I'll work hard, make 10 billion, and then retire. I'll get to be called a young chaebol like Kang Jin-hoo!'
He was proud to see the number of users growing and the site getting bigger every day, but a big problem arose. The website started to be blocked on both wired and wireless networks.
Until then, Helltokkaeng had been operating by changing its domain every time the website was blocked. This usually happened every 3-4 months, but now it was being blocked almost every day.
He quickly changed the domain, but as soon as he announced the new domain on Twooter, it was blocked again.
Park Jeong-seon was surprised.
"No, why are these bastards suddenly working so hard?"
When this situation continued for about a week, the number of daily visitors decreased by a fifth. Complaints from advertisers flooded in, and some expressed their intention to cancel their ads.
'I was just starting to make some real money!'
He couldn't just close a business that was making hundreds of millions of won in monthly revenue.
He actively promoted the bypass method instead of changing the domain and pondered how to attract new users.
***
Seoul Metropolitan Police Agency.
Hong Seong-wan, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Commissioner, welcomed a visitor. He handed over hundreds of complaints. The complaints were filed on behalf of the artists from webtoon platforms such as Neotin Webtoon, Lezhin Comics, Toomics, and Toontoon Net, and they demanded that the operators of illegal sharing sites, including Helltokkaeng, be punished.
Oh Taekgyu gave a passionate speech about how much harm illegal sharing does to the content market.
"I heard that they have been continuously filing complaints, but there have been no significant results. That's why I came to see you like this."
Hong Seong-wan, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Commissioner, sighed as if he was frustrated.
"I understand what you're saying. But it's a misunderstanding that the police are not properly investigating these problems. We would be happy to catch all the criminals."
In the 21st century, more crimes are committed on the internet than in reality.
Malicious comments, distribution of obscene materials, fraud, illegal sharing, defamation, dissemination of false information, keyboard battles, and so on. And there are so many scammers on Joonggonara that there is no end to them, no matter how many you catch.
Therefore, the cyber investigation team was swamped with work every day. In this situation, it was unreasonable to focus solely on cracking down on illegal sharing sites.
"What couldn't we do if we had more manpower? To get rid of all the illegal sites on the internet, we would need more than ten times the current number of personnel."
Taekgyu nodded his head.
"I am well aware of the fact that the Korean police are working tirelessly day and night. So, on behalf of the busy police, I did some research."
"Excuse me?"
"I have found three shell accounts for Helltokkaeng."
Hong Seong-wan, the Seoul Metropolitan Police Commissioner, was flustered after seeing the documents Taekgyu handed him and asked.
"How did you find this out?"
The method was surprisingly simple.
First, he hired a programmer to create a plausible-looking illegal site by copying existing adult or gambling sites. With the 10 or so sites he created, he placed advertising inquiries on Helltokkaeng.
At that time, due to the continuous access failures, other advertisers were turning their backs on them. Therefore, the Helltokkaeng side responded diligently.
For security, all conversations were conducted through untraceable overseas messenger programs and email, not by phone.
But no matter how thoroughly they concealed their identity, they needed an account to receive the advertising fees. Of course, it would be a shell account, but this could be a basis for tracking.
"If you check where and when the withdrawals were made, couldn't you narrow down the area?"
"That's true, but the operator is overseas, and we can't rule out the possibility that there is a separate withdrawal person."
"No. This guy is definitely in Korea."
At Taekgyu's assertion, Hong Seong-wan, the police commissioner, was confused and asked.
"Why are you so sure?"
"I analyzed the community posts and..."
Taekgyu explained in detail how he came to that conclusion.
"Ah... a limited edition figure?"
As he was thinking to himself, 'What the hell is that?', the explanation continued.
"And think about it. The advertising fees alone are probably 300 million won a month. Due to the nature of shell accounts, they could be frozen at any time, so the money has to be withdrawn immediately and stored or transferred to another account. According to my analysis, the operator is diligent, meticulous, and cautious. A person with this personality would not entrust money management to someone else."
"..."
'He's acting like a profiler.'
In any case, now that they had found the shell account, they could definitely catch the withdrawal person. And through that withdrawal person, they could track the operator.
"First, if you check the CCTV at the branches where the money in this shell account is mainly withdrawn, I will deposit the advertising fees. Then he will move to withdraw the money. You can arrest him then, can't you?"
The police commissioner was surprised and asked.
"You'll deposit it yourself? Once you deposit it, there's no guarantee that you'll get the money back."
"That's not important at all. If we can just catch this guy, what's a few tens of millions of won? Right now, Neotin Webtoon and other webtoon sites are grinding their teeth because of Helltokkaeng. If we just solve this, it will be on the main news of the media and portals. Not only will we give all the credit to the police, but we will also actively promote the police's achievements through OTK Games."
"Hmm."
It would definitely be a big issue if they could catch the operator. Now that some information had been confirmed, there was no reason not to do it.
And he would stay out of it and give all the credit to the police?
"If you don't think you can do it, tell me now. I'm going to the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office. I think Prosecutor General Ahn Seong-nam will be very interested if I tell him."
The fact that the Seoul Central District Prosecutors' Office had caught a coin-based pyramid scheme gang after receiving information from the vice president of OTK Company was famous.
What would happen if the prosecution solved a case that the police had sent back, saying they couldn't solve it?
There was no need to think about it anymore.
The police commissioner said urgently.
"No. Please leave it to us. The police will definitely catch these guys."
Taekgyu nodded his head in satisfaction.
"Good! That's the spirit."