By For those that haven’t been following Korean politics these past few weeks, Ahn Cheol-soo is an anti-virus software entrepreneur turned academic who has shot to high levels of popularity in Korea when Seoul’s mayor stepped down and Ahn’s supporters advocated for him to run. Ahn ended up declining to run for Mayor of Seoul but instead may have his sights set on the Blue House instead:
The spectacular ascent of Ahn Cheol-soo, a doctor-turned software mogul, over Korea’s political landscape has shown a sign of sagging, at least for now, with a new JoongAng Ilbo poll forecasting that Park Geun-hye would edge him out by 0.3 percentage points in a two-way competition for the next presidency.
In two polls conducted by local research groups Tuesday, the day Ahn decided not to run for Seoul Mayor, Ahn led the former Grand National Party chairwoman by 2.6 percentage points and 1.9 percentage points respectively, the first time Park had been knocked out of her frontrunner status for the presidential race since 2008.
But political analysts said things could change after the Chuseok holiday, during which the public may share their views with their families and clarify their political opinions.
The JoongAng Ilbo conducted a simulated presidential election poll on 1,000 adults across the country on Thursday, in which Park garnered the backing of 46.6 percent of the respondents, compared with 46.3 percent for Ahn, on the assumption that the election was a two-way race. The poll’s margin of error was plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
In a hypothetical competition among three candidates including opposition Democratic Party chairman Sohn Hak-kyu, Park earned 43.6 percent of the votes as opposed to Ahn’s 38.3 percent and Sohn’s 13.9 percent. [Joong Ang Ilbo]
This all kind of reminds me of another political outsider who came out of nowhere to win the Korean Presidency Roh Moo-hyun in 2002 and we all know how well that worked out. It will be interesting to see how this all plays out in the coming months.
6:19 pm on September 12th, 2011 1
Strange resemblance… Seriously try this:
Go to
http://images.google.com/
Type in “Ahn Cheol-soo”
Then open a new tab, go to the same link. This time type in “Ken Jeong”
Do you see what I see??? Is the guy with the tiny wang from The Hangover part II potentially running for K-prez?
6:29 pm on September 12th, 2011 2
Oh, I used Ahnlabs anti-virus software when I was in Korea before. It was pretty useful actually. Since he’s an actual entrepreneur and not some left wing student activist turned lawyer, and pretty smart, I wouldn’t want to insult him by comparing him to that cordless bungee jumping dog.
6:34 pm on September 12th, 2011 3
Still, what’s he doing supportingthese guys
6:37 pm on September 12th, 2011 4
Is it really an insult to note that he looks like a certain physician turned actor?
I seem to remember many people and newspapers noting Obama’s striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler.
This guy isn’t even a real politcian yet. Get off your high horse.
7:40 pm on September 12th, 2011 5
park jung hee was the best president of Korea
7:53 pm on September 12th, 2011 6
Now you insult the guy from Hangover II by confusing him with that parachuteless sky diving champion Noh Muhyeon
7:55 pm on September 12th, 2011 7
Orbit – are you a Han Nara Dang kind of guy?
12:19 am on September 13th, 2011 8
i remember every korean computer i ever used with this ahn labs software was in fact infected with multiple viruses!
1:54 am on September 13th, 2011 9
If Park is elected I dearly hope she is at least more dedicated than 2MB in military matters.
4:39 am on September 13th, 2011 10
Buddha: Errr… probably because of peer to peer programs of the time?
9:36 am on September 13th, 2011 11
I agree with Buddha.
Korean anti-virus software is not only useless in detecting many viruses, it also intentionally ignores Korean corporate adware, spyware, nuisanceware, redirectware, and trackingware.
When computers don’t work, everybody comes to me… and online scanners always find a number of viruses the popular Korean programs don’t ever see.
Further, there are always virus-like resource-hogging processes running which pretend to be toolbars or shopping agents or some other nonsense… that Korean websites install automatically or force customers to install to access their services.
And there is no shortage of network connections as these processes dutifully report back to the home office whatever information they collect from the computer.
Somebody just gave me a 3 year-old Toshiba notebook and got a new one because it “didn’t work anymore”. There was so much crapware installed that it was almost unusable… and the Internet took forevvvvver to load.
One fresh Windows XP SP3 Black Edition later, it runs like a champ.
Anyway, if Ahn runs the nation like he makes software, it will not work well and the corporations will get the hook-up.
2:37 pm on September 13th, 2011 12
Korea needs to scrap the winner-by-plurality system and have run-off elections between the two vote getters if no one gets 50% of the result.
5:59 pm on September 13th, 2011 13
How many entrepreneur-Communists are there in California too? The two are not mutually exclusive as it seems an ability to write lines does not prevent political blindness. How blind do you have to be anyway living so close to the DMZ and holding his views?
8:38 pm on September 13th, 2011 14
Gotta agree with Chicken Head here, that Ahn-lab anti-virus ware is crap. Any freeware that you can download (AVG, Avira, etc) will out preform it. But it’s a Korean company and they’ve convinced my Uni, like much of the rest of the country, to pre-load it onto all university computers which have to run it if they want to connect to the internet on campus or access the university server. (It’s so useless that the students even refer to the server as the “University Virus System”.) I have to scan any USB drive I stick into a uni computer afterwards because 50% of the time they’re infected.
10:26 pm on September 13th, 2011 15
Angus,
Thanks to Microsoft’s complete lack of care, understanding, or scruples, USB sticks are worthless…
…dirtier than the pile of used tissues next to the glory hole in a San Francisco bathhouse…
…as Windows seems to be needlessly designed to receive infection off of them and then easily retransmit the infection.
A read-only USB stick with a portable virus scanner is one option.
With an Internet connection, you can use the Cloud to access your files… although that requires typing in a password to access your account.
My preferred method is to use my 32 gig smartphone as a webserver and transfer files to the computer over wireless… although that requires a wireless connection.
I recently had to transfer files to fix an isolated industrial control computer system that had become infected via USB stick. I simply bought a $30 USB Ethernet adapter and tethered off my phone to download Avast and other freeware tools to it. Everything stayed isolated, the problems were identified and fixed, and I disconnected the USB plug so the idiots working there won’t shut production down again.
Anyway, that’s my rant on USB sticks, worthless Korean anti-virus software, Microsoft’s seemingly-intentional lack of security, and a computer culture that dips their stick into anything and everything without concern.
2:49 am on September 14th, 2011 16
Ditto on the uselessness of Ahnlabs. I ran Avast on my notebook, and my office had Ahnlabs. Ahnlabs missed quite a few viruses that Avast picked up. Note that my company used the pay version of Ahnlabs, and I had the free version of Avast.
4:58 am on September 14th, 2011 17
What are his main political planks? You guys only seem to care about his software.
8:48 am on September 14th, 2011 18
Sand Sailor,
Who cares about his politics… or whatever pleasing soundbite he might represent as his politics.
Everything I need to know about him can be learned from the crapware he has tricked or bribed much of Korea into buying.
Does this type of mentality go away when one wins an election?
12:08 pm on September 14th, 2011 19
It’s just that, considering Roh was the most destructive politician in East Asia in recent memory, comparing anyone to him is a bold statement.
1:47 pm on September 14th, 2011 20
Chicken Head,
I hear you on USB sticks. I’ve moved all my work files onto Dropbox this month. I was going to use a Bangkok whorehouse as an analogy but a SF bathhouse works too.
2:08 pm on September 14th, 2011 21
Damn, I need to to half-ass cover for people more often so I can get such strong and good come back arguments.
2:15 pm on September 14th, 2011 22
Sand Sailor wrote:
I’m no fan of Roh, but “the most destructive”?
2:20 pm on September 14th, 2011 23
Yes. Can you think of one East Asian politician in the last 15 years who did more to sow discord in the region than Roh did?
2:25 pm on September 14th, 2011 24
I don’t use USB sticks very often. If I buy a new one, should I expect it to be infected before I even open the package? Or can I safely use it to transfer data between my own computers?
2:30 pm on September 14th, 2011 25
What are your parameters? What did Roh do to “sow discord” to such a degree that he was “the most destructive”? Is merely sowing discord “destructive”? Are we keeping PRC and DPRK leadership out of consideration (and if so, on what basis)?
2:33 pm on September 14th, 2011 26
I guess you have a point. I wasn’t considering Kim or the nationalists in the PRC government.
3:25 pm on September 14th, 2011 27
Ahh, Roh. The first image of Roh I remember is when he was the minister of Fishery or something like that in DJ govt. Under his watch, SK govt gave up or planted the seeds of renewed effort by Japan to reclaim Dokdo. The image I specifically remember is when he hurriedly runs away from camera in the airport, with the look of nervousness/scared.
Still cannot believe he managed to be elected. One prime example of good tool (internet and free flow of information, good and bad) being abused.
3:36 pm on September 14th, 2011 28
VAN HALEN on Noh Mu hyeon’s best decision