Shadows of the Donation Board
Yoo Jae-won finished his call with Tiffany and immediately logged into 2CH.com on his Shell Book. It took roughly five seconds for the welcome page to load after he hit enter.
“Hmm. Slow.”
These days, a five-second load time on the welcome page would have been considered acceptable by most American netizens. Outside California, plenty of people were still on ISDN or even dial-up modems. But that standard did not apply to Yoo Jae-won. The page was nothing more than a handful of images and text. It should have appeared in under a second. Five seconds meant it was far too slow.
More importantly, the penthouse of the ID Investment Building in Manhattan—his current residence—had an ADSL test line installed. While New York had not yet launched commercial ADSL service, the completion of the second phase of the Transcontinental Information Highway had connected the California and New York data centers. The first completed segment ran from Seattle to San Diego along the West Coast. With the New York line finished, the connection from New York to the San Francisco data center now felt almost direct.
Under those conditions, five seconds was a problem.
Yoo Jae-won made a note about the speed and began scrolling through the boards. The donation board for patients with rare diseases still received the most posts. The second Security Challenge had ended in failure once again, and Yoo Jae-won had generously donated the remaining prize money to help children suffering from rare diseases. He had stirred controversy once more by letting the internet community decide the recipients. Netizens submitted patients they knew, recommendations accumulated based on sympathy for their stories, and every week the top-ranked cases received treatment funds. The event had been designed to show that the internet was not a detached cyber world but a place filled with human warmth.
The response had been strong. Because the event was global—open to any country with internet access—it had become impossible to ignore. When netizens saw that children truly in need received help through posts they had written, more and more people joined in. The coverage in the media brought enormous publicity that could not be measured in money alone. Most importantly, the number of netizens had grown, boosting traffic not only on 2CH.com but across all ID Group web services.
“Strange.”
Everything seemed to be running smoothly, yet as he browsed the boards, Yoo Jae-won sensed the odd atmosphere Tiffany had mentioned.
“This… is quite serious.”
The unmistakable stench of manipulation hung over the posts. Yoo Jae-won recognized it instantly. With over half a century of community experience, he had witnessed countless incidents unfold in real time. A quick scan of the post list and a glance at roughly ten threads was enough for him to grasp exactly what was happening.
He opened ID Talk at once, intending to summon the 2CH.com management team leader, but stopped. The workday had already ended. Though the matter was important, it was not urgent. He could not resolve it immediately anyway, so he decided to wait until morning.
The next day, at nine o’clock sharp, Yoo Jae-won opened ID Talk and sent a voice call request to the 2CH.com management team leader.
“Yes! Chairman, this is Jake, head of the 2CH management team!”
The reply came instantly. The gulf between the chairman and a team leader was vast; it was as if a division commander had personally called a small platoon. Any delay would have been strange.
“I have a few questions about 2CH.com operations.”
“Yes, please go ahead.”
“How many moderators are assigned to the donation board?”
“Well… we don’t have dedicated moderators for individual boards right now. There are too many active boards to assign one to each, and the daily hot issues on 2CH.com vary.”
Jake had hesitated at first, but once he began speaking, he answered clearly and logically. Upon reflection, he realized that responding immediately to trending issues was more practical than assigning fixed moderators to every board. 2CH.com used a thread-based system where users could create new threads freely, making individual oversight difficult.
“The donation board stays extremely active, so at least three moderators are always assigned to it.”
Three moderators? That made the current state of the board even more suspicious. Organized abusing was taking place. “Abusing” referred to the abuse, misuse, or exploitation of systems—online, it meant gaining unfair advantages through illegal or improper methods. What Yoo Jae-won had detected the previous day was systematic vote manipulation and coordinated post spamming.
The most critical factor in selecting donation recipients was the number of recommendations. Any post that entered the weekly top ten triggered verification by the information team, and if the story checked out, funding followed. Last week, the tenth-ranked post had received roughly twenty thousand recommendations, while the first place had exceeded fifty thousand. As America’s largest community site, 2CH.com had surpassed three million registered users long ago, with hundreds of thousands of concurrent users during peak evening hours. Recommendation counts in the tens of thousands were therefore normal.
Yet these numbers were inflated—artificially boosted through manipulation.
“Do you know anything about the user VoteForChild?”
“Ah! Searching now.”
“Here it is. Something seems off.”
“The registered email is [email protected]. No other personal information—interests, hobbies, or residence—has been entered. The IP address shows a connection from Los Angeles, though.”
Jake’s report continued. The username alone reeked of fabrication. Creating an online identity usually involved choosing a favorite word or adding numbers when duplicates occurred. People often spent tens of minutes agonizing over gaming handles. Yet this user had crafted an entire sentence—“Vote for Child”—as their ID from the start.
Because 2CH.com now used a unified account system, anyone with an email.com account could register after a few consent steps. The site collected optional personal details such as residence and hobbies for chat room and board matching. Most users voluntarily provided this information so their relevant rooms would appear first in searches. The design encouraged voluntary submission rather than forced collection.
Every post made under the minimally filled account promoted stories on the donation board. The account existed for a single purpose, and through that focused activity, VoteForChild had become a named user on the donation board. At a glance, the activity appeared highly positive. While the weekly top ten received priority, any post exceeding a certain recommendation threshold received additional support even if it missed the top ten. Although this policy had never been officially announced, posts with twenty thousand recommendations that failed to rank in the top ten still received extra funding—limited to one or two additional cases at most.
Because recommendations were tallied cumulatively, once a post was selected it was automatically moved to the “Verification Cases” board. Posts that missed selection one week often succeeded the next. VoteForChild seemed to have targeted exactly this mechanism. The account concentrated recommendations on borderline cases that fell just short of the cutoff, pushing them into selection range. A group of followers calling themselves VFC had even formed. Whenever VoteForChild posted, the followers swarmed to recommend it. Some even reposted the selected stories across the board. While a portion of the followers might have been genuine, Yoo Jae-won was certain that at least half were fabricated—VoteForChild was almost certainly operating multiple accounts.
“Good heavens. Chairman, I still can’t see why anyone would do this. Even if the cases they push get selected, the donations go straight to the hospitals, don’t they?”
“We’ll have to find out from now on. If there’s some hidden interest we don’t know about, it could be a serious problem.”
Yoo Jae-won had wanted to answer “money” directly, but without evidence he spoke more cautiously. He had seen similar cases in his previous life. Whether it was employment or loans, plenty of operators provided initial help to secure benefits, then collected kickbacks afterward. In this rare-disease children’s donation drive, most funds went directly to hospitals, but in special cases direct cash support was also provided. That was where problems could arise, and VoteForChild might be profiting in ways Yoo Jae-won could not yet imagine.
“More importantly, the greatest damage is that truly urgent children may be denied support because of VoteForChild’s activities.”
“This is a serious matter. I’ll investigate as quickly as possible and take action.”
“Exactly. If this turns into a manipulation scandal, the entire donation event could be tainted. We could end up spending money only to be criticized. Do your best.”
“Understood!”
“Ah, and report the progress at least once every three days.”
He had chosen three days instead of daily to avoid placing unnecessary pressure on the team.
“Yes, Chairman.”
After ending the ID Talk call, Yoo Jae-won remained seated. A new thought struck him.
“If even a donation drive this far removed from personal gain has this kind of problem, what about other sites?”
Online shopping malls were already springing up like mushrooms after rain. The online payment system had been completed through ID High Tech, and with technical support from ID Technology, anyone could implement it in their own mall for a small fee. As a result, sites selling handmade goods and full-scale shopping malls had appeared. Even Lightning Bolt’s online store selling electric bicycles was thriving. Model 1, still positioned at the top, had sold fifty units thanks to Yoo Jae-won serving as its poster model, while the budget Model 2 had sold hundreds. Most sales came from Silicon Valley and Los Angeles, but orders had arrived from major cities like New York and Chicago, and even from Iowa. Amazon—the jungle monster—had not yet emerged, yet early movers had already claimed the best positions, potentially leaving no room for Amazon this time.
ESD.com had also begun selling software online. Because America was a place where people lived, imitators appeared whenever Yoo Jae-won pioneered something. As soon as ESD.com launched, copycat sites selling games online had followed. The scale of online shopping was rising rapidly. Unlike the rare-disease donation drive, this was a field where clear financial interests were at stake. Fair competition based solely on skill and quality would have been ideal, but with people like VoteForChild appearing, that hope was unrealistic.
Yoo Jae-won decided to personally investigate all online sites owned by ID Group and instructed the information team to assess the situation on other companies’ sites. After finishing his business in New York, he returned to San Francisco, where he received a warm welcome from acquaintances. Having become the undisputed new star of the IT world through Android’s listing, even Remington and Tiffany offered heartfelt congratulations.
Celebrations required parties. Friends from San Francisco gathered at Yoo Jae-won’s house for a wild celebration. The only flaw was the absence of alcohol. Though the occasion was special enough to justify drinking, Yoo Jae-won upheld his personal conviction with unyielding stubbornness. Still, the sheer scale of his success made it clear that one could lose oneself in revelry even without a single drop of alcohol.
February 7th. Gimpo International Airport’s immigration area was more crowded than usual. Strangely, almost no one was departing; most people had gathered in front of the arrivals gate. The reason was simple: today was the day Yoo Jae-won, who had kept Korea abuzz since the previous year, was returning home.
Since the 1990s, Yoo Jae-won had been a walking source of exclusive scoops. Anything he touched was newsworthy enough for the front page. Last December he had shaken the nation with the lawsuit for victims of Japanese colonial rule. In January, an unprecedented judicial upheaval occurred when he intervened in the colonial-era trials, resulting in the impeachment of eight judges. It was the first crack in the seemingly impregnable world of judges, the ultimate iron rice bowl. It was also the first time the constitutional principle of separation of powers had functioned properly in Korea. The aftershocks were still unfolding, and political circles centered on the Blue House, the business world, and now ordinary citizens were all watching closely to see how the repercussions would play out.
Almost everyone knew that Yoo Jae-won stood behind the judicial reform. The first to call for a National Assembly investigation of the judiciary had been the Tongil National Party, whose leader was Jeon Myeong-heon, but no one was unaware that Yoo Jae-won stood behind Jeon Myeong-heon. Furthermore, because ID Group had orchestrated the media’s unified voice, anyone who read newspapers or watched television naturally learned of his involvement.
Now that same Yoo Jae-won was returning—bringing with him an enormous sum of 12 billion dollars. Countless people had been stunned upon calculating how much that was in Korean won. At the same time, many watched closely to see how he would spend such a vast fortune. Everyone now accepted that wherever Yoo Jae-won moved, a goldmine appeared. Therefore, the moment he announced any investment, people prepared to follow with their own capital.
Interestingly, it was not only the quick-witted who made such preparations. Even chaebol families with hundreds of billions or trillions of won in assets were mobilizing their maximum information-gathering capabilities to track Yoo Jae-won’s movements. Under these circumstances, his arrival in Korea naturally drew a crowd large enough to overwhelm Gimpo Airport’s arrivals hall.
A few minutes later, someone shouted, “He’s coming out!” As if on cue, every gaze and every camera swung toward the arrivals gate. The doors opened, and Yoo Jae-won appeared in a suit and winter coat. The reporters’ clamor reached its peak.