Many web sites, legit or otherwise, require a citizen registration number, something akeen to a Social Security number, and usually a name to go with that, in order to access them. The Aliens Registration Number system, which was supposed to mimic the locals’ and enable us to do stuff online, just plain doesn’t work. Not that the gubmint is at fault here – well maybe a bit; it’s mainly the web sites operators who never bothered to update the checking algorithm. Why break something that works? 90% of the time that is…

Well, then, here’s an easy, albeit less than legal way to pass through this stupid checking sheme. If you live in Korea, you probably have a kitchen, or something that passes for a kitchen in the Land of the Morning Calm [cuz they too hung over to shout, yet]. That kitchen is prolly connected to the city gas network, which means that some people installed it, and later on checked on it. And left a nifty footprint for you to look at [well, it’s more intended for inspectors to look at, in case of an accident. But if your kitchen blows up, you’ll see that the footprint will most possibly disappear…]. Here goes:

See the grey sticker I surrounded in red for your convenience? Good, this thing has three people’s names and 住民登錄番號. For you to reuse, because that’s the only use you’ll ever have for these. Guess what’s going to happen if your little two-burners range blows up because of a bad connection or else? Hmmm…? That sticker is likely to burn and with it all records of who did what. It’s just show, so you better do something useful with it…

This entry was posted on Monday, November 14th, 2005 at 4:16 am and is filed under Korea, Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.