NEWS from ni channel(www.2ch.net)

National exam-related info appears on Net before tests
2005.01.18

Information relating to national English and Japanese examinations for entry into universities and colleges appeared on an Internet bulletin board before the exams were held, it has been learned.

The Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology has ordered the National Center for University Entrance Examinations, which conducts the tests, to conduct an investigation.

The messages appeared on the "Ni Channeru" (Channel 2) Web site, Japan's biggest Internet bulletin board.

Shortly after 1 a.m. on Jan. 15, a thread with the Japanese title "Hello, this is Pat's Brother Kevin," was set up on the bulletin board. At the beginning of the thread was an English message in Japanese characters that said, "Hello, my name is Kevin."

On the same day, about eight hours later, a character named Kevin appeared in a question in the national English examination. The question contained the phrase "Hi, my name is Kevin."

The following day, just before 1 a.m., a posting on an online bulletin board discussing the exam problem said, "The novel is by Shusaku Endo."

About nine hours later, Shusaku Endo's novel "Nikushin Saikai" was taken up in two Japanese examinations. Afterwards, many messages were posted on the bulletin board citing a possible leak.

Ministry officials said it was unlikely that information from the examination had been leaked.

"The questions are strictly controlled. A leak is unthinkable in the first place," a ministry official said. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Jan. 18, 2005)

Thousands of e-mail death threats directed at a professional mah-jongg player flooded one of Japan's most traveled Internet sites just hours after she won a defamation case against the site's operator, the Mainichi has learned.

Kaori Shimizu was forced to flee for her life in the wake of the online attack sparked by her legal win over the operator of the Ni Channel bulletin board.

Shimizu, 30, sued Nishimura after comments appeared on Ni Channel saying that she had undergone too many cosmetic surgery operations. Shimizu won the case on June 25, when the Tokyo District Court ruled that it was not possible to judge that she had undergone cosmetic surgery.

Within hours of the ruling, thousands of threatening and defaming messages directed against Shimizu were posted on Ni Channel. A simultaneous attack on her mah-jongg club's website shut it down. Some of the messages read: "I'm going to beat you to death;" "Beware of walking dark streets;" and "You hideous cosmetic surgery monster."

Administrators of her mah-jongg club's website were also slammed with over 100,000 spam messages, forcing them to shut down the site.

But the man who lost to Shimizu in a Tokyo District Court battle has also come out fighting, saying the mah-jongg pro was greedy and deserved all she got.

Shimizu's lawyer, Naru Nakajima, delivered a scathing attack on the anonymity provided by the Internet, implying that it allows offenders to avoid prosecution perpetually.

"Since all the threats came when we won the court case, I have been thinking of new laws that need to be put in place. Messages can be sent over the Net anonymously, which makes their damage more serious than normal defamation," Nakajima said. "We need to set up an independent third party that can collect and administer information received and only allow messages to be posted once they have gone through this third party."

Hiroyuki Nishimura, the administrator of Ni Channel who was forced to pay 1 million yen in compensation and remove defamatory messages from his site, had little sympathy for Shimizu, just one of many who have sued him over comments placed on the site.

"She didn't only want the messages about her removed, but initiated the legal proceedings because she sought to take money off the operators of the site. I think that really upset the general users of the site who don't know Ms. Shimizu," Nishimura said, adding that he also had problems with defamation laws, though not seeing things from Nakajima's viewpoint. "Existing laws were drawn up with publishers and readers in mind. They probably don't take into account such media as bulletin boards."

Shimizu's home address had also been listed on Ni Channel, forcing her to flee to her parents' home. She is unable to turn up to the mah-jongg club where she is the club professional because of fears that someone will carry out their threats.

Nishimura, whose site gets the traffic and following capable of unleashing such an attack, has paid heavily for the freedom that has made Ni Channel famous in Japan. He lost defamation suits in December last year and again in July, while another company sued him in May, demanding 10 million yen in compensation for what it says were inflammatory comments made about it on the site he runs. (Mainichi Shimbun, Japan, Aug. 13, 2003)