Despite efforts to shut down businesses operating in the sex trade, the dispersal of lurid flyers with phone numbers printed on them has made it difficult to slow down individual operators. (Image: Yonhap)
SEOUL, Aug. 23 (Korea Bizwire) — The Seoul Metropolitan Government has ratcheted up its struggle against organized prostitution by developing technology that will clog up telephone lines used by brothels.
Despite efforts to shut down businesses operating in the sex trade, the dispersal of lurid flyers with phone numbers printed on them has made it difficult to slow down individual operators.
Under the new scheme, the city will collect phone numbers of suspected businesses from the flyers and feed the numbers into the newly developed program. The numbers will be collected from government officials, NGOs and civilians who wish to report phone numbers of businesses in the sex trade.
The program will then make phone calls to the inputted numbers once every three seconds. If the receiver of the phone call blocks the program’s caller id number, the program will use a different number and repeat the process. In this way, the technology completely incapacitates the business’s phone line.
If the receiver of the phone call blocks the program’s caller id number, the program will use a different number and repeat the process. (Image: Seoul Metropolitan Government)
The system has been in operation since the beginning of this month.
In a statement, the city said, “Until now, [the city] had worked with the three major telecommunications companies to shut down the accounts of businesses that engage in prostitution, but the process would take five to seven days. Within that time, the guilty parties would change their numbers and redistribute fliers.”
Businesses avoid detection by using a variety of identities to register for phone numbers.
In August 2013, the city of Seoul and the three major telecommunications companies signed an MOU to prevent prostitution. Thus far, the initiative has resulted in the suspension of 891 accounts.
Kevin Lee (kevinlee@koreabizwire.com)
