"Access Block" Digital Prison Announces Resumption of Operations... "Too Valuable to Disappear"

Digital Prison "From Now On, Personal Information Will Be Disclosed Only When There Is Clear Evidence"

[Asia Economy Reporter Song Seung-yoon] The website 'Digital Prison,' which had its access blocked after arbitrarily revealing the identities of innocent individuals and facing public backlash, has announced plans to resume operations.

On the 11th, a statement was posted on the main page of the Digital Prison website by a person claiming to be the second-term operator. Until the previous day, the website had been inaccessible.

The second-term operator stated, "The first-term operators have all been identified by the police and are now subject to Interpol red notices," adding, "In this situation, the first-term operators likely found it extremely difficult to continue running Digital Prison and decided to abandon operations and go into hiding."

He continued, "After hearing about the investigative cooperation from the U.S. HSI (Homeland Security Investigations), preparations for such a situation began in August, and I provided server access accounts and domain management accounts to several helpers, asking them to resume site operations," and claimed, "After much deliberation, I took over the site’s operation."

He also said, "I am well aware that Digital Prison currently faces significant criticism due to controversies over private sanctions and that there are many calls for the site’s closure," but added, "However, Digital Prison is a website too valuable to disappear just like this. If Digital Prison were to vanish, dozens of incarcerated criminals would be forgotten by everyone, reintegrate into society, and live normal lives."

The second-term operator promised, "From now on, we will only disclose identities when there is clear evidence visible to anyone, such as court rulings or media press releases," and stated, "Posts uploaded so far that were judged to lack sufficient evidence have been ruthlessly deleted, and some posts will be re-uploaded after supplementing evidence," expressing the intention to continue operating the site.

He added, "I sincerely apologize to those who suffered damages due to the first-term operators uploading false reports without sufficient verification."

Aside from this statement, no other posts are currently visible on the Digital Prison homepage. However, some posts have been restored online.

Digital Prison, born out of public distrust in judicial institutions, had received tacit public support fueled by nationwide outrage over a series of 'Nth Room incidents.' However, with innocent victims emerging due to identity disclosures, it has lost even the justification of judging criminals through private sanctions.

Recently, following the disclosure of identities on Digital Prison, a Korea University student who claimed innocence took an extreme step, and there was even an incident where the identity of a medical school professor at a university in the Seoul metropolitan area was revealed for allegedly attempting to purchase sexual exploitation materials. Police investigations revealed that the professor was unrelated to the case.

The police have identified some of Digital Prison’s operators and requested cooperation from Interpol in a foreign country based on their access records. The investigation related to Digital Prison has been conducted by the Cyber Investigation Unit of the Daegu Metropolitan Police Agency since July.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.