[theqoo] THE LAWYER WHO CAUGHT SOJANG REVEALED HOW HE FOUND HER PERSONAL INFORMATION

*The first lawyer who have caught a domestic cyberwrecker: lawyer Jeong Kyeongseok*

Yoo Jaeseok (YJS): I heard that before this lawsuit, it was very hard to catch wreckers!

Lawyer (L): In the past, it was almost impossible to catch. Just from trying to find out who the operator of these accounts are, it's already hard. I was starting to feel cynical thinking that I could never catch a wrecker.

YJS: And this time, your opponent was Sojang

L: You need to know who you're dealing with in a lawsuit. That's why most of the lawsuits against wreckers get dropped.

YJS: I heard that there were 37 different identity verification in this lawsuit?

L: This is why it's so hard to find cyberwreckers' identity. Every single verification has failed. And it's hard to find your personal information on foreign platforms like Google.

YJS: So the help from the US head office was essential right?

L: The first step to catching a cyberwrecker was that I went to the Google Korean branch to request her information. But the Korean branch told me that it was impossible to divulge such information.

The second step was to go to Google's US head office. I sent them an email requesting the information. But they replied that they must need an American court to file to request.

YJS: But most lawyers don't have a mean to get all the way to the US head office.

L: That's why the majority of lawyers would give up at this step. But I thought, why don't I try to get the American court to file a request! I have a close friend who's operating an American law firm. And we discovered something.

L: We followed the specific US law and filed a request for her Google and Twitter account information

In the Section 1782 Discovery, we were able to request the information of the person running the account. It's a system that helps parties prepare for litigation, which also shares identity information of both parties.

YJS: So you found a way to get that information through persisting and even going to the US law

L: It's not only about the Discovery section, but we were able to find her lawyer's name. But we found that their address was in Japan

L: I directly went to Japan and set up a collaborative lawyer operations to get it done. Meanwhile, Sojang learned about her information being seized and erased all her online information. Sojang suddenly has closed all her accounts.

L: I have received the name and the address I requested, and we confirmed that she was in Korea. There were concerns it might be false information, so [we] also requested financial information from Google's headquarters. And in the end, we finally succeeded in securing the cyberwreckers's identity.

L: She was ordered to pay 100M won in damage to an individual defamation lawsuit, which was reduced to 50M won after the final ruling and appeal. The profit she made from the channel was also confiscated. This isn't the end, we applied for a provisional seizure of her real estate, because she was able to buy a villa through the profit she gained.