User-Created Software Emerges
By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
Short for user-created software, UCS is newly added to the high-tech acronyms along with user-created content (UCC) and proteur-created content (PCC).
According to domestic software companies, a flurry of programs written by amateur programmers is in circulation as it becomes easy to write software with do-it-yourself tools.
Included in popular user-generated software is one that allows people to track visitors to an Internet site.
``With the advent of many easy-to-use tools, people have started to create software on their own,'' said a senior analyst at the LG Economic Research Institute who refused to be named.
``The trend will accelerate down the road as the associated technologies advance. Software creation is no longer the sole realm of a handful of experts,'' he said.
However, online security companies warn that more often than not, problematic codes lurk in the UCS aimed at stealing personal data such as log-on information.
``Recently, the number of reports of fraudulent software has increased. Most of them seem to be made by unscrupulous persons by themselves,'' said Kang Eun-sung, a researcher-in-chief at the country's leading anti-virus program maker AhnLab.
``They appear to be part of the do-it-yourself wave. Computer users need to be alert when they download and install software available on the Web,'' he said.
Indeed, do-it-yourself content is the rage in cyberspace in Korea with UCC and PCC leading the way.
UCC refers to homemade video footage by ordinary people while PCC is higher-quality UCC. ``P'' in PCC is ``proteur,'' a combination of professional and amateur.
UCC and PCC are even becoming a national priority as the Ministry of Information and Communication has said it will boost the creation and circulation of good quality video clips.
The most outstanding plans include awards, which will be given to the most prominent UCC producers, maybe proteurs in many cases.