• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.20 no.1
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• pp.72-80
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• 2016

Recently, IM(Instant Messenger) of KakaoTalk is being used on smart devices such as smartphones. Because IM service can carry user and/or suspector's various information including life style, geographical position, psychology and crime history, forensic analysis on IM service is desirable. But, forensic analysis for KakaoTalk is not well studied yet. This paper studies a proper forensic method for KakaoTalks, finds artifacts location, reconstruct the list of contacts and the chronology of the messages that have been exchanged by users. Proposed methodology and analyzed information can provide a basic platform for forensic tool.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information and Communication Engineering
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.777-785
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• 2016

IM(Instant Messenger) chatting service can carry user's various information including life style, geographical position, and psychology & crime history and thus forensic analysis on the IM service is desirable. But, forensic analysis for KakaoTalk's chatting service is not well studied yet. For this reason, we study KakaoTalk's forensic analysis focusing on chatting service. This paper first details a general method of IM forensics investigating the previous articles about IM forensics although there are not many articles. Second, we discuss methodologies for IM forensics wherein we present analysis of table structure and method for reconstruction of chatting message. These result in the basic element of forensic tools of KakaoTalk chatting message. Last, we compare artifacts of KakaoTalk with that of WhatsApp. We conclude that these applications are, at least, different in that table structures and the ways to reconstruct chatting messages are not same and therefore digital evidences or artifacts are not same and somewhat distinct.

• Journal of the Korea Society of Computer and Information
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• v.21 no.8
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• pp.29-39
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• 2016

Recently, KakaoTalk users seek secure messengers with fears of 'possible' censorship over a mobile messenger. Instead German messenger "Telegram" is gaining popularity in South Korea. Are the known as secure messengers actually secure? In this paper, we evaluate secure mobile messengers in terms of private information protection. We establish the fourteen criteria to evaluate the functionality of messenger apps including communication encryption in transit, the possibility of leakage of decrypted messages via server, an encryption algorithm, a key exchange algorithm, an ephemeral message application, etc. Line, Telegram, Snapchat, WhatsApp, Wickr, Facebook Messenger and KakaoTalk, which have many worldwide and domestic users, are to be targeted. Wickr is ranked at the top of the evaluation, followed by Telegram and Line but KakaoTalk and Snapchat are ranked at the bottom of the evaluation list.

• The Journal of Information Systems
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• v.25 no.2
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• pp.131-152
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• 2016

Purpose Mobile phones increase the frequency and speed of communication. The most popular mobile application in Korea is KakaoTalk, one of the mobile instant messenger(MIM) services. Although studying mobile services such as SMS, SNS and SNG suggests drawing upon theories in marketing, consumer behavior, psychology to investigate their personal use, research on MIM is scarce. We designed this paper to fill this gap. More specifically, this study is focused on the relationships among consumers psychological variables related to purchase intention to emoticons in context of MIM. Design/methodology/approach Data was obtained from 310 KakaoTalk users in Korea via questionnaire. The data was analyzed by structural equation modeling in order to verify the relationship between variables in the model. Specifically, this study is designed to examine the structural relationships among perceived benefits, perceived risks, trust in messenger service, system quality, trust in platform, and emoticons purchase intention. Findings The findings of this study are as follow. First, perceived benefits and perceived risks had a significant impact on trust in MIM service(e.g. KakaoTalk). Specifically, while perceived benefits had a positive effect on trust in MIM service, perceived risks had a negative effect on trust in MIM service. Second, trust in messenger service also had a positive impact on system quality. Third, trust in messenger service and system quality had a positive effect on trust in platform(e.g. Kakao platform) directly. Lastly, trust in platform had a positive influence on emoticons purchase intention in KakaoTalk messenger.

• Asia-Pacific Journal of Business Venturing and Entrepreneurship
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• v.8 no.4
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• pp.49-56
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• 2013

KakaoTalk, a Korean mobile instant messenger service launched by KAKAO Inc., has grown remarkably popular in a short period of time, with its number of subscribers exceeding 100 million as of July 2013. Today, KakaoTalk is an everyday communication tool among most Korean mobile users. Although KAKAO has been the subject of many business and consumer studies, the KakaoTalk platform strategy has not been studied thoroughly. In this study, we analyze its platform strategy through the lens of several widely utilized frameworks such as Platform Leadership (Gawer & Cusumano 2002, 2008), Winner-take-all dynamics (Eisenmann et al. 2006), and Open Service Innovation (Chesbrough 2011). Our results show that Eisenmann et al (2006)'s "Winner-Take-All" platform best explains how KakaoTalk dominated its rivals, Mypeople by Daum Communications and Line by Naver Corporation. In surpassing its rivals, KAKAO delivered a solution to the 'essential problem' that mobile social communication should be upgraded from mobile companies' paid "Short Message Service" (SMS). By doing so, KakaoTalk fulfilled the first requirement of Gawer & Cusumano (2008)'s "Coring" strategy, which explains how a new platform is created. KakaoTalk also satisfied the second requirement of "Coring" by providing economic incentives for KakaoTalk members to interact through its Games and Items store. Actively accepting its customers' ideas and upgrading its services, KAKAO reinforced its platform leadership to its customers and put Chesbrough (2011)'s "Outside In - Open Service" innovation strategy into practice.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.17 no.6
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• pp.327-333
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• 2019

The purpose of this study is to suggest areas for improvement of KakaoTalk. KakaoTalk is used by everyone in Korea, and even elementary school students have been using it a lot recently. Therefore, to help parents feel safe about their children using KakaoTalk, and to ensure that children are not worried about their parents when using them, I would like to examine each user's experience to pinpoint the problem. As a method of study, a survey and interview was conducted on eight parents and eight children using KakaoTalk. Through this, the parents could not trust KakaoTalk in terms of reliability when they saw their children using KakaoTalk. Based on this research, we hope to improve KakaoTalk through further research so that parents and children can use Kakao Talk safely.

• Journal of Digital Convergence
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• v.10 no.10
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• pp.147-154
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• 2012

I made an analysis on the case of Kakao Talk, which is Korean top mobile instant messaging service, to find the growth potential of Korean Social Network Service in the global market. First, I found that unlike the PC messenger services, Kakao Talk is not only unlimited in mobile IM service provider but also has evolving into a social network service firm. Second, attempts with a variety of social services such as photo-based Kakao Story and Marketing Platform for Mobile Game, Kakao Talk successfully landed as a SNS company. Third, with 'Plus Friends' Service, soon-to-be launched Avatar and App Market Service, Kakao Talk is evolving into social media and social platforms. The big success of Kakao Talk in Korean market is expanding and reproducing into Japanese and Southeast Asian markets through the 'Line' serviced by NHN. Line is applying the proven success stories of Kakao Talk to the Japanese and Southeast Asian markets. It means that Kakao and Line, both are mobile IM services, have raised the possibility of success in the global SNS market although online web-based SNS Cyworld has failed in the global market.

• Journal of the Korea Institute of Information Security & Cryptology
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• v.33 no.1
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• pp.51-61
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• 2023

Messengers such as KakaoTalk, LINE, and Facebook Messenger are universal means of communication used by anyone. As the convenience functions provided to users and their usage time increase, so does the user behavior information remaining in the artifacts, which is being used as important evidence from the perspective of digital forensic investigation. However, for security reasons, most of the data is currently stored encrypted. In addition, cover-up behaviors such as intentional manipulation, concealment, and deletion are increasing, causing the problem of delaying digital forensic analysis time. In this paper, we conducted a study on the data decryption and artifacts analysis in a Windows environment for KakaoTalk, the messenger with the largest number of users in Korea. An efficient way of obtaining a decryption key and a method of identifying and decrypting messages attempted to be deleted are presented, and thumbnail artifacts are analyzed.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.151-158
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• 2020

SNS on the mobile platform is an essential element and tool for communication and has become a part of life for many people. Having been accustomed to non-face-to-face communication, people today have chosen to use emoticons instead of text to express their feelings and the use of emoticons is constantly growing. This is because the emoticons in various styles of drawings and movements can evoke emotional and sentimental reactions in users and express their tastes in addition to feelings. The current study was conducted to analyze the use of initial emoticon characters released by two most leading SNS platforms in Korea--Kakao for Kakao Talk and Naver for Line--and their expansion to various platform businesses. Based on the cases of the two companies, it discussed the development and goals of Korea-made emoticons in the future as cultural contents.

• Journal of Internet Computing and Services
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• v.22 no.6
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• pp.151-162
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• 2021

Steganography is an advanced technique that hides secret messages by transforming them into subtle noise and spreading them within multimedia files such as images, video and audio. This technology has been exploited in a variety of espionage and cyber attacks. SNS messenger is an attractive SNS Service platform for sending and receiving multimedia files, which is the main medium of steganography. In this study, we proposed two noble steganography communication techniques that guarantee the complete reception rate through the use of thumbnail images in the SNS messenger environment. In addition, the feasibility was verified through implementation and testing of the proposed techniques in a real environment using KakaoTalk, a representative SNS messenger in south korea. By proposing new steganography methods in this study, we re-evaluate the risk of the steganography methods and promoted follow-up studies on the corresponding defense techniques.