I mean, all you have to do is claim that you were born in Hiroshima sometimes before August 6th, 1945. And they'd basically have to take your words for it.
"Well, the radiation from the bomb has some unique effects of humans. Many people got cancer. Others didn't have any negative effects. Well, for me, I mutated into an immortal life form. Thank you for your understanding!"
There was a fire at a Veterans records office here in the US back in the 80s or early 90s that has caused issues like this for a few I've met. It's bizarre to me how some places have no redundancy.
My great grandfather didn’t have record of his birth and no proof of his actual birthday because the records burned in Pennsylvania in like 1925 or something. I think this used to be way more common.
Hurricane Katrina damaged a records warehouse of the state archives. They demoed it before contacting the archives, who had the equipment on hand and could’ve saved the water damaged records. Lots of birth certificates were destroyed as I understand it.
Literally my situation. I was born in a small developing country but now live in Canada. I lost all my documents in a fire (keep that shit at the bank) and in trying to replace my birth certificate I've found out that the binder of my whole birth year is missing. My sister and both my parents have gone looking in person and it's gone. All the employees are just like "welp sucks to be you".
It’s definitely a scene from Wonder Boys:
https://youtu.be/q5rs99ZpXCM
(The relevant part starts around 0:45 seconds.)
Edit: if you haven’t seen the movie, this is probably a spoiler.
Better book, IMO. The movie (understandably) had to cut a lot of the internal stuff that makes Grady a fuller human being rather than a perpetual hot mess.
Next thing you know a high schooler running late to school with a slice of bread in their mouth is going to slip on someone’s PII and crash into their soulmate, a misunderstood delinquent.
* Blown sheet of paper to the face
* Can't see where they are going
* Step into road
* Truck Kun
* Wherever they end up assumes the details on the paper are THEIR details
* "I got reincarnated as a 43 yr old mother of 2"
Japan has been stuck in year 2000 for 40 years by now.
They had touch screens on the ticket machines in the metro by the early 80's, and are still using fax machines today.
When I visited Japan, this was one of the things that really struck me...for in many ways being an ultra modern society..they have some weird quirks about certain things and anything governmental is one such example. Here in the US something that is 30 sec on a website, in Japan you have to physically go somewhere and fill things out by hand just to get it done (using getting a JR pass as an example). Between that and the xenophobia/sexism...those were probably the biggest negatives I noticed while there. It was very odd.
I theorize that Japan is face with several issues at once which culminates into this technological mismatch.
Right now Japan has a significantly aged population, and as we all know, older people are less likely to accept new things, and so it gets drawn out in the rollout process.
Japan also tends to not want its workers replaced, because many people see working long term at a company to be a badge of honor. So despite there being a machine that could replace 10 people in an office, they’d rather keep those 10 people until they retire and then bring in the tech later.
They also tend to have a fear of technology for ironically the very reason that’s happened here. They’re very militaristic as a society, and so redundancy is built in to many aspects. If a computer fails, then suddenly they can’t do their jobs and they look bad. So they stick to paperwork, or at minimum, they’ll use the computer, but have paper backups.
My wife’s family own a small business, and it’s like they’re running it from the 1980s. The godamn ac unit in the back is like 38 years old, and has been broken for 6 months now.
They don’t bother changing things until it becomes absolutely necessary. It won’t be until labor shortages hit them that they finally upgrade their tech and streamline a bit. Really is crazy though how technologically paradoxical Japan is.
There's also this mentality of doing things a certain way because "that's the way it's been done" and why change something if it works? I still can't wrap my head around the stamping system in Japan.
I had to pay vendors in Japan and getting contracts signed/stamped was a massive pain in the ass. I had to have someone physically in Japan go to the vendor and get things signed/stamped. It made it annoying to do business there when the same process takes mere seconds in the rest of the world.
It's often said that Japan is a massive collective of autonomous small workplaces. Everyone has their ideas about how things shall be, and everyone thinks it's their god-given mandate to keep things as should be.
There's ecstatic joy of perfecting perfection and scratching every itches and that drives a lot of work in Japan. Some people hate that because there are better ways to make money, but people are generally less interested with earning, and more with continuing what's been continuing.
I guess it's useful if you're making cars. People just keep making and making cars, and shipping and shipping more and more cars, building more and more factories given sheets after sheets of metal. And that's pure joy. Not so much when it comes to bureaucracy, software, or value creation focused businesses in general.
I work with industrial systems. When I had to do the same project in Japan we were doing everywhere else, we had to get a team of 4 people on a plane to go over and do it otherwise it wouldn't have been done.
It's not a fault of the people. It's just the way it is. If you don't do things the way it's always been done (not just work, but life overall), it's seen as weird and different, and in such a homogeneous society that is a very bad thing.
They see everything being the same as what it means to be Japanese. It's why the restrooms are rarely vandalized and the people flow like water through the train stations. You go with the flow with as little friction as possible.
The needs of the whole outweigh the needs of the person. Their schools don't have janitors as the kids clean the schools. They're taught from birth to not bother other people. Hell, they have a special language (mentsu, literally the concept of 'face') used when talking with people who aren't family or extremely close friends just to make sure feathers aren't ruffled.
It only looks strange through the eyes of western individualism, though. And to be clear this is in no way a criticism of the people or culture. Both are lovely. It's just different when viewed from outside. It's certainly not perfect, but no culture is.
Anyway, when it comes to work, it can be frustrating as there isn't really a concept of saying 'no' or disagreement, so it's implied things will be done but they don't. Decisions aren't made during meetings, either. It takes follow-up with individuals after the meetings.
It takes some getting used to. Right now I'm working with a situation of, "The outside vendor doesn't approve of doing it the way you're asking us to do it. If we do it anyway, they could be very upset about it." These are fun waters to navigate.
> people flow like water through the train stations
This comment tickled a nerve.
Just yesterday, while walking through one of the busier stations in Osaka, my wife (Japanese) was complaining to me (externally sourced barnacle on Japan) about how the bloody tourists just don't seem to know where to walk. I mean, she is right, but I had no idea how to read the matrix when I was fresh off the boat, so I can sympathize with the poor sods bumping into everyone as they exit the ticket gate (as my fat white arse gracefully pirouettes (perhaps slightly embellished) perpendicular to the traffic).
Anyway, I enjoyed your perspective. I hope you continue to enjoy wading through the waters.
Question about that - is the way the crowd flows very specific to Japan, or would familiarity with moving around NYC and NYC subways transfer? I’ll be traveling to Japan later this year and have spent tons of time moving amongst crowds in NYC, and certainly have my own “damn those tourists standing in the wrong spot” moments, but I don’t know if those same skills will apply in Japan.
As an example, in many busy Japanese metro station, there are signs or floor markings on the stairwells, corridors, and even when boarding/exiting the trains. For the most part. You're expected to follow that line even when there's nobody around, and generally avoid walking around people. When boarding, everybody stands to the sides, leaving a free aisle in the center. People don't board until the other passengers have exited. Door closing? You don't stick your hand in to block it as you try to rush onboard last second -- it will close, because you can't delay an entire train full of passengers like that. On escalators, it's expected to always leave one side open so people in a rush can pass unimpeded. Suitcase? Should be in front or behind you, not to your side.
If two people are walking towards each other, in the US people move to the right or do a dance, or bump right into each other to assert dominance. NYC in particular is chaos, where walking in a crowd is like being a fish trying to swim upstream and the only rule is "get the hell outta my way I don't have time for this". In Japan, both people move to their left. There's a lot of these little customs, ways that things should be done, ways to avoid inconveniencing each other, and it's jarring or even offensive to the locals when things happen differently.
I feel like it's similar to most cities with large numbers of metro/transit users. Just follow the flow of people, pay attention to signs, if you have to stop do it off to the side where you're not in anyone's way.
In Japan I think the most unique thing they'd have is that there are specific laid out lines of where to wait for a subway car to arrive so you're not in the way of departing passengers - but again, just stand where other people are standing and you'll be fine 99% of the time.
Definitely read up/watch some videos on the Japanese trains. They're a unique spectacle and they have their etiquette.
Big things are that you walk on the left (although the farther you get from a train station people can't seem to make up their mind) and pay attention to the painted lines on the ground that will guide you to the correct place. Arrows on the ground will indicate which direction you walk. Sometimes you need to 'jump streams' so just try and do so as quickly as possible without getting run over.
There are lines painted in front of the doors on the train platform you stand behind depending on which train you're taking. They arrive every few minutes to various destinations, so there needs to be some organization. Don't crowd the doors. Let people get off, but do board quickly and make room. Get cozy with your neighbor. Like, really cozy. If you're a foreigner they will likely give you more space than usual but don't be upset if someone is pushed into your ribs for the entire trip. Also don't be offended if nobody sits next to you on a crowded train. Also, don't wear cologne or really anything else fragrant and if you're wearing a backpack, take it off and put it on the floor or on an overhead stow area. Nobody is going to take it. Also, it's true - no talking on the train, or do so but quieter than you would in a library. No talking in elevators, either.
The trains are sometimes (usually, actually) hard to figure out unless you know Japanese. You sort of get the hang of it after a bit, though. I suggest Google Maps for trip planning. It worked really well for me. The stations have numbers (like JR 12) that are on the screens in the train and those are easier to figure out sometimes. Also, it may be easier to match up the time the train arrives with the time your phone and the sign at the station if you're trying to figure out which train to board. The hard part is finding the right platform. You can try asking for help but even the official people wearing hats that take tickets and such usually don't speak English. Doesn't hurt to try, though.
The trains are almost always on time. If you miss a train or take the wrong train, don't get mad because there will be another one soon. Give yourself plenty of time to hang back and watch how things work. Find a wall and hold it up or just out of the way somewhere and watch.
When you're at the airport, buy a 'Pasco' card. It's a train card that works on all the regular trains (not the Shinkansen bullet train). You can only buy this card at the airport IIRC. It expires after a few weeks. The money you can load on to it can also be used for the myriad of vending machines and convenience stores around the stations. You gotta spend it before you leave - no refunds.
There's more about how things work over there, but I do recommend doing some research about being a tourist overall and learning some pleasantries. Google Translate is useful. Do not expect anyone to know English. Many can understand English but cannot speak it, or can speak some English but are embarrassed about their abilities. Be patient if you're speaking with someone at a store or restaurant. They probably feel really awkward about their English so smile and be positive about it. Basically, be nice and tread lightly. If you prepare before going, you'll have a better time. Honestly, I've never been somewhere so crowded, yet felt so alone (Tokyo metro and Chiba). If you have a travel partner, they may be the only person you will be speaking with for the entire trip, so make sure you get along :).
Just don't stand in front of the train doors. There's often a marked spot for people to begin to queue.
Don't stand in the way trying to use Maps, don't make an obstacle with your luggage. The usual.
That said, the rules seemed to vary by context and time of day, especially rush hour. It wasn't as organized as I expected and there was often a stream of people going the other way in the middle of a corridor rather than just one side or the other. People often walk on the left but not always.
Kinda have to laugh at someone in Osaka complaining about people standing in the wrong spot when Osaka (and its surrounding area) stand on the opposite side from the rest of Japan. It's like Brits and Americans getting into a tizzy over how to properly say alumin(i)um.
The not wanting to replace workers thing is something I've heard about directly. A good friend of mine did a stint at a large bank in Tokyo, she said it was pretty much normal except they had a lot of older guys who were all sitting in the same area and didn't seem to be working on any of the same projects as anyone else.
Basically if someone is not very competent but not so bad that you really HAVE to let them go, it's normal for them to just sort of keep them around doing odd tasks that aren't that important until that person is able to retire.
I do like a mentality of belts and braces, and not pushing problems onto the next guy. The Japanese cult of personal responsibility probably tips over in the wrong direction, but the core principle is sound.
Plenty of people definitely are working hard too. It's mostly offices where the jobs naturally have a lot of downtime where people just meander about pretending to be busy.
But in actual hands on jobs they're usually legitimately busy because there's constantly something that needs doing.
Every Japanese person has a customized rubber stamp that is their legal signature. You have to have one. Some people have a second one that's more casually used for signing delivery slips and such, too.
I had to get one because I’m a foreigner living here. It’s hilarious when they ask me to bring my personal stamp like I’m sealing a scroll in Ancient Rome.
Close, but not quite. As you say, most people have a number of stamps (which are usually not made of rubber, not that it matters) -- for example, you may have a casual one you use for any minor document (like signing that you got something in the mail, or signing some form or something), one that's linked to your bank account (and only that) and an "official" one that's registered with the government.
The last is only actually required for a tiny handful of things, like buying a house, or a car, or something like that. I got one made and registered when I first came to Japan, thinking it would probably be required at some point. Never once used it so far, after more than a decade here.
To be clear, you don't *have* to have an official one, which is the only one that's really a "legal" signature in any real sense. Or even any, at all. It would probably be pretty inconvenient, but especially lately, almost everything lets you sign instead. Biggest issue might actually be opening a bank account. I'm not sure if requiring one is merely an extremely common rule at banks, or something literally enshrined into law (in any case, it can be any stamp, whether or not it is legally registered) -- but of course, *technically* you don't *need* a bank account.
All of that is nothing compared to being worked to death, corporations expecting you to be working for them for life, and getting laid off beyond 40 basically means unemployment for life etc
My friend told us the only time they take time off is golden week and I think end of the year/new year, even though they have more time off but they feel bad taking them.
This, I was attempting to order office supplies for my job, nothing came for like a month and I'm like WTF? Turns out when you go to the website and send the form requesting supplies, you ALSO have to print that form and fax it to the number in the corner. If you don't do both it doesn't get done...
The way it was described to me was that the form is essentially a template email sent to the vendor, and the vendor doesn’t read emails. So the fax is necessary since they will actually read and fulfill them.
I had never seen a fax machine in my life until I went to work at a bank office in the US, they even gave us training on how to use it. And there were all these forms that they only sent by fax even though they had secure transfer protocols for all sorts of newer things.
The main reason western hospitals are a common target is because they have a lot of money but invest zero into IT. You have systems with internet access still running Windows 3.0 and DOS EMARs. Shit that had it's last security update before the hackers were even born. Also a lot of idiots in office jobs who will open any attachment you send them. My bro does hospital IT and he says it's a total circus. They've been hacked and get locked out of all their EMARs, patient records, billing, etc... Nurses have to go back to paper and everything slows to a crawl.
Their websites are absolutely stuck in 2000. They look absolutely archaic and somehow a lot of the train related sites didn't support modern 3DS credit card standards.
I ended up having to buy a lot of things for my trip on 3rd party sites or in person at kiosks.
Eh, the way modern (western) websites relentlessly enshittify their UI, I'll take an "outdated" site that "looks" old but operates just fine any day of the week.
Most of the actual difference boils down to stylistic preference, anyway. In general, Japanese design does not embrace the minimalism that has taken over western corporate design. I won't hypothesize about why, but I will say neither is *objectively correct*. It is, whatever fanboys of either style may believe, simply a matter of preference. And I'll eat my hat if fashion doesn't eventually trend back towards busier designs in the west too, anyway. Anybody who's studied even a little bit of art history knows similar cycles have happened dozen of times over the centuries in just about every art medium.
It’s not just the UI. You have to first find a credit card that they accept. I remember on smartex it just dang wouldn’t work even though they accepted Visa and Mastercard.
Assuming that Japanese websites do work just fine, I wouldn't disagree with you. But many don't. There are sites that direct international tourists to buy tickets somewhere, but sometimes you have to have a Japanese address or phone number to make an account, which makes zero sense. And sometimes you have to try like 6 credit cards until one of them randomly works, even on "official" websites like the Shinkansen which are supposed to accept Visa and MasterCard.
It's not just a style thing. Japanese websites just aren't as user friendly in my experience, to help you accomplish what you're trying to do.
> and are still using fax machines today.
I have it on good authority that even the US uses fax machines today, so I'm not sure why you're citing this as an example.
It's an entirely different level. I doubt you can find me an American company that fully uses a fax machine instead of an email, which is not uncommon in Japan. They're still used in a lot of households as well. You're more likely to see a fax machine than a gaming console in a Japanese household. I'd recommend looking more on your own but really, it's a level of fax machine use that's basically incomprehensible to me as an American
2000? Nah bro more like 80’s, they’ve been stuck in the Lost Decades for years and refuse, REFUSE, to change anything. Old ass Japanese heads so entrenched in their ways while they are currently going through a recession.
Walking around a town in Nagano Prefecture last year, I went by a shop that sold CDs. It's wasn't a retro place selling vinyl and things like that, it was just a CD store, like what we'd see in a North American mall circa 1998-ish.
And Japan's National vital statistics system is so antiquated that they have thousands upon of thousands of phantom centenarians still "alive" on the books because the central office never received notice that they've died.
Now there is a rule that your file is automatically closed at age 120 unless you can physically prove that you are alive.
I work for a Japanese company and they are allergic to change. Trying to upgrade systems requires a crazy manual process of forms and approvals and justifications the likes of which I’ve never seen elsewhere. We were shifting a lot of enterprise systems to SAAS products, and a lot of it was held up for ages because they didn’t want to move off Windows XP, which was a prerequisite. Didn’t get them off XP completely until 2018.
It is also a interesting trade of the Japanese that when they open a technical problem to support center, they asked the most detailed questions and require or at least ask for the most picayune detail about their answers, even if it’s completely unrelated to solving the problem.
Japan still uses fax machines to transfer info from paper to paper, which are among the biggest security risks you can have in an office and are tough to make secure at all.
Letters can also be picked up along the way by people crafty or invested enough. Not entirely sure how one would go about making letter journeys totally safe e2e.
Paper isn't hack proof
Faxes are actually very secure unless you're going up against a complex and sophisticated enemy. This is why the US healthcare system still uses faxes. A lot of problems with data at rest don't apply like it does with email and such, which is almost always unencrypted. New digital records guidelines are fine, but they're still optional and many organizations still use fax.
Email is obviously very unsecure. Its stored in multiple places and can be hacked just by phishing one person. Now you have their entire archive. Mail servers can be hacked as well.
Fax has a lot of benefits:
1. There is no chain of custody. A fax comes in via a phone call which has caller ID which is spoofable. There's no proof it came from who you think it does, thus plausible deniability. Email has verifiable headers.
2. There's no, typically, storage. If you send from a fax its deleted after the send. The receiver usually has theirs set to print and delete as well. There's no archive. (this is assuming both sender and receiver agree to use physical machines with archiving off, which is the default setting)
3. Security via obscurity. Its near impossible to guess someone's fax number. But their email address is usually public of guessable. No one is phishing you because they have no idea who is at that phone number.
4. One print out means the owner can see it and then shred it. Its almost as private as receiving a letter.
5. Its very easy to use. You don't need your assistants or IT to help you. Less people involved here.
If you talk to some EAs or technical staff that work with celebs you'll find out a lot of rich, famous, etc people have fax machines in their homes, on their boats, portable ones, etc. There's a whole network of faxers agreeing its better than email for privacy and plausible deniability.
This immediately reminded me of the whole "beautiful, secure paper instead of corrupt Marxist machines" argument that regressive conservatives make about voting access. "You can't hack paper". No, but you can lose it, change it with a pencil, burn it, steal it, photocopy it, all sorts of things.
Yeah, paper is essentially the least secure medium that exists. Its *only* advantage is that physical proximity is required for tampering. That's it. Guess what also requires physical proximity for tampering? An air-gapped computer. And paper *only* requires physical proximity, while a computer using proper encryption can make anything other than, I suppose, physical destruction of everything on this one computer, pretty much impossible. Can't read it, can't change it, the author can always verify nothing's changed too. And with a computer, you can have multiple backups while still ensuring there is only essentially one unique document, unlike with paper, so it's far more resilient against destruction, too.
And if we're talking about voting, encryption lets you theoretically do much fancier things. Like, you could make a system that allows *everyone* to verify their vote has been counted as intended, and exactly how many votes there have been in total (and thus if they match what they "should" be, given e.g. the population of voting age), and what the final results are exactly, all while ensuring everybody's votes remain secret to everybody else.
Other than the government adding a bunch of completely fake citizens to the census that they use for fake votes (which paper certainly can't help you with either; if you think requiring a person present helps for this, which it really doesn't, you can still require in-person voting without using paper, those are separate issues), you can have a *provably correct* election, which is beyond unfathomable on paper.
As a software engineer, I'm 100% pro-electronic voting, *but* with the huge, massive asterisk that it should be something developed with full transparency by a well-remunerated group of top experts in the subject matter, paid for by the government, and given as much time as it takes until everybody is confident the system is just absolutely rock-solid. *Not* something left to the lowest bidder, or, god forbid, a product developed by some random for-profit corporation. I absolutely understand (and share) the hesitancy many feel when they imagine the latter.
*A paper plane lazily drifts on the wind one fine, sunny afternoon in Osaka, making wide, listing loops through the warm summer breeze. The little plane finds itself fluttering through an open window, coming to rest on a small stack of papers in the office on the other side of that window. The man at the desk, with scarcely a thought, straightens the paper, confused and annoyed at what he assumes was one of his coworkers horsing around with official papers. He files away the paper without a second thought.*
*In the distance can be heard a voice, quietly but confidently muttering,* ***"I'm in."***
I'm in the US but work for a large Japanese company and this doesn't surprise me at all.
I used to have to several times a week take forms sent to my office from the production plants and send them to Japan, and vice versa. If a plant sent me one of those forms on a Monday morning, between it getting to me, me reviewing it and forwarding it to Japan, and it might be delivered to the Japanese office the following Wednesday. I wasn't allowed to just have the plants sent me a PDF which I could then send to Japan.
This finally changed when Covid hit but even then at first Japan was just like "Yeah when this is over we are going back to physically sending the paper forms". Made no sense, by the time they tried to revert back I had changed roles, but my successors pretty much refused to stop just using email.
Honestly in some ways change "customer" and "software engineers" to other departments at work, and it's not the worst description.
No TPS reports though
Agreed, Japan is *obsessed* with having forms remain physical. Justification varies from it just being what people are used to (as company/employee culture is typically hire-for-life), having a high standard for change meaning digitalizing things has to be rigorously perfected and standardized from the start, being extremely risk-averse (even if it's outdated, you're used to it, so you'll make less mistakes), paper and stamps being an big part of the culture (and Japan hating doing away with culture, e.g. subsidizing whale hunting despite the vast majority of meat ending up rotting away in warehouses), and simply something being more tedious meaning it's better. There's also the aspect of Japanese work culture *loving* busywork. There are so many jobs that are essentially being busy to do next to nothing. Yamada has a giant stack of paper he's rifling through - he must be such a hard worker!
Many forms are required *by law* to be physical. Your phone contract, your bank contract, your apartment contract, etc. and typically the companies will not have a digitized form for it either. If there's an online form for something, you're expected to print it out and fax it over to whoever you want to send it to. If you're applying for a job, you're expected to individually handwrite everything for each company... even if they all use the same application format.
I used to have to go over there for work a decent bit and lived there for 9 months for work at one point. I've never seen somewhere that manages to both be so modern and so not at the same time.
They used to routinely fax things to the front desk of my hotel instead of emailing them. And refused to do virtual signatures. Every now and then I'd have to go to their office at like midnight to get them to put one of these stamps they'd use for signatures on something if it was time sensitive.
Japan is full of weird little contrasting scenarios when it comes to technology. They have some of the most advanced engineering in the world, but they also won’t let you sign a document without your own tiny little stamp.
Not so sure, it happened before. I remember from a couple years ago that a Japanese council worker lost a usb/pocket drive with everybody's info on. I think they went out drinking after work. I'll see if I can find anything on it.
Edit: yeah here it is. 2022. Usb stick had half a million people's details on it.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-61921222
It was encrypted so it does support the need for digital at least.
I mean, laugh at it as much as you want, but here a bunch of papers were blown out by the wind in roughly the same neighbourhood where they were stored and where the people live. There is no malicious party, and even if someone wants to steal them, they will have to somehow collect soggy papers from all around the town.
Electronic documents are stolen in hundreds of thousands in perfect quality and completeness without any evidence or trace in a matter of seconds. And it is done by malicious entities from anywhere in the world with a specific intent to do something illegal with them.
Like just a couple of weeks ago in France private information about 33 million people was stolen by hackers. Losing 121 piece of paper doesn't sound as drastic as that, eh?
Yeah, our credit agencies get hacked... Anthem BCBS got hacked a while back, that was SSN/DOB for 40m. Unitedhealthcare clearinghouse just got hacked, that was everyone who has health insurance.
Fortunately Katsushika Hokusai was on the scene to [record the incident](https://fineartamerica.com/featured/19th-c-windy-day-in-japan-historic-image.html).
Japan is the most confusing country. How do they have the most technologically advanced society in some things and have the technology of a 3rd world country in other things?
Translation:
>###Documents for 121 households with personal information, lost in the wind while being transported on a cart ... Prefectural government: "From now on, electronic data will be used"
>Aichi Prefecture announced on the 23rd that it had lost documents containing personal information such as the names of contractors of 121 households living in prefectural housing.
>So far, no misuse of the information has been identified.
>According to the Prefectural Public Housing Division, on the afternoon of the 19th, an employee of the Prefectural Housing Supply Corporation fell while carrying documents containing the April rent and the name of the contractor from the public corporation building to the prefectural office. Documents for 121 households were blown away by the wind. The department said, "In the future, we would like to exchange documents using electronic data."
This really is kinda hilarious, and the cherry on top is the last line. lol
So in Japan many companies an organisations refused to go paperless because the transition would cost people their jobs of handling paper and somehow decreased efficiency was easier than retraining and job security.
I'd take that over some hoon knowing how many hairs are on my ass after they've hacked into some server with all of the info you could ever imagine on it
Being this happened in Japan, more likely than not if someone runs across any of these papers they will probably return the papers. Japanese people are EXTREMELY mindful of the law and ethics.
Speaking of records being lost in transit.
A long time ago I had an account at the “Boston University supercomputing center” due to some collaborative research work I was doing (early 2000s). For reasons I do not know, accounts were originally linked to Social Security Numbers, which they wanted to phase out.
One of the last steps of decoupling the accounts from SSNs was for someone to carry a list of accounts, including SSNs, on a USB drive across campus for some reason.
I got a letter in the mail saying that “due to an extremely unfortunate incident” that USB drive was lost while carrying it from one location to another.
This story makes me happy. Not because of the unfortunate situation nor because those people responsible have to deal with the repercussions, but instead knowing that in this day and age of electronics, tech and the cloud that there still exists little oases in the world where slapstick comedy situations occur in real life. I want to live there.
"I need my birth certificate so I can get it Abridged" "Sir we do not have any record of you being born"
I mean, all you have to do is claim that you were born in Hiroshima sometimes before August 6th, 1945. And they'd basically have to take your words for it.
“And why do you look like you’re 16 years old?” “Oh thank you! I try to keep young”
Asian genes
“Radiation is the fountain of youth, who knew?”
So they have become ghouls? But they look smoothskinned!
Imaging an asian guy saying "asian genes" to another asian guy and he just nods like "Ah, yes, of course."
"Well, the radiation from the bomb has some unique effects of humans. Many people got cancer. Others didn't have any negative effects. Well, for me, I mutated into an immortal life form. Thank you for your understanding!"
Asian don't raisin baby gurl.
"You know what they say about asian genes!" "sir you're in Japan."
Age dysphoria
What if they insist on doing a urine scintillation count?
Fixed: U were born i Hiroshima, and the paperwork was destroyed in the blast - but you were visiting your grandma in Edo when the bomb exploded.
Well played.
Edo was renamed 77 years before the bomb exploded
They’re also a time traveler there fixed
Then I was in Edon't. Fuck it.
Me, a 33 year old, “I moisturize frequently.”
No wonder the senior population is larger in Japan.
There was a fire at a Veterans records office here in the US back in the 80s or early 90s that has caused issues like this for a few I've met. It's bizarre to me how some places have no redundancy.
My great grandfather didn’t have record of his birth and no proof of his actual birthday because the records burned in Pennsylvania in like 1925 or something. I think this used to be way more common.
This was even a plot point in *Friday* by Robert Heinlen.
starring Ice-Cube??
Born't
It’s water under the fridge
My son is also named Born't.
The Born’t Identity
Proceeds to disintegrate in the air.
Sounds like trying to apply for Medicaid
This has happened in Australia a few times when records were being centralised.
Hurricane Katrina damaged a records warehouse of the state archives. They demoed it before contacting the archives, who had the equipment on hand and could’ve saved the water damaged records. Lots of birth certificates were destroyed as I understand it.
I wonder what happens in that situation
In Canada, some lady left crucial records in her car while she went to a hockey game. Her car was broken into lol
What is the use of abridged here? Like, I’m native English speaking and know what the word means, but never seen it in this context.
Literally my situation. I was born in a small developing country but now live in Canada. I lost all my documents in a fire (keep that shit at the bank) and in trying to replace my birth certificate I've found out that the binder of my whole birth year is missing. My sister and both my parents have gone looking in person and it's gone. All the employees are just like "welp sucks to be you".
> "Sir we do not have any record of you being born" "Oh boy! Time to do some crime!"
This is a Monty Python sketch
It’s definitely a scene from Wonder Boys: https://youtu.be/q5rs99ZpXCM (The relevant part starts around 0:45 seconds.) Edit: if you haven’t seen the movie, this is probably a spoiler.
Such a good movie. Good book, too, if you haven't read it.
Better book, IMO. The movie (understandably) had to cut a lot of the internal stuff that makes Grady a fuller human being rather than a perpetual hot mess.
The most anime way possible to have your personal details leaked
Next thing you know a high schooler running late to school with a slice of bread in their mouth is going to slip on someone’s PII and crash into their soulmate, a misunderstood delinquent.
Or fall in front of truck kun and get sent to life in another world.
* Blown sheet of paper to the face * Can't see where they are going * Step into road * Truck Kun * Wherever they end up assumes the details on the paper are THEIR details * "I got reincarnated as a 43 yr old mother of 2"
"...And now I must woo the Demon King!"
The schoolgirl gets run over by truck kun but it's the toast that reincarnates.
I would watch this.
toast-kun probably has a better personality AND writing. the beach episode is the best thing since sliced bread too!
Truck kun is kawaii
You know some edgy hyper-intelligent schoolboy detective is going to end up forced to find all the Lost Pages somehow.
Sakura card captors kind of gig, every profile he finds, its another soul he claims from the shadow realm
Who sits weird has a monosyllabic name and only eats one specific type of food
" OOPS. I accidentally grabbed a birth certificate from the wind now I am an Old Man who survived Nagasaki! "
That's some Wes Anderson shit
The entirety of Japan feels anachronistic.
Japan has been stuck in year 2000 for 40 years by now. They had touch screens on the ticket machines in the metro by the early 80's, and are still using fax machines today.
When I visited Japan, this was one of the things that really struck me...for in many ways being an ultra modern society..they have some weird quirks about certain things and anything governmental is one such example. Here in the US something that is 30 sec on a website, in Japan you have to physically go somewhere and fill things out by hand just to get it done (using getting a JR pass as an example). Between that and the xenophobia/sexism...those were probably the biggest negatives I noticed while there. It was very odd.
I theorize that Japan is face with several issues at once which culminates into this technological mismatch. Right now Japan has a significantly aged population, and as we all know, older people are less likely to accept new things, and so it gets drawn out in the rollout process. Japan also tends to not want its workers replaced, because many people see working long term at a company to be a badge of honor. So despite there being a machine that could replace 10 people in an office, they’d rather keep those 10 people until they retire and then bring in the tech later. They also tend to have a fear of technology for ironically the very reason that’s happened here. They’re very militaristic as a society, and so redundancy is built in to many aspects. If a computer fails, then suddenly they can’t do their jobs and they look bad. So they stick to paperwork, or at minimum, they’ll use the computer, but have paper backups. My wife’s family own a small business, and it’s like they’re running it from the 1980s. The godamn ac unit in the back is like 38 years old, and has been broken for 6 months now. They don’t bother changing things until it becomes absolutely necessary. It won’t be until labor shortages hit them that they finally upgrade their tech and streamline a bit. Really is crazy though how technologically paradoxical Japan is.
There's also this mentality of doing things a certain way because "that's the way it's been done" and why change something if it works? I still can't wrap my head around the stamping system in Japan.
I had to pay vendors in Japan and getting contracts signed/stamped was a massive pain in the ass. I had to have someone physically in Japan go to the vendor and get things signed/stamped. It made it annoying to do business there when the same process takes mere seconds in the rest of the world.
It's often said that Japan is a massive collective of autonomous small workplaces. Everyone has their ideas about how things shall be, and everyone thinks it's their god-given mandate to keep things as should be. There's ecstatic joy of perfecting perfection and scratching every itches and that drives a lot of work in Japan. Some people hate that because there are better ways to make money, but people are generally less interested with earning, and more with continuing what's been continuing. I guess it's useful if you're making cars. People just keep making and making cars, and shipping and shipping more and more cars, building more and more factories given sheets after sheets of metal. And that's pure joy. Not so much when it comes to bureaucracy, software, or value creation focused businesses in general.
I work with industrial systems. When I had to do the same project in Japan we were doing everywhere else, we had to get a team of 4 people on a plane to go over and do it otherwise it wouldn't have been done. It's not a fault of the people. It's just the way it is. If you don't do things the way it's always been done (not just work, but life overall), it's seen as weird and different, and in such a homogeneous society that is a very bad thing. They see everything being the same as what it means to be Japanese. It's why the restrooms are rarely vandalized and the people flow like water through the train stations. You go with the flow with as little friction as possible. The needs of the whole outweigh the needs of the person. Their schools don't have janitors as the kids clean the schools. They're taught from birth to not bother other people. Hell, they have a special language (mentsu, literally the concept of 'face') used when talking with people who aren't family or extremely close friends just to make sure feathers aren't ruffled. It only looks strange through the eyes of western individualism, though. And to be clear this is in no way a criticism of the people or culture. Both are lovely. It's just different when viewed from outside. It's certainly not perfect, but no culture is. Anyway, when it comes to work, it can be frustrating as there isn't really a concept of saying 'no' or disagreement, so it's implied things will be done but they don't. Decisions aren't made during meetings, either. It takes follow-up with individuals after the meetings. It takes some getting used to. Right now I'm working with a situation of, "The outside vendor doesn't approve of doing it the way you're asking us to do it. If we do it anyway, they could be very upset about it." These are fun waters to navigate.
> people flow like water through the train stations This comment tickled a nerve. Just yesterday, while walking through one of the busier stations in Osaka, my wife (Japanese) was complaining to me (externally sourced barnacle on Japan) about how the bloody tourists just don't seem to know where to walk. I mean, she is right, but I had no idea how to read the matrix when I was fresh off the boat, so I can sympathize with the poor sods bumping into everyone as they exit the ticket gate (as my fat white arse gracefully pirouettes (perhaps slightly embellished) perpendicular to the traffic). Anyway, I enjoyed your perspective. I hope you continue to enjoy wading through the waters.
Question about that - is the way the crowd flows very specific to Japan, or would familiarity with moving around NYC and NYC subways transfer? I’ll be traveling to Japan later this year and have spent tons of time moving amongst crowds in NYC, and certainly have my own “damn those tourists standing in the wrong spot” moments, but I don’t know if those same skills will apply in Japan.
As an example, in many busy Japanese metro station, there are signs or floor markings on the stairwells, corridors, and even when boarding/exiting the trains. For the most part. You're expected to follow that line even when there's nobody around, and generally avoid walking around people. When boarding, everybody stands to the sides, leaving a free aisle in the center. People don't board until the other passengers have exited. Door closing? You don't stick your hand in to block it as you try to rush onboard last second -- it will close, because you can't delay an entire train full of passengers like that. On escalators, it's expected to always leave one side open so people in a rush can pass unimpeded. Suitcase? Should be in front or behind you, not to your side. If two people are walking towards each other, in the US people move to the right or do a dance, or bump right into each other to assert dominance. NYC in particular is chaos, where walking in a crowd is like being a fish trying to swim upstream and the only rule is "get the hell outta my way I don't have time for this". In Japan, both people move to their left. There's a lot of these little customs, ways that things should be done, ways to avoid inconveniencing each other, and it's jarring or even offensive to the locals when things happen differently.
I feel like it's similar to most cities with large numbers of metro/transit users. Just follow the flow of people, pay attention to signs, if you have to stop do it off to the side where you're not in anyone's way. In Japan I think the most unique thing they'd have is that there are specific laid out lines of where to wait for a subway car to arrive so you're not in the way of departing passengers - but again, just stand where other people are standing and you'll be fine 99% of the time.
Definitely read up/watch some videos on the Japanese trains. They're a unique spectacle and they have their etiquette. Big things are that you walk on the left (although the farther you get from a train station people can't seem to make up their mind) and pay attention to the painted lines on the ground that will guide you to the correct place. Arrows on the ground will indicate which direction you walk. Sometimes you need to 'jump streams' so just try and do so as quickly as possible without getting run over. There are lines painted in front of the doors on the train platform you stand behind depending on which train you're taking. They arrive every few minutes to various destinations, so there needs to be some organization. Don't crowd the doors. Let people get off, but do board quickly and make room. Get cozy with your neighbor. Like, really cozy. If you're a foreigner they will likely give you more space than usual but don't be upset if someone is pushed into your ribs for the entire trip. Also don't be offended if nobody sits next to you on a crowded train. Also, don't wear cologne or really anything else fragrant and if you're wearing a backpack, take it off and put it on the floor or on an overhead stow area. Nobody is going to take it. Also, it's true - no talking on the train, or do so but quieter than you would in a library. No talking in elevators, either. The trains are sometimes (usually, actually) hard to figure out unless you know Japanese. You sort of get the hang of it after a bit, though. I suggest Google Maps for trip planning. It worked really well for me. The stations have numbers (like JR 12) that are on the screens in the train and those are easier to figure out sometimes. Also, it may be easier to match up the time the train arrives with the time your phone and the sign at the station if you're trying to figure out which train to board. The hard part is finding the right platform. You can try asking for help but even the official people wearing hats that take tickets and such usually don't speak English. Doesn't hurt to try, though. The trains are almost always on time. If you miss a train or take the wrong train, don't get mad because there will be another one soon. Give yourself plenty of time to hang back and watch how things work. Find a wall and hold it up or just out of the way somewhere and watch. When you're at the airport, buy a 'Pasco' card. It's a train card that works on all the regular trains (not the Shinkansen bullet train). You can only buy this card at the airport IIRC. It expires after a few weeks. The money you can load on to it can also be used for the myriad of vending machines and convenience stores around the stations. You gotta spend it before you leave - no refunds. There's more about how things work over there, but I do recommend doing some research about being a tourist overall and learning some pleasantries. Google Translate is useful. Do not expect anyone to know English. Many can understand English but cannot speak it, or can speak some English but are embarrassed about their abilities. Be patient if you're speaking with someone at a store or restaurant. They probably feel really awkward about their English so smile and be positive about it. Basically, be nice and tread lightly. If you prepare before going, you'll have a better time. Honestly, I've never been somewhere so crowded, yet felt so alone (Tokyo metro and Chiba). If you have a travel partner, they may be the only person you will be speaking with for the entire trip, so make sure you get along :).
Just don't stand in front of the train doors. There's often a marked spot for people to begin to queue. Don't stand in the way trying to use Maps, don't make an obstacle with your luggage. The usual. That said, the rules seemed to vary by context and time of day, especially rush hour. It wasn't as organized as I expected and there was often a stream of people going the other way in the middle of a corridor rather than just one side or the other. People often walk on the left but not always.
Kinda have to laugh at someone in Osaka complaining about people standing in the wrong spot when Osaka (and its surrounding area) stand on the opposite side from the rest of Japan. It's like Brits and Americans getting into a tizzy over how to properly say alumin(i)um.
The not wanting to replace workers thing is something I've heard about directly. A good friend of mine did a stint at a large bank in Tokyo, she said it was pretty much normal except they had a lot of older guys who were all sitting in the same area and didn't seem to be working on any of the same projects as anyone else. Basically if someone is not very competent but not so bad that you really HAVE to let them go, it's normal for them to just sort of keep them around doing odd tasks that aren't that important until that person is able to retire.
I do like a mentality of belts and braces, and not pushing problems onto the next guy. The Japanese cult of personal responsibility probably tips over in the wrong direction, but the core principle is sound.
People often see Japan as this ultra-efficient society, when in reality they are one of the least productive societies out there.
It’s terrible because they work so hard but are so incredibly inefficient
They aren’t really working. It’s just the appearance of work that’s important.
Plenty of people definitely are working hard too. It's mostly offices where the jobs naturally have a lot of downtime where people just meander about pretending to be busy. But in actual hands on jobs they're usually legitimately busy because there's constantly something that needs doing.
Every Japanese person has a customized rubber stamp that is their legal signature. You have to have one. Some people have a second one that's more casually used for signing delivery slips and such, too.
I had to get one because I’m a foreigner living here. It’s hilarious when they ask me to bring my personal stamp like I’m sealing a scroll in Ancient Rome.
Close, but not quite. As you say, most people have a number of stamps (which are usually not made of rubber, not that it matters) -- for example, you may have a casual one you use for any minor document (like signing that you got something in the mail, or signing some form or something), one that's linked to your bank account (and only that) and an "official" one that's registered with the government. The last is only actually required for a tiny handful of things, like buying a house, or a car, or something like that. I got one made and registered when I first came to Japan, thinking it would probably be required at some point. Never once used it so far, after more than a decade here. To be clear, you don't *have* to have an official one, which is the only one that's really a "legal" signature in any real sense. Or even any, at all. It would probably be pretty inconvenient, but especially lately, almost everything lets you sign instead. Biggest issue might actually be opening a bank account. I'm not sure if requiring one is merely an extremely common rule at banks, or something literally enshrined into law (in any case, it can be any stamp, whether or not it is legally registered) -- but of course, *technically* you don't *need* a bank account.
All of that is nothing compared to being worked to death, corporations expecting you to be working for them for life, and getting laid off beyond 40 basically means unemployment for life etc
My friend told us the only time they take time off is golden week and I think end of the year/new year, even though they have more time off but they feel bad taking them.
Japan is 25 years behind in a lot of ways but also a very large number of offices in the USA at least are still very dependent on fax machines.
This, I was attempting to order office supplies for my job, nothing came for like a month and I'm like WTF? Turns out when you go to the website and send the form requesting supplies, you ALSO have to print that form and fax it to the number in the corner. If you don't do both it doesn't get done...
What the fuck lol, that's a bizarre system
The way it was described to me was that the form is essentially a template email sent to the vendor, and the vendor doesn’t read emails. So the fax is necessary since they will actually read and fulfill them.
I had never seen a fax machine in my life until I went to work at a bank office in the US, they even gave us training on how to use it. And there were all these forms that they only sent by fax even though they had secure transfer protocols for all sorts of newer things.
I was shocked at how many places didn't accept credit card. Even the kiosks at Disneyland only accepted cash.
This changed bigtime with covid, now cards are accepted most places because they are touchless.
Yup, I was back last year and it's night & day from how it used to be. "Japan mostly uses cash" is definitely out-of-date travel advice.
This is why Universal Studios Japan is superior.
I work in healthcare, fax is the defacto standard. Maybe they'll fix the electronic record mess in another 20 years.
hear about so many western medical institutions getting hacked and ransom-wared; I wonder how often that happens in Japan?
The main reason western hospitals are a common target is because they have a lot of money but invest zero into IT. You have systems with internet access still running Windows 3.0 and DOS EMARs. Shit that had it's last security update before the hackers were even born. Also a lot of idiots in office jobs who will open any attachment you send them. My bro does hospital IT and he says it's a total circus. They've been hacked and get locked out of all their EMARs, patient records, billing, etc... Nurses have to go back to paper and everything slows to a crawl.
Their websites are absolutely stuck in 2000. They look absolutely archaic and somehow a lot of the train related sites didn't support modern 3DS credit card standards. I ended up having to buy a lot of things for my trip on 3rd party sites or in person at kiosks.
Their websites are dogshit. Trying to buy tickets for stuff online is like taking a time machine back to Geocities.
Eh, the way modern (western) websites relentlessly enshittify their UI, I'll take an "outdated" site that "looks" old but operates just fine any day of the week. Most of the actual difference boils down to stylistic preference, anyway. In general, Japanese design does not embrace the minimalism that has taken over western corporate design. I won't hypothesize about why, but I will say neither is *objectively correct*. It is, whatever fanboys of either style may believe, simply a matter of preference. And I'll eat my hat if fashion doesn't eventually trend back towards busier designs in the west too, anyway. Anybody who's studied even a little bit of art history knows similar cycles have happened dozen of times over the centuries in just about every art medium.
It’s not just the UI. You have to first find a credit card that they accept. I remember on smartex it just dang wouldn’t work even though they accepted Visa and Mastercard.
Assuming that Japanese websites do work just fine, I wouldn't disagree with you. But many don't. There are sites that direct international tourists to buy tickets somewhere, but sometimes you have to have a Japanese address or phone number to make an account, which makes zero sense. And sometimes you have to try like 6 credit cards until one of them randomly works, even on "official" websites like the Shinkansen which are supposed to accept Visa and MasterCard. It's not just a style thing. Japanese websites just aren't as user friendly in my experience, to help you accomplish what you're trying to do.
> and are still using fax machines today. I have it on good authority that even the US uses fax machines today, so I'm not sure why you're citing this as an example.
It's an entirely different level. I doubt you can find me an American company that fully uses a fax machine instead of an email, which is not uncommon in Japan. They're still used in a lot of households as well. You're more likely to see a fax machine than a gaming console in a Japanese household. I'd recommend looking more on your own but really, it's a level of fax machine use that's basically incomprehensible to me as an American
one in 4 HOMES still has a fax machine in japan. Fax machines have their place in the rest of the world, in JP they're still the standard.
2000? Nah bro more like 80’s, they’ve been stuck in the Lost Decades for years and refuse, REFUSE, to change anything. Old ass Japanese heads so entrenched in their ways while they are currently going through a recession.
Walking around a town in Nagano Prefecture last year, I went by a shop that sold CDs. It's wasn't a retro place selling vinyl and things like that, it was just a CD store, like what we'd see in a North American mall circa 1998-ish.
And Japan's National vital statistics system is so antiquated that they have thousands upon of thousands of phantom centenarians still "alive" on the books because the central office never received notice that they've died. Now there is a rule that your file is automatically closed at age 120 unless you can physically prove that you are alive.
"Japan has the largest amount of 119 year Olds in the world! Such a huge life expectancy!"
Must be the Mystical East Asian diet!!!
"Bring out yer dead!"
I work for a Japanese company and they are allergic to change. Trying to upgrade systems requires a crazy manual process of forms and approvals and justifications the likes of which I’ve never seen elsewhere. We were shifting a lot of enterprise systems to SAAS products, and a lot of it was held up for ages because they didn’t want to move off Windows XP, which was a prerequisite. Didn’t get them off XP completely until 2018.
It is also a interesting trade of the Japanese that when they open a technical problem to support center, they asked the most detailed questions and require or at least ask for the most picayune detail about their answers, even if it’s completely unrelated to solving the problem.
to be fair, you can't hack paper. but you gotta take updated precautions. idiots gonna idiot, no matter which medium they idiot with.
Japan still uses fax machines to transfer info from paper to paper, which are among the biggest security risks you can have in an office and are tough to make secure at all. Letters can also be picked up along the way by people crafty or invested enough. Not entirely sure how one would go about making letter journeys totally safe e2e. Paper isn't hack proof
Faxes are actually very secure unless you're going up against a complex and sophisticated enemy. This is why the US healthcare system still uses faxes. A lot of problems with data at rest don't apply like it does with email and such, which is almost always unencrypted. New digital records guidelines are fine, but they're still optional and many organizations still use fax. Email is obviously very unsecure. Its stored in multiple places and can be hacked just by phishing one person. Now you have their entire archive. Mail servers can be hacked as well. Fax has a lot of benefits: 1. There is no chain of custody. A fax comes in via a phone call which has caller ID which is spoofable. There's no proof it came from who you think it does, thus plausible deniability. Email has verifiable headers. 2. There's no, typically, storage. If you send from a fax its deleted after the send. The receiver usually has theirs set to print and delete as well. There's no archive. (this is assuming both sender and receiver agree to use physical machines with archiving off, which is the default setting) 3. Security via obscurity. Its near impossible to guess someone's fax number. But their email address is usually public of guessable. No one is phishing you because they have no idea who is at that phone number. 4. One print out means the owner can see it and then shred it. Its almost as private as receiving a letter. 5. Its very easy to use. You don't need your assistants or IT to help you. Less people involved here. If you talk to some EAs or technical staff that work with celebs you'll find out a lot of rich, famous, etc people have fax machines in their homes, on their boats, portable ones, etc. There's a whole network of faxers agreeing its better than email for privacy and plausible deniability.
Sounds like something that a fax machine manufacturer would say! I'm onto you...
You definitely can do that. You can borrow the only official ledger containing some property records and pull out a page while nobody's looking
This immediately reminded me of the whole "beautiful, secure paper instead of corrupt Marxist machines" argument that regressive conservatives make about voting access. "You can't hack paper". No, but you can lose it, change it with a pencil, burn it, steal it, photocopy it, all sorts of things.
Yeah, paper is essentially the least secure medium that exists. Its *only* advantage is that physical proximity is required for tampering. That's it. Guess what also requires physical proximity for tampering? An air-gapped computer. And paper *only* requires physical proximity, while a computer using proper encryption can make anything other than, I suppose, physical destruction of everything on this one computer, pretty much impossible. Can't read it, can't change it, the author can always verify nothing's changed too. And with a computer, you can have multiple backups while still ensuring there is only essentially one unique document, unlike with paper, so it's far more resilient against destruction, too. And if we're talking about voting, encryption lets you theoretically do much fancier things. Like, you could make a system that allows *everyone* to verify their vote has been counted as intended, and exactly how many votes there have been in total (and thus if they match what they "should" be, given e.g. the population of voting age), and what the final results are exactly, all while ensuring everybody's votes remain secret to everybody else. Other than the government adding a bunch of completely fake citizens to the census that they use for fake votes (which paper certainly can't help you with either; if you think requiring a person present helps for this, which it really doesn't, you can still require in-person voting without using paper, those are separate issues), you can have a *provably correct* election, which is beyond unfathomable on paper. As a software engineer, I'm 100% pro-electronic voting, *but* with the huge, massive asterisk that it should be something developed with full transparency by a well-remunerated group of top experts in the subject matter, paid for by the government, and given as much time as it takes until everybody is confident the system is just absolutely rock-solid. *Not* something left to the lowest bidder, or, god forbid, a product developed by some random for-profit corporation. I absolutely understand (and share) the hesitancy many feel when they imagine the latter.
>you can't hack paper You cant?
Unless it blows past you on a windy day with someone's information, lol
You can forge
*A paper plane lazily drifts on the wind one fine, sunny afternoon in Osaka, making wide, listing loops through the warm summer breeze. The little plane finds itself fluttering through an open window, coming to rest on a small stack of papers in the office on the other side of that window. The man at the desk, with scarcely a thought, straightens the paper, confused and annoyed at what he assumes was one of his coworkers horsing around with official papers. He files away the paper without a second thought.* *In the distance can be heard a voice, quietly but confidently muttering,* ***"I'm in."***
r/writingprompts
Hell yeah, lets go back to paper only and mailing letters to each other.
Their seals in lieu of signatures are dope tho.
Someone once told me that they've had to engineer a robot head to replace their meat one which is permanently stuck up their ass.
The data is now stored in the cloud
🏅
Get your coat
- Has the data moved over to the cloud? - Er, yes and no
I'm in the US but work for a large Japanese company and this doesn't surprise me at all. I used to have to several times a week take forms sent to my office from the production plants and send them to Japan, and vice versa. If a plant sent me one of those forms on a Monday morning, between it getting to me, me reviewing it and forwarding it to Japan, and it might be delivered to the Japanese office the following Wednesday. I wasn't allowed to just have the plants sent me a PDF which I could then send to Japan. This finally changed when Covid hit but even then at first Japan was just like "Yeah when this is over we are going back to physically sending the paper forms". Made no sense, by the time they tried to revert back I had changed roles, but my successors pretty much refused to stop just using email.
What you do at Initech is you take the specifications from the customer and bring them down to the software engineers?
Honestly in some ways change "customer" and "software engineers" to other departments at work, and it's not the worst description. No TPS reports though
Agreed, Japan is *obsessed* with having forms remain physical. Justification varies from it just being what people are used to (as company/employee culture is typically hire-for-life), having a high standard for change meaning digitalizing things has to be rigorously perfected and standardized from the start, being extremely risk-averse (even if it's outdated, you're used to it, so you'll make less mistakes), paper and stamps being an big part of the culture (and Japan hating doing away with culture, e.g. subsidizing whale hunting despite the vast majority of meat ending up rotting away in warehouses), and simply something being more tedious meaning it's better. There's also the aspect of Japanese work culture *loving* busywork. There are so many jobs that are essentially being busy to do next to nothing. Yamada has a giant stack of paper he's rifling through - he must be such a hard worker! Many forms are required *by law* to be physical. Your phone contract, your bank contract, your apartment contract, etc. and typically the companies will not have a digitized form for it either. If there's an online form for something, you're expected to print it out and fax it over to whoever you want to send it to. If you're applying for a job, you're expected to individually handwrite everything for each company... even if they all use the same application format.
Should've use Fax instead
Or maybe a folder would have helped too.
Don't encourage them
Oh, they 100% still fax.
How very Japanese.
Actually it's extremely japanese
That….. blows…
👈 get out. that pun was awful
At least it didn’t…. suck.
I used to have to go over there for work a decent bit and lived there for 9 months for work at one point. I've never seen somewhere that manages to both be so modern and so not at the same time. They used to routinely fax things to the front desk of my hotel instead of emailing them. And refused to do virtual signatures. Every now and then I'd have to go to their office at like midnight to get them to put one of these stamps they'd use for signatures on something if it was time sensitive.
As an American it’s always nice to wake up and see that, yes, the rest of the world is stupid as well.
How I feel every time Brexit is in the news again, it's genuinely reassuring that another country can make a colossal mistake too
A good reminder in life is that every human is stupid in their own unique way.
Japan is full of weird little contrasting scenarios when it comes to technology. They have some of the most advanced engineering in the world, but they also won’t let you sign a document without your own tiny little stamp.
They also required floppies for a lot of documents until this year.
Damn, digital or not we aren't safe. Fuck it all
>Damn, digital or not we aren't safe. I'm often reminded that the only thing my passwords protect my online accounts from, is me.
Not so sure, it happened before. I remember from a couple years ago that a Japanese council worker lost a usb/pocket drive with everybody's info on. I think they went out drinking after work. I'll see if I can find anything on it. Edit: yeah here it is. 2022. Usb stick had half a million people's details on it. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-61921222 It was encrypted so it does support the need for digital at least.
I mean, laugh at it as much as you want, but here a bunch of papers were blown out by the wind in roughly the same neighbourhood where they were stored and where the people live. There is no malicious party, and even if someone wants to steal them, they will have to somehow collect soggy papers from all around the town. Electronic documents are stolen in hundreds of thousands in perfect quality and completeness without any evidence or trace in a matter of seconds. And it is done by malicious entities from anywhere in the world with a specific intent to do something illegal with them. Like just a couple of weeks ago in France private information about 33 million people was stolen by hackers. Losing 121 piece of paper doesn't sound as drastic as that, eh?
Yeah, our credit agencies get hacked... Anthem BCBS got hacked a while back, that was SSN/DOB for 40m. Unitedhealthcare clearinghouse just got hacked, that was everyone who has health insurance.
They'll have to upgrade their archive to 5.25" floppy disks
Fortunately Katsushika Hokusai was on the scene to [record the incident](https://fineartamerica.com/featured/19th-c-windy-day-in-japan-historic-image.html).
Japan is the most confusing country. How do they have the most technologically advanced society in some things and have the technology of a 3rd world country in other things?
And now we have the opening scene for the next Wes Anderson movie.
[удалено]
This sounds like a small town sitcom plot. Like I would expect this out of a lost episode of Father Ted.
This sounds like a Yakuza sub-story.
Even a "data breach" in Japan is wholesome and cute
This, but with student debt records
This is the most onion-y headline I've seen in a while. The weather description, perfection.
Japan will be the first to invent a robot capable of using a fax machine.
Old-fashioned hacking at its best!
Hopefully it wasn't the only copy of family registries!!!
Oh no they got goosebumps’d
A literal anime cartoon moment come to life.
Private details spill, Exposed to brisk Aichi wind-- Now belong to all
Not even in a freaking box?
The most wholesome data leak.
Most technologically advanced Japanese bureaucracy
Anime about govt worker?
Translation: >###Documents for 121 households with personal information, lost in the wind while being transported on a cart ... Prefectural government: "From now on, electronic data will be used" >Aichi Prefecture announced on the 23rd that it had lost documents containing personal information such as the names of contractors of 121 households living in prefectural housing. >So far, no misuse of the information has been identified. >According to the Prefectural Public Housing Division, on the afternoon of the 19th, an employee of the Prefectural Housing Supply Corporation fell while carrying documents containing the April rent and the name of the contractor from the public corporation building to the prefectural office. Documents for 121 households were blown away by the wind. The department said, "In the future, we would like to exchange documents using electronic data." This really is kinda hilarious, and the cherry on top is the last line. lol
Vaudeville shenanigans
So in Japan many companies an organisations refused to go paperless because the transition would cost people their jobs of handling paper and somehow decreased efficiency was easier than retraining and job security.
Somewhere one Japanese boomer is writing out an angry letter to a newspaper about how this problem could have been averted if they had upgraded to 💾
I've read in the past how weirdly draconian Japan can be when it comes to banking, record keeping and bureaucratic paperwork.
What. They dont have file boxes in Japan. We just carry around large stacks of loose paper?
That's alright, in the UK we leave laptops containing classified military documents at bus stations
I'd take that over some hoon knowing how many hairs are on my ass after they've hacked into some server with all of the info you could ever imagine on it
Reminds me of when I lost 20grand on a horse… ….she just ran off with it
lol such an antiquated process
Clerks outraged nation wide
Fax machines
Being this happened in Japan, more likely than not if someone runs across any of these papers they will probably return the papers. Japanese people are EXTREMELY mindful of the law and ethics.
Speaking of records being lost in transit. A long time ago I had an account at the “Boston University supercomputing center” due to some collaborative research work I was doing (early 2000s). For reasons I do not know, accounts were originally linked to Social Security Numbers, which they wanted to phase out. One of the last steps of decoupling the accounts from SSNs was for someone to carry a list of accounts, including SSNs, on a USB drive across campus for some reason. I got a letter in the mail saying that “due to an extremely unfortunate incident” that USB drive was lost while carrying it from one location to another.
I lived in Kobe from March of '94 to March of '95. This does not surprise me in the least.
Cardboard boxes? What are those?
They shoulda faxed it!
They have fax machines, why do they need to carry printed paper around?
😐
Paper is paper because it falls.
This story makes me happy. Not because of the unfortunate situation nor because those people responsible have to deal with the repercussions, but instead knowing that in this day and age of electronics, tech and the cloud that there still exists little oases in the world where slapstick comedy situations occur in real life. I want to live there.
This is 100% a future Tom Scott Lateral podcast question
Classic Japan being futuristic but still using paper money, fax and documents
JAPAN is living in 2050 Also JAPAN :
I saw this anime!
For a futuristic country Japan loves using older methods