世論 What Japan Thinks

Surprisingly high levels of data security were uncovered in this recent survey from Marsh Inc and reported by japan.internet.com into computer backups.

Demographics

Over the 18th and 19th of August 2008 300 members of the Marsh monitor group completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

I haven’t backed-up for ages and ages, although the wife pesters me to do it weekly or so. Hopefully now that we have our new PC with a DVD-R I can set up a regular schedule. Can anyone recommend good software for that? Talking of backups, I don’t do it for the blog either…

I’m surprised, however, at the numbers who do back up, and perhaps in the full survey we would find answers to questions like why did they start backing up, have they ever had to restore, and did the backups restore correctly.
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I’m back from holidays, so normal service will be resumed from today. To kick things off, here’s one from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and published by japan.internet.com looking into P2P (peer to peer) file-sharing software.

Demographics

On the 29th of July 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel employed in public or private industry completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 73.6% of the sample were male, 8.8% in their twenties, 36.4% in their thirties, 41.2% in their forties, and 13.6% in their fifties. The Japanese text said in one place it was only those in private industry interviewed, but in another that it was both public and private; and in one place people from their twenties to sixties, but the percentage breakdown did not mention anything about people in their sixties…

In Q2, one category that is omitted is legitimate software, either shareware or Linux and other GPLed contents.

My fingers are still jet-lagged, so I cannot type too much extra comment tonight…
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With Patch Tuesday tomorrow promising (threatening?) three critical updates, let’s look at this survey from JR Tokai Express Research Inc and reported on by japan.internet.com into comnputer maintainance at home.

Demographics
Over the 3rd and 4th of June 2008 330 members of the JR Tokai Express Research monitor panel completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 50.9% of the sample were male, 3.3% in their teens, 16.4% in their twenties, 40.3% in their thirties, 21.8% in their forties, 10.0% in their fifties, 5.8% in their sixties, and 2.4% aged seventy or older.

I’m not 100% which camp I fall into, as I have Windows set up to automatically download, but to notify me before install. In addition, I visit Windows Update once a month or so just to see if there is any extra optional components. As for defragmenting, I’ve never done that on my home PC, mostly as it’s too slow, although I’ll do it at work just to make me look busy. I might just do it tonight just to see what happens.
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Barely a month goes by these days without a story about someone leaking state secrets through Winny or other P2P software, so to see if either the personal or corporate world are doing anything about these sorts of issues, Marsh Inc conducted a survey reported on by japan.internet.com into awareness of information security.

Demographics

Between the 29th of May and the 3rd of June 2008 300 members of the Marsh online monitor group employed in either the public or private sector successfully completed a private internet-based questionnaire. Exactly 50.0% of the sample were male, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 20.0% in their fifties, and 20.0% aged sixty or older.

We have internet policies at work that basically say no non-work sites are to be accessed, but I a friend works on the basis that if the proxy doesn’t block it then it’s OK. They also ban Skype because it can use a lot of bandwidth, but that excuse always smelt of convenience, as rather than put rules in place to ensure that it doesn’t steal bandwidth in the office, a blanket ban was much simpler. It’s a bit of a pain when on business trips, as I can’t use Skype for free or cheap phone calls.

In addition, at my workplace the first five security measures mentioned in Q4 are in place and we also have a smart card that is needed in order to connect to either the wireless network or the VPN.

I was disappointing in Q4 not to see the Trusted Platform Module being asked about, although I suspect the figures for usage would be absolutely zero! However, with Interop Tokyo next week seeing the launch of the Japan Regional Forum of the Trusted Computing Group, perhaps we’ll see a survey on awareness of that particular technology soon.
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With the overblown fuss and much misunderstanding in the foreigner community about fingerprinting and the horrors of biometric scanning, this recent survey reported on by japan.internet.com and conducted by Marsh Inc into biometrics provides some insight into how the Japanese view this matter.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 8th of April 2008 300 members of the Marsh internet monitor group successfully completed a private online questionnaire. The sample was exactly 50:50 male and female, and 20.0% were in their teens, 20.0% in their twenties, 20.0% in their thirties, 20.0% in their forties, 14.7% in their fifties, and 5.3% aged sixty or older.

I’ve not actually used any biometric identification system (excluding US immigration!), although my wife used to have a mobile phone with a fingerprint scanner, but rather than use it for unlocking the phone, she used it for a virtual pet game where scanning one’s finger initiated the petting action!
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I run anti-virus software at home, and at work of course, but there always is the worry that it’s chewing up system resources – at work a full disk scan starts at noon on Wednesdays and takes around two hours to process my desktop, rendering most other tasks pretty much unusable – but better safe than sorry, which is, I suppose, how TrendMicro and the rest make their money. To find out what the average Japanese person uses at home, japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by JR Tokai Express Research Inc into anti-virus software.

Demographics

On the 19th of March 2008 331 members of the JR Tokai Express Research online monitor group employed in either the private or public sector completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 83.7% of the sample was male, 10.6% in their twenties, 38.4% in their thirties, 35.3% in their forties, 12.7% in their fifties, and 3.0% in their sixties.

For free software, the best virus protection is probably AVG Anti-Virus, which I recommend should be used in conjunction with a spyware detector, with SpyBot Search and Destroy being the one I employ on a regular basis.
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Last year I looked at a survey on influenza issues, but this year it’s a different kind of virus, the computer sort, that we look at in a survey conducted by goo Research into 60-79 year old computer users and security matters.

Demographics

Over the 6th and 7th of December 2007 613 members of the goo Research monitor panel were interviewed. 50.1% were female, 73.6% in their sixties, and 26.4% in the seventies.

One-click fraud is a type of fraud perhaps not unique to Japan, but Google doesn’t turn up any reports from other countries when searching in English. Basically the idea is that you get a spam, or click on a link somewhere and end up at the target page which suddenly tells you you’ve registered and need to pay a vast sum of money for monthly membership, or they’ll send the boys round. This seems to work well in Japan due to some combination of unwillingness of the victims to cause a fuss and weak consumer protection and other law enforcement. Actually, my wife ended up on somewhere similar after filling in details on a prize draw advertised through Chikyuu no Arukikata’s web site (Japan’s top independent traveller guide brand) and had to change email addresses due to 40-plus emails per day pestering her to join a dating site. I told her to complain to Chikyuu no Arukikata for betraying her trust, but even though she is quite expert at flame mails in other cases, she seemed reluctant for some reason I couldn’t deduce.
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japan.internet.com reported on a survey conducted by Cross Marketing Inc into automatic software updating of personal computer operating systems, in particular Windows.

Demographics

Between the 4th and 5th of April 300 members of their online monitor group living in Tokyo and the surrounding area successfully completed a private internet-based survey. As is usual for Cross Marketing, there was an equal split of the sexes 50:50, and of the age bands, with 20.0% in each of the teens, twenties, thirties, forties and fifties age groups.

I do share most of the people’s concern that the reboot dialog is annoying, as once it is there it will keep popping up every five minutes. It really needs a “Please stop reminding me!” check box. My other pet hate is that the background process does slow down my machine a bit when it runs.
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[part 1] [part 2] [part 3]

Between the 18th of January and the 4th of February the Cabinet Office Japan conducted a survey into what people thought about society.

Demographics

10,000 people were selected randomly from all Japanese citizens aged 20 or older for face-to-face interviews. 5,585 people were available and agreed to take part. 54.5% of the sample was female, 7.9% in their twenties, 14.8% in their thirties, 15.2% in their forties, 21.0% in their fifties, 20.8% in their sixties, 15.4% in their seventies, and 4.8% aged 80 or older. 74.6% were married, 11.8% were divorced or widowed, and 13.5% never married.

Another knee-jerk from many in the foreign community was when Japan’s Health Minister Hakuo Yanagisawa talked about it being only natural that couples want at least two children. Some bloggers did go against the trend, I’m glad to say, and this survey shows that the majority of married people want, in fact, three children, and even the younger generation much prefer two to one or zero.

At least the topic of children brings out the brighter side of the Japanese. Education costs are a major concern, as even most public schools require the parents to pay for the basics like text books..
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[part 1] [part 2]

The Cabinet Office Japan recently released a survey into people’s thoughts about public safety in Japan. 3,000 people aged 20 or older were chosen by random, and between the 14th and 24th of December 1,795 of them, or 59.8%, took part in face-to-face interviews. Of those who did not participate, 124 had moved, 79 were on long-term absenses from home, 365 were not at home, 58 could not be found, 514 refused to participate, and 65 did not take part for other reasons. Demographically, 54.1% were female, 8.9% between 20 and 29, 15.0% between 30 and 39, 16.9% between 40 and 49, 21.9% between 50 and 59, 20.7% between 60 and 69, and 16.7% aged 70 or older.

The “gaijin hanzai” comment is related to the recent uproar regarding widespread availability of a magazine playing on precisely the fears expressed in this survey.

When I first heard about this survey I was really keen to get hold of it and translate it, but when I saw quite how much the fear of the foreign peril seems to have been stirred up, I got quite depressed. When the news of this poll appeared on Japan Today I posted a sarcastic comment (that got pulled by the moderators!) about how I was disappointed that foreigners did not make the list of dangers in that summary by Kyodo News. Little did I know that it was perhaps selective editing by the press so as not to hurt our English-speaking feelings. About the only bright spot I can find is that international terror organisations, etc, (with that “etc” covering local terror groups, the main ones so far that have actually attacked Japan) are not high in people’s concern. Note though that Q5 mentioned only international terrorists, there is no “etc”, or other questions on local loony groups.
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