@samuelszuchan: In South Korea, your employer badge has a black market price, and it's set by the dating market. In July 2023, a man in his 30s paid 50,000 won, about $37, for a fake Korean National Police login on Blind, the workplace app. His reason: he wanted women on Blind to see "Korean National Police" next to his messages. He told police the profession could "give the other person trust." That police login sold for 50,000 won, roughly $37. But a physician account was changing hands at 3 million won, about $2,240, roughly the price of a used compact car, according to a securities-firm employee who posted about it on Blind. The prices tracked almost exactly with the badge's social weight. This pricing isn't random. Korea's marriage matchmaking firms grade members from S down to C. Doctors, judges, and prosecutors sit at the top. Employees of Samsung and Naver land below the A tier. To clear A- as a conglomerate salaryman with no prestige profession, you'd need something like 10 billion won, about $7.5 million, in personal assets, and it has to come from your parents; self-made money at that tier doesn't count. People at small firms, freelancers, and part-time workers receive no grade at all. A matchmaking representative described this hierarchy as "something users have tacitly agreed to and actually want." The developer who forged 100 of these logins across Samsung, SK, and LG affiliates, plus the National Police Agency and the Ministry of Education, cleared close to 5 million won, around $3,730, in about six weeks before the Cyber Terror Response Unit arrested him. He was arrested. But the system that made his product valuable, the one that taught people to read a stranger by the logo attached to them, that's still running at full price.

Sam Szuchan

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Sunday 09 August 2026 14:00:00 GMT