Intro to ITsComm #
This week we’ve started out internships with ITsCommunication, a Tokyu railway company, responsible for providing various media services including TV & Internet lines, digital media signage, creating TV & YouTube programs, and other content. We spent the first day at their Media branch, where we learnt about the process for creating a TV/YouTube program, and toured their building infrastructure (including their server room, which was an interesting contrast to what I’m used to in Australia!). After this, we went to Tama Plaza and appeared on the “Salus All in One” radio show, which was a new experience for all of us and a lot of fun. You can find ItsCommunication YouTube channel here and the Salus All in One program here.
The second day, we visited the sales branch that’s responsible for selling the digital media displays and IoT door lock systems, mainly to Tokyo companies. We toured around customer locations in Shibuya and Shinjuku, and learned more about the sales and provisioning process, as well as some of the requirements that the customers have.
It was clear that these corporate companies operate and feel different to a western company, though at first glance it wasn’t immediately clear what that was. I think that company culture is ingrained into it’s staff in a deeper way than Australian companies. By talking to the staff, they felt a strong sense of loyalty to their company, with many of them working there for more than 10 years. The routine was also super important to the different branches at ItsComm, with everyone arriving at work at the same and having the company morning greeting. It seemed that the routine was as important as the work that was being done.
Unrelated, but there is a program called Radio Taiso, which is a morning exercise done in some Japanese company to ensure that people are moving their bodies. Not something we experienced, but just an interesting cultural difference!
It was a privilege to get to know about the business process in an intimate way, we were the first foreigners that they’ve given this opportunity.
Security in Japan v Australia #
I was surprised to learn that all rooms at ItsComm had a different swipe card access. At the media center, we were provisioned our own guest swipe cards so they could track our movements through the building. It was contrasting to see this then visit their server room which contained lots of analogue technologies for the transmission of TV signals.
After the sales department gave a presentation on their IoT locks, I mentioned that I’ve done some attack simulations (in a controlled environment) against key-cards and readers, including replay attacks and card skimming to gain access to systems. In the global cyber community there is a notion that to be able to defend against popular attacks, we need to have an understanding of the technological weakness and how they are exploited.
I think that in a society that follows rules so intensely, participating in things that are legal but are associated with breaking laws might still be seen as taboo. When I mentioned that I’d done some security research into the locks, the team seemed surprised and didn’t mention that it was something that they practiced at ItsComm.
A lot of that is speculation as it’s tricky to have technical conversations with the language barrier!
