Jan 26, 2026

If you try to visit Seoul National University's (SNU) "International Partners" page right now, you won't find it.

You will find a dead link. A timeout. A void.

But if you visit the main SNU homepage? It works perfectly. The admissions page? Fine. The donation page? Running smoothly.

Only one specific section of the "Harvard of Korea" has vanished: the database where they list their global friends.

Why?

Because we started asking who those friends actually are.

The Timeline of Questionable Events

On January 21, 2026, we published a forensic alert on DC Inside titled "Seoul National University Administration Worse than Inha University? The Ritsumeikan Mystery."¹ This post exposed that while SNU lists Ritsumeikan University as a partner, Ritsumeikan's own database shows no student exchange agreement exists.

As of today, January 26, that post has garnered 111 industry-specific views and a recommendation on the student board.²

Five days later, the database is offline.

A Coincidental Outage?

Following our exposure of Dongguk University's falsified partnership with UBC (which was removed from their site immediately after we flagged it), we are now observing anomalies at Seoul National University.

SNU's Office of International Affairs (oia.snu.ac.kr) is currently down.

SNU OIA Website Connection Error

Wayback Machine Error

While technical maintenance is possible, the timing is notable—occurring shortly after we publicly questioned specific partnership claims on student forums. We are monitoring the situation to see if the database returns with the disputed entries intact.

We have previously noted that SNU listed Ritsumeikan University as a partner, while Ritsumeikan's own database did not reciprocate the student exchange agreement.

The Submarine Connection

This matters because SNU is the crown jewel of the "Technical Talent" promise currently being sold to Canada in the Hanwha Ocean submarine deal.

If Korea's top university has unstable administrative systems preventing verification of partnerships, where is the talent coming from?

We wait to see if the data returns unchanged.

References: ¹ DC Inside Alert (Jan 21): Live | Archive
² Dashboard Tracking: dashboard.genderwatchdog.org
³ X.com Thread: Gender Watchdog Audit Reveal