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This is a notorious hacker group that has abandoned the spirit of hacking, using its computer skills for personal gain. Furthermore, the group has repeatedly made public statements expressing contempt for people of color and advocating white supremacy. The reason they instigated this conflict is likely due to a sense of humiliation; they might even have been the developers of the "Beacon Fire" virus!
Given Snake's character, their consistent reputation, and their technical capabilities, it's not surprising that it really is them.
What angered the members of the Red Hacker Alliance even more was that this challenge letter—well, let's just call it a challenge letter—was written in a very impolite manner!
The first sentence of the letter translates to: Humble yellow monkeys, you should feel honored to be reading this letter, because you are speaking to Snake, the legendary Snake!
Isn't that infuriating?!
Moreover, this challenge was posted on the Red Hacker Alliance's homepage, meaning that the opponent tampered with the Red Hacker Alliance's homepage through intrusion... This is the greatest disgrace for a hacker organization!
Even if you're the world's number one hacker group, you can't use this kind of tactic!
In their challenge, Snake stated that the website www.SMMH.com they published is the battleground. From now until September 10th (Beijing time), Snake challenges hackers worldwide to a five-day competition. Of course, their primary target is the legendary SMMH; in their challenge's words, let's have a showdown!
"This is outrageous!" Young Fat yelled frantically in the chat room, "Where is SMMH's boss?! Come out now! Help us wipe out these damn bastards!"
The reason he's called "prematurely fat" is because he's already logged into that website. The website appears to be a completely ordinary English interface, empty of anything, but real hackers know that this is merely the first test.
First, the encryption algorithm on the website must be cracked before any full view of the site can be obtained. This encryption algorithm is extremely difficult; this first challenge alone eliminates nearly 99% of those worldwide who wish to participate in the challenge.
Moreover, the most insidious aspect of this encryption algorithm is that it automatically adapts to the IP address of the compromised user. This means it's not a simple matter of a skilled hacker breaking in, cracking the password, and then everyone can access the site. Furthermore, even if the same person uses different compromised computers to access the website, the attack still needs to be recalculated.
Everyone who wants to get in must rely on their own strength and fight their way in single-handedly.
Within the Red Hacker Alliance, only a handful of people, such as Blue Baby and Guan Pingchao, possess this level of skill. Others, like Yingnian Zaofei, can only watch from the sidelines.
Meanwhile, Guan Pingchao and his companions were also enduring a fierce attack from the enemy.
After Guan Pingchao entered the actual page of this website, he immediately began to formally infiltrate the website's server. The most common method was to use botnets to launch a DDoS flood attack, overwhelming the target with countless streams of junk data, thus creating an opportunity to find vulnerabilities and then launch a full-scale attack.
Guan Pingchao's method was merely a test, because he knew Snake's world number one ranking was no fluke. While DDoS attacks are touted as the most common, accessible, and effective attack technique, the target should still have ways to counter them.
Sure enough, the other party's firewall easily filtered out the valid data in the massive information flow, eliminating all the junk and invalid data, and in the blink of an eye, found Guan Pingchao's true location.
"Fast! How could it be so fast?!" Guan Pingchao was astonished, thinking that this was indeed worthy of being the world's number one hacker organization. However, he was not discouraged at all, because the failure of the DDoS attack was already within his expectations.
Knowing that his opponent was stronger than him, Guan Pingchao dared not be careless. He scanned for the opponent's weaknesses while adopting a roundabout strategy to avoid direct confrontation.
Hacking is inherently unfair; besides the technical gap between the two sides, hardware configuration and the number of compromised computers also play a significant role. Guan Pingchao is currently attempting a breakthrough, but he can sense that the opponent's attack is extremely powerful. Amidst countless data streams, the attacker found him with almost no effort, then stuck to him like glue, preventing Guan Pingchao from fully focusing on dealing with the attack.
"Impossible, right?!" Guan Pingchao thought to himself. As the world's number one hacker organization, it was not surprising that Snake possessed such technical capabilities. But the question was, how could they possibly deal with each of these attacks one by one?
Although Guan Pingchao was extremely arrogant, he knew that his skills weren't yet among the world's absolute top-tier. Snkae's challenge had spread throughout the community through various channels, and judging from the intercepted data streams, at least thirty hackers, or even more, were currently attacking the server simultaneously. And as the news spread further, that number would likely increase!
If Snake were to relentlessly pursue anyone who hacked the server, how could they possibly have so many people? And with five days left, wouldn't they get some sleep?!
Thinking of this, Guan Pingchao suddenly felt a lightbulb go off in his head. At that moment, Blue Baby sent a message on the communicator: "I have entered the other party's server. Do not be disturbed by external attacks. That is just the intelligent counterattack system built into the firewall developed by the other party!"
Just as I expected!
No wonder I always felt that although the opponent's attacks were fierce and they were very persistent, their methods were too simplistic.
A firewall capable of automatic counterattacks? And one that can intelligently filter spam to identify the primary data stream being attacked! The first point isn't particularly problematic, as many self-compiled firewalls used by hackers have some counterattack capabilities—they release information containing viruses and Trojans after an attack—though generally their effectiveness is limited. This particular firewall's offensive capabilities are naturally much stronger than those of ordinary hackers, but the technical means to achieve this are still possible.
However, the fact that it can intelligently filter out spam and make such accurate judgments is quite difficult. Guan Pingchao constantly disguises and changes his appearance, yet he is always detected. If it were a real person, it wouldn't be so bad, but the other party is just software, a machine! This is very difficult to understand.
"The other party must have used some method I don't know about!" Guan Pingchao thought to himself, and continued his disguise. Because every program has its own rules; perhaps it records certain personal habits, or perhaps it records specific information, but there are always patterns!
Guan Pingchao felt that it would be incredibly embarrassing if he couldn't even handle such a program. However, as one of the developers of 360 Security Guard, he was also filled with curiosity and anticipation for this kind of firewall.
Guan Pingchao began to change his tactics because once he realized that the opponent was just a machine, things became much simpler; the main task was to find out the patterns in the machine's code. This method of finding patterns is similar to analyzing software that uses a specific algorithm to create dynamic passwords, requiring precise analysis.
Analyzing information within data stream packets? This method is utterly ineffective against DDoS flood attacks! Powerful information processing slows down the server, giving the attacker an opening.
That should be done by analyzing key fragments of information? Because although spam is disordered, it has obvious deceptive methods. As long as the pattern is found, it is not difficult to protect against it.
Thinking about this made Guan Pingchao feel very relaxed, as if he had solved a trivial magic trick.
So he disguised his intrusion information, making it look like spam, and requested to shake hands with the server.
Sure enough, after he used this method, the persistent stream of information that had been clinging to him disappeared instantly, probably because it had given up on him as junk information.
"Very good!" Guan Pingchao succeeded in one move, quickly disguising the data stream to attract the opponent's firewall attack, and he soon found a vulnerability and bypassed it!
success!
After bypassing the firewall, the next step is to gain senior administrator privileges on this server system!
Suddenly, at that moment, countless messages seemed to crowd in from all directions at the same time. Guan Pingchao found that his operation was slightly slowed down, and the next second, he found that he had been kicked out of the server.
"No way?!" Guan Pingchao was covered in sweat. The last attack launched by the opponent was so fierce that he had almost no chance to fight back.
Is this the true strength of Snake?
Only then did Guan Pingchao notice Blue Baby's message on the communicator: "This is a multi-layered firewall. I failed after breaching the second layer. The second layer is a decoy trap, making people think that's the server system. Once you launch an attack, you've entered their trap. After breaching the second layer, there's a third layer—that's the real battlefield. Unfortunately, the enemy is, after all, the world's number one hacker organization. I failed."
Guan Pingchao's hand trembled, and he accidentally knocked over the glass of milk on the table next to him.
Even the Blue Baby (a nickname for a female celebrity) couldn't do it, so do we really need to ask SMMH (the god of SMMH) for help? But the question is, where exactly is SMMH?! Does he even know about this?!
Chapter 23 Where is SMMH?
How could Chen Xu possibly know about this?
Snake's public and high-profile challenge to top hackers worldwide, primarily targeting SMMH, has circulated widely within the hacking community, yet no mainstream media outlet has reported on it.
Of course, Snake, the Red Hacker Alliance, and even the entire hacker community were certain that SMMH was somewhere out there, quietly watching the news, so no one would think he was unaware of something so significant. Even if a newbie asked, "What if SMMH didn't receive the message?" they would be utterly crushed by a group of powerful figures, their corpses then hung high and whipped with insults: "Do you think SMMH is as clueless as you? Unconcerned about industry developments?!"
But little did they know that the line between a master and a novice is often very thin... Well, Chen Xu has also reached a certain level.
Well, let's leave aside the movements of some expert or newbie for now... The main problem is that there's not much to say! Chen Xu is currently just surfing the internet, playing games, and researching computers from the future, as bland as a glass of plain water.
Besides, their leader, Wu Yuan, has disappeared like a ghost, continuing his tasks for that computer interest group whose purpose is unclear. So the only person who might have informed Chen Xu is gone, so why bring him up?
Snake's public and high-profile appearance and challenge quickly spread throughout the entire internet community. Moreover, it wasn't just hackers in the internet world who were paying attention to this move; even world-renowned intelligence organizations such as the US FBI, the UK MI5, and the Russian New KGB were also paying attention.
They have ample reason and evidence to suggest that the organization that created and spread the Beacon virus is likely the infamous Snake. Furthermore, their cyber agents' probing attacks revealed the immense potential and value of the firewall developed by Snake. Besides their core technology, they also undoubtedly possess a wealth of meaningful data.
Although these intelligence agents may not have seen "A World Without Thieves," they should still know what is most expensive in the 21st century.
The members of Snake are basically master hackers. If you could recruit them to work for you, their value would be immeasurable.
Of course, the intelligence organizations also wanted to take this opportunity to see another invaluable figure, the legendary SMMH who single-handedly solved the Firestorm virus, and see if this trap could hold him!
For other hackers, especially Asian and Black hackers, Snake's racist attitude was extremely infuriating. Hackers are proud, and although Snake's international ranking was determined by the world's professional hacker forum , many hackers who had not fought against them were not convinced.
So hackers with different motives gathered at www.SMMH.com, but after a whole day, no one had been able to take over the website's administrator account, let alone kick Snake out.
The world's number one hacker organization truly lives up to its name!
Furthermore, Snake's people were incredibly dishonest by posting a list on the website's Chaos Encryption homepage. This list was readily available on the site, eliminating the need for any further attacks. The list detailed the records of those who had failed to launch attacks within the past 24 hours... Of course, this record didn't include names or IDs. For defensive purposes, Snake couldn't possibly trace the specific addresses of every hacker, so the record only listed the time and results, along with an evaluation.
This record doesn't mention those who couldn't even break through the outermost chaotic algorithms, but with this record, hackers all over the world felt a chill.
This challenge can be divided into four stages.
The first challenge is to crack the chaos algorithm on the webpage. This challenge has stopped more than 90% of challengers. If you can't even get past this challenge, then I'm sorry, your skill level is really only this much.
The second hurdle is the first layer of the firewall. If you can discover the patterns of intelligent firewall counterattacks and successfully breach the first layer, like Guan Pingchao, then congratulations! Your skill level is high enough to qualify you for a senior management position in a medium-sized or larger security company, earning a high salary.
The third hurdle is breaching the second layer of the firewall. If you can accomplish this, you're already qualified to be the CTO of one of the world's top security companies, like Kaspersky or McAfee.
The fourth challenge is to break through the fourth layer of the firewall and enter the real battlefield! This requires someone like Blue Baby, who has already entered the ranks of top hackers and is even qualified to compete with Snake.
Unfortunately, even Blue Baby's skills are somewhat inferior to those of Snake's elite members. Let alone the fourth challenge after passing the first three! And she'll be facing a group attack from her opponents; one person can't fight against so many. Blue Baby alone, or even a few top hackers, wouldn't be enough.
However, some people complained, saying, "Is this fair? You call yourselves the world's number one hacker group, all you do is hide in your turtle shell? Then stop calling yourselves snakes and start calling yourselves turtles!"
But there's no such thing as fairness in hacker battles, especially when the opponent is a master who single-handedly takes on the entire world. What else is there to say?
If you really want to count, there are a fifth and a sixth level above the fourth level.
The fifth task is to take over the server and kick out all the Snake members. The sixth task is to prevent them from launching a counterattack at any time.
Since they developed the firewall and challenged top experts worldwide, they were naturally prepared to be kicked out. And there must be backdoors they left in the firewall; when they counterattack, they can simply enter through those backdoors… It's like attacking a city: one side works tirelessly, suffering heavy losses, finally managing to break in and drive the enemy away. But a short while later, the enemy slips back in through the tunnels they've dug.
How do we fight this?
Even if they quickly seize control of the server and uninstall the firewall, it won't hinder the opponent at all. They can easily reinstall it after taking it back, without much effort.
The only way now is to try our best to obtain data from the enemy's firewall in the next few days, analyze it, and find their vulnerabilities. Then, in the last few hours before midnight on September 10th, launch a fierce attack to break through their defenses and drive Snake out in one fell swoop!
Although the outcome of this contest has no practical significance, it is a matter of honor!
Moreover, as China's largest and most iconic Red Hacker Alliance, it carries the honor of the entire Chinese hacker community.
The Red Hacker Alliance has already posted an announcement on its homepage calling on SMMH to appear as soon as possible and contact senior members of the Red Hacker Alliance. However, more than four days have passed, and it is now 5 pm on September 9th, but SMMH still has not appeared.
The members of the Red Hacker Alliance are starting to despair!
Although each of them only slept an average of four or five hours in the past few days, and spent the rest of the time frantically collecting and cracking data, they only had too little information on hand. At most, they developed a tool to crack the chaos algorithm on the webpage, but they still had no way to bypass the firewall.
Is the only option to rely on a few top experts to fight their way in individually, while the enemy waits for them to tire themselves out?
Over the past few days, the list of attackers on www.SMMH.com has been constantly updated, already filling a long page. Only two attacks managed to obtain the server's administrator password and successfully kick Snake's members off the server... but less than five minutes later, they were back.
In addition to the list, another arrogant statement appeared on the website: "Let SMMH come, or rather, he has already secretly come, but it won't work! Cracking the Beacon virus is just a matter of luck."
That was so infuriating!
The Red Hacker Alliance was in an uproar, but with only seven hours left until the deadline, why hadn't SMMH appeared yet?
Could it be that he's truly incapable? Or is he lurking in the shadows, calculating the data and waiting for the last moment to strike? Or perhaps... he's not Chinese at all? And therefore doesn't intend to make a move?
No one expected SMMH to be unaware of this news, but everyone was extremely anxious!
What is Chen Xu doing right now? Why hasn't Wu Yuan, a member of the Red Hacker Alliance, not informed him?
The reason is simple: Wu Yuan is sick...
Wu Yuan's health wasn't good to begin with, and lately he'd been spending all his time in that computer interest group doing who-knows-what kind of nonsense, working himself to the bone every day. Then, a couple of days ago, it rained, and Wu Yuan casually took a walk in the rain, which led to him being rushed to the hospital…
I had a high fever of 39.8 degrees Celsius and was on IV drips for four days, but my condition has improved somewhat. However, since I haven't been able to access the internet recently, I can only sit pitifully in my hospital bed playing Minesweeper on my laptop every day. I also can't access the Red Hacker Alliance forum to learn about the news that has already turned the hacker community upside down.
If the Red Hacker Alliance knew that Chen Xu couldn't learn about the hacker war from Wu Yuan for this reason, they would probably storm over and transfer him to the intensive care unit!
There are still seven hours left, is it enough time?