Chen Xu's footwork prevented Cai Man from getting close to him during several probing attacks. It must be said that Baguazhang's footwork is particularly effective against close-quarters combat styles like Muay Thai. However, it depends on who is using it; Wing Chun is also a close-quarters fighting style, but its reputation is no less than Baguazhang's.
When Caiman charged forward again, attempting to strike him with his knee, Chen Xu dodged him with a quick movement and then slapped him in the waist with his backhand.
The lower back is also a vulnerable part of the body; as the saying goes, the lower back is a man's lifeline. Chen Xu's palm strike was extremely vicious. The force traveled through his palm and struck Cai Man's spine directly, causing Cai Man to stumble forward. He managed to regain his balance, but his subsequent movements were noticeably slower.
Actually, Chen Xu's move was quite unethical. In formal matches or even casual sparring, techniques like striking the waist, gouging eyes, choking, or groin strikes are prohibited. These areas are among the most vulnerable parts of the body, and even a slight touch could cause injury. Using such a move to grab the waist is essentially the same as a groin strike. In the novel *The Heaven Sword and Dragon Saber*, the Wudang sect has a martial art called the Tiger Claw Extinction Hand. That's where the "extinction" part comes from.
However, this was a virtual reality, so there weren't so many rules. After his successful attack, Chen Xu moved with the agility of a dragon, engaging in a fierce battle with Caiman!
Caiman was already injured, and his waist is a vital part of the human body. This injury was quite serious. Before he could even recover, Chen Xu cunningly launched a fierce attack, giving him no time to rest or recuperate.
However, Caiman was also incredibly fierce. After failing to dodge several times in an attempt to create an opening to recover, he simply gave up on resting and pounced on Chen Xu. Judging from his appearance, he intended to finish Chen Xu off in the shortest possible time!
His fierce attack left Chen Xu with no way to dodge, because this man was determined to take a few hits from Chen Xu in order to defeat him in a mutually destructive way. No matter how exquisite the Bagua Palm footwork was, it was useless against such an enemy.
Chen Xu delivered two heavy blows to Cai Man in succession, finally cornering him and grabbing him.
Chen Xu turned his head to avoid it, but the man still managed to get close. Chen Xu had no way to deal with this reckless fighting style. He could only fight him head-on.
At this moment, Chen Xu naturally wouldn't use the Swimming Dragon Bagua Palm. He couldn't even use the Swimming Dragon Bagua Palm anymore, so the power of his palm was naturally inferior to that of his fist. Although Chen Xu's body was weaker than Cai Man's, Cai Man was injured. His previous back injury, coupled with the palm strikes Chen Xu had landed on his back and armpit, naturally hindered his movement. Although his skills were fierce, he often had to use his right shoulder to aggravate his injury, so his attacks were not as fast or fierce, and he had to hold back some of his strength.
Chen Xu fought him for another twenty moves before discovering the problem. This was also due to Chen Xu's lack of combat experience. So how could Chen Xu let such a good opportunity pass by? He launched an attack on his right rib!
Chen Xu's earliest training was in close combat, so he was not afraid of Chaiman at all. After fighting for so long, Chen Xu realized that although this guy was a Muay Thai expert, his weakness was also that he was a Muay Thai expert!
His approach was too disciplined!
You should know that for someone like Chaiman who practices Muay Thai, the main purpose is not to improve his health, but to compete! Since there are to be competitions, there are many rules—of course, these are formal competitions. If it's an underground fight, then whoever survives in the end is the one who gets to decide the outcome.
So although Caiman's attacks were fierce and hurtful, he did not target Chen Xu's vital points.
On the contrary, the Baguazhang of the Swimming Dragon that Chen Xu practiced and the military combat techniques, one being a national martial art and the other a military martial art derived from it, both pursued the goal of killing the enemy without performing! Therefore, the purpose of these two skills was to defeat the enemy, and every move was aimed at the opponent's vital points!
So, although Caiman landed more punches on Chen Xu, he would definitely win if it were a point-based fight. However, in this fight, whoever is standing last wins, so Chen Xu gained a huge advantage!
Thinking of this, Chen Xu immediately stuck it on as well.
Originally, Chaiman chose to fight Chen Xu in close combat, even if it meant taking two hits, in order to utilize the advantages of Muay Thai. But now the tables have turned; Chen Xu is now willing to take two hits but will deliver a powerful blow!
Chen Xu cursed himself for being an idiot; he should have noticed such an obvious flaw much earlier. Taking two hits from Caiman would at most cause excruciating pain, but he'd still have the ability to fight. But one hit from Caiman would be enough to make him suffer!
So when Caiman threw a hook at Chen Xu's face, Chen Xu sidestepped, taking the blow with his shoulder, but his right hand was already poised, locked in a stance. He unleashed a burst of power!
Heavy blow!
This move is a powerful technique that Chen Xu learned from Nangong Lan!
This heavy-handed technique is not very practical in combat. Because it takes at least two or three seconds to breathe deeply and get into a proper horse stance.
Let's not even talk about a battle between experts. Every second counts. Even if it's just a fight between street thugs, try standing there motionless for three seconds. You'd be guaranteed to get a beer bottle or a knife stuck in your throat!
But Chen Xu took the blow head-on, and the heavy blow landed directly on his upper left abdomen.
With a muffled thud, Caiman was sent flying backward, spitting out a mouthful of blood.
Chen Xu was certain that although his hasty exertion was not perfect, if this palm strike had landed on Cai Man in reality, it would have taken him at least half a year to recover! And it was uncertain whether he would have fully recovered!
If it weren't for someone like Caiman, who regularly undergoes rigorous training and develops a semi-physical martial arts style, this palm strike, if it had landed on an ordinary person, would have resulted in serious injury requiring hospitalization at best, and internal organ rupture, massive bleeding, and death at worst!
Because Chen Xu's palm strike didn't hit anywhere else, it hit a person's spleen!
The spleen is a very fragile organ... Remember Wu Zhong, whom Chen Xu met shortly after he got the supercomputer? He was just accidentally bumped by a car, and his spleen ruptured. It was just a small hole, but the internal bleeding caused by that was an extremely troublesome matter if it wasn't treated promptly!
Moreover, Chen Xu's move was quite powerful!
That palm strike truly penetrated the internal organs. If it were an ordinary person, such a blow would inevitably cause extensive bleeding in the spleen, and they might die before even reaching the hospital. Even for someone like Caiman, such a blow would certainly cause internal bleeding.
Therefore, in reality, Chen Xu should never use this tactic unless absolutely necessary.
Chen Xu watched as Cai Man's figure slowly turned into specks of light and disappeared, silently saying in his heart, "I'm sorry, I had no choice."
At this moment, Xiaomin came out and said with a smile, "Congratulations on successfully passing the C-level combat assessment. With your current strength, you should be considered a C-level upper-level fighter. Keep up the good work, and you will soon be able to reach the B-level, the level of lightweight boxing champions and Sanda champions in various countries."
Chen Xu broke out in a cold sweat. He had given up hope of reaching Grade B; he knew he had just gotten lucky. But then again, if he used such a lucky method, let alone a national-level champion, even a world lightweight champion might have fallen to him… Oh well, what could he do? Chen Xu didn't play by the rules.
After the battle, Chen Xu was also sore all over. He treated himself with the healing white light—he had asked Xiao Min about this kind of healing white light, and even in the technology of the future, it was impossible to have it… After all, reality is reality, and it is difficult to create such a light-based healing spell similar to the church in fantasy novels. However, it did mention a cell repair fluid, which is similar to the amniotic fluid in a baby. If a person is completely immersed in it and breathes through an oxygen tube, basically even the most severe physical injuries can be healed!
This kind of thing is not part of the "great scam of the century," but is genuinely without side effects.
However, psychological treatment is also necessary; otherwise, subconscious harm can occur. This situation arose in the early days of virtual reality in the future, before relevant laws were fully developed. Some extreme gamers used virtual reality to create terrifying games or scenarios, or those that were extremely cruel and bloody, causing physical harm. This ultimately led to many people suffering mental breakdowns or even brain death from fright. There were also cases where the realism in the game was so intense that injuries sustained in the game caused subconscious belief that the injury persisted into the real world.
This white light targets the subconscious, preventing people from experiencing conscious illusions that can harm them in virtual worlds.
Having finally solved the first hurdle, the next step is the second.
Cracking a 128-bit password!
Chapter 294: Level 2 Permissions Acquired!
A 128-bit password... or rather, a 128-bit key.
This password does not refer to the total length of the password being 128 bits, but rather that each byte of the password is 128 bits long.
This involves an algorithm.
For example, when I enter a password, let's take the simplest example "123abc". This simple six-digit number is what you, the user, enter. But in reality, at the password verification port of the server, it is not as simple as six digits. Instead, it is encrypted into 128 bits through a specific algorithm.
To crack it, it's impossible to do so simply by guessing a six-digit number. Explaining it in detail would be very complicated. So, generally speaking, to crack a 128-bit key made up of this special encryption algorithm, the first thing to do is to study this algorithm.
According to international practice, algorithms are generally required to be made public, because if an algorithm is not disclosed, it is difficult to find errors in it, making the algorithm imperfect. However, it is clear that Xiaomin has not published the algorithm function, so Chen Xu has to find another way.
The first thing to do is to find the function for this algorithm!
A 128-bit key isn't actually that difficult to obtain; many browsers now use this level of computation.
The difficulty lies in cracking the algorithm.
Because if the algorithm is known, it is easy to develop a corresponding, targeted cracking method. However, if the algorithm is kept secret, it becomes very complicated.
Chen Xu has now mobilized all his broiler chickens to participate in the calculations.
Chen Xu used the most common method of analysis and calculation.
Because algorithms are always fixed, requiring fixed formulas and functions. To put it simply, it's like a linear equation in two variables; you just need to apply the formula to the two sets of numbers. Of course, real encryption functions are much more powerful than linear equations in two variables, which is why many computer experts are also mathematically gifted… Advanced functions are also very important for computer programming.
Therefore, to crack this function, it is necessary to call multiple computers to perform simulations simultaneously. Of course, one computer would also work, but that would take forever.
Chen Xu's math skills are also very strong. At least now, he's good enough to participate in a college-level math olympiad. Chen Xu was inclined towards science in high school and even won awards in math olympiads, so he learns math very quickly. He's currently writing a program that continuously outputs data to find patterns in the algorithm. However, Chen Xu has discovered that his number of "botnets" (chicken-eating machines) is still too small.
Actually, it's not a small number. The "zombie" firewall Chen Xu provided to Liam Company last time was a huge success in its distribution, thanks to Fabiano's "insurance-selling" strategy. Chen Xu rarely used these botnets on a daily basis, only during the hacker war. This firewall was indeed very powerful, and it has now brought Liam Company a stable user base of no less than 100,000 people.
The problem is that Liam's plans are currently limited to the UK and surrounding areas, so apart from some server websites, most home computers are shut down at this time. Of course, Chen Xu can wait until evening, when he works in the UK, to calculate the password, but he can't wait any longer.
Previously, cracking a 128-bit password would have seemed like an impossible task to Chen Xu. But now, with his skills improved to this level, he no longer considered a 128-bit password a difficult problem.
This is how you upgrade layer by layer. When you stand at the foot of the mountain, the summit seems unreachable, but once you reach the top, you're already eyeing another peak.
Based on the specific data obtained from these calculations, Chen Xu discovered that this algorithm was not actually so difficult as to be unattainable. Of course, Chen Xu's current calculation speed was not slow either. It should be noted that although it was still dark in the British Isles, there were still night owls, and quite a few of them. At least a thousand computers were simultaneously helping Chen Xu with the calculations, which was not a slow speed.
Chen Xu felt that if he could double the computing power at this moment, he would be able to crack the algorithm by this afternoon... As for the bet with Huang Chong, Chen Xu had long forgotten about it... To put it bluntly, who is he? What right does he have to compete with him?
So now Chen Xu is letting the botnets continue to run, while simultaneously writing a script to... capture the botnets!
The hacker war organized by the Red Hacker Alliance last time really taught Chen Xu a lot. This learning was not only during the hacker war, but also after the war, Chen Xu reflected on the battle, his shortcomings, and the areas he needed to improve, and then focused on learning in a targeted manner.
Hacking is a combat-oriented profession.
Only through struggle can one understand one's shortcomings; blindly working in isolation is not a good thing.
The commands that Chen Xu has written are very simple and practical. He only exploited a core vulnerability in the IP address to automatically download and run a program in the background when exchanging data, and then send the results to a designated server for aggregation.
Because the firewalls Chen Xu provided for Liam were not only for home computers, but also for servers. Servers need to be kept running year-round, so at that time Chen Xu mainly used a few European servers.
Some of these servers are used by many large websites in Europe, so it would be too easy for Chen Xu to install a backdoor program on them.
Soon, Chen Xu's chicken numbers soared to over three thousand, and it was already three o'clock in the afternoon.
Wu Yuan and the others had already woken up from their afternoon nap. Seeing Chen Xu operating the computer and doing something, they were all very curious, but no one asked any questions.
Chen Xu, on the other hand, was completely absorbed in a state of self-forgetfulness.
In his eyes, there were only those tedious and complicated data structures, and he completely forgot that he was still in his dormitory.
The first set of data was successfully verified.
The second set of data was successfully verified.
Chen Xu's forehead was covered in sweat, and his face was flushed, not only because he was tired, but also because he was excited!
Because he was about to pass Xiaomin's test without any help from her!
Data set 128 successful!
The algorithm has been found!
One hundred and twenty-eight sets of data, thousands of computers calculating in an afternoon. Human wisdom has created tools that make life easier, but tools are just tools. No one knows how much effort Chen Xu expended in finding these one hundred and twenty-eight sets of data!
But Chen Xu didn't feel tired at all, because he was in a state of high excitement. This excitement made him full of energy, and he had completely forgotten about the match that was scheduled for the afternoon.
The algorithm has been found, so the task is already half completed.
Finding the algorithm doesn't guarantee you can crack the password, but it is a necessary condition for doing so.
It's important to understand that brute-force attacks involve using software to force password entry character by character. Trying to crack a password by guessing becomes virtually impossible once the password exceeds ten characters.
Therefore, many password cracking methods nowadays start with the algorithm; finding the patterns in the password is the key to cracking passwords.
Chen Xu has now figured out the algorithm and obtained the input password. Based on the evolution pattern of this algorithm, he is confident that he can find the corresponding password.
From this algorithm, Chen Xu could see how insidious the person who designed it was. Although the algorithm wasn't particularly advanced, it was indeed a very cunning and treacherous one.
It's very simple. The password is mainly constructed using the 26 letters (Advanced ciphers are case-sensitive). Then there are ten numbers. And some special characters.
Many skilled internet users use passwords that heavily rely on special characters. These special characters aren't the commas or quotation marks you see on the keyboard. Instead, they are characters that require special methods to output, such as hollow pentagrams.
To give a simple example: Back when playing Legend of Mir, many players who were somewhat knowledgeable about security measures used the V key (the symbol key) in the Smart ABC key to add an extra layer of protection to their accounts.
I remember that in Smart ABC, version V11 could type an invisible space bar.
That's actually a special character, but it's invisible. However, it's different from the space bar. The space bar cannot be used as a password input, but the V11 can be recognized by the system.
In this way, for example, if the previous password was 123abc, but after adding the V11 space, the password becomes seven digits. When a hacker sees the password 123abc, they will subconsciously assume it is six digits because they cannot see the space at the end.
Of course, many account thieves later found out about this, but in one major mishap in Legend of Mir, this trick helped many players recover their losses... That time, the Legend of Mir server was hacked! Then the hacker posted all the account passwords online, and many people suffered heavy losses as a result, while those who added a space after V11 to their passwords were lucky enough to escape unscathed.