Chinese hackers all started cursing, saying, "Damn, I've seen shameless people, but I've never seen anyone this shameless!"
Chen Xu was trembling with anger in front of his computer, cursing incessantly that this was utterly shameless and despicable! If he could, he really wanted to find the real people behind these shameless bastards, then trample them underfoot, grind their bones to dust, and maybe even plant an old locust tree on their graves!
However, if these guys were really allowed to launch a frenzied attack on Chinese websites, who knows what kind of trouble they might cause!
The whole world fell silent, and the internet was plunged into a terrifying silence as everyone awaited what kind of response SMMH would give.
After a long while, the long-awaited Chinese text finally appeared on the webpage: "In twenty minutes, I will be welcoming you all to the Red Hacker Alliance forum. But as I said before, as a traditional hacker, I don't want to fight with anyone. I'll give you eight hours. If you can break through the forum's firewall within eight hours, then I'll admit defeat."
"When you attacked, I only used the firewall I wrote myself for protection. If I did anything, then I have lost."
"If you can't even break through the firewall within eight hours, then you've lost!"
Chapter 27 God-level Firewall
This statement caused an uproar!
Anyone with some computer knowledge knows that a firewall without any vulnerabilities is impossible. As a top hacker once said, even the most powerful programs are written by humans, and machines can never surpass human ingenuity!
Even the most powerful firewalls have vulnerabilities, and under current operating systems, many settings that are not actually vulnerabilities can be exploited by hackers.
To give a simple example, DDoS (Distributed Denial-of-Service) attacks are a common tactic used by hackers. This method is quite simple: it involves sending a large amount of spam to the target computer. For example, a SYN attack exploits a flaw in the TCP protocol… but it's merely a flaw, not a vulnerability.
This vulnerability can be exploited to send large amounts of junk data, consuming server CPU and memory resources. Of course, this is just one example; for experienced users, DDoS attacks, while a common method, are also the least technically demanding.
So just as the Deep Blue supercomputer couldn't beat the world's top Go player, hacking is also a profession that requires a lot of skill and can't be done by simply copying others.
Therefore, although Snake's firewall is powerful enough, they still need to allocate manpower to intercept hackers who manage to break through it. It's safe to say that there is absolutely no firewall in the world that can stop top-tier hackers without human control!
Absolutely not!
So when SMMH said those words, everyone thought he was crazy!
It's just a firewall, how dare they use it to challenge Snake?!
People initially thought that SMMH would retaliate in kind, setting up a firewall on the Red Hacker Alliance and sitting back to let the other side attack... I'm sure everyone has played a game called "Hit the Field Mouse," where there are many pits around you, and you stand in the middle with a hammer, hitting the field mouse that pops its head out of the pit... People thought that SMMH was thinking of this method, so they were somewhat disappointed.
Judging from SMMH's performance, his understanding of software is beyond everyone's imagination. Although it is unknown whether he is an individual or an organization, calling him a god-level figure is definitely enough.
His firewall is likely even stronger than Snake's insane one. With his own exceptional skills and the help of top experts from the Red Hacker Alliance, Snake wouldn't be able to win even in 80 hours, let alone 8.
Even if SMMH uses such shameless methods, no one will say anything. This is the legendary "an eye for an eye." Who told Snake to be so lewd first? Just because you're lewd doesn't mean others can't be lewd too!
But when he proposed this competition method, countless glasses fell off the computers. Did he really trust the security of the firewall he wrote so much?!
Amidst everyone's suspicions, a post appeared on the Red Hacker Alliance forum: "I am SMMH. Please open the server and set myself as the super administrator account. Thank you. Please forgive me if this causes any inconvenience to the Red Hacker Alliance."
What exactly constitutes good manners?!
What truly defines a master? What truly defines someone as approachable?
With SMMH's capabilities, he could easily have entered the Red Hacker Alliance forum server and obtained a super administrator account—no one would doubt that! But look at him? He humbly made the request!
You need to be mindful of your manners!
Blue Baby and several other high-level personnel quickly discussed the matter and immediately granted him access, along with super administrator privileges.
SMMH stated that he is Chinese, and everyone understands the principle of reciprocating kindness tenfold. Moreover, this competition is crucial, as it directly impacts the global standing and reputation of Chinese hackers.
Chen Xu happily handed over the administratorship of the Red Hacker Alliance server to Xiao Min. Thinking back to how he had just put on an air of superiority, reprimanding hackers worldwide, Chen Xu felt he had taken his boasting to the extreme! He had also been worried about what would happen if the Red Hacker Alliance ignored him. But then he realized the possibility was extremely slim… after all, he had stood up for them!
Just as Xiaomin was busy patching the system, Chen Xu received a communication request from Blue Baby.
Chen Xu now knew who Blue Baby was. He also knew about Sister Xiao Lingran, one of China's top hackers and a professional sniper… all of this he had heard from Wu Yuan.
After confirming with Xiaomin that his identity wouldn't be exposed, Chen Xu connected to the other party's communication and saw Blue Baby quickly type a line: "Hello, are you SMMH, the one who cracked the Beacon Virus?"
It seems they still suspect they're impersonating someone else, but that suspicion shouldn't be too strong anymore. After all, names can be faked, but skills can't. Snake didn't kick SMMH out; instead, he made him say a lot, which is enough to prove... it's not that they didn't want to kick him out, but that they were powerless to. But anyway, maybe there's more than one expert in the world? Blue Baby still needs to conduct a final confirmation.
Upon seeing the words "It's me" appear on the screen, Blue Baby and the other experts from the Red Hacker Alliance breathed a sigh of relief.
As expected, it's probably better if only one person possesses that kind of abnormal strength.
Then another message appeared in the dialog box: "Sorry, please give me another five minutes. There are too many vulnerabilities on this server. I am currently patching them. Talk to you later."
This remark made the experts in the Red Hacker Alliance blush, but they quickly understood. After all, the Red Hacker Alliance forum didn't have any super-high-level security measures and only used ordinary server rooms. Because it targeted a different group, the Red Hacker Alliance forum wasn't as secretive as some hacker groups' private forums, which adhered to the principle of absolute secrecy. This forum was open to everyone, so it wasn't surprising that it had more vulnerabilities.
In fact, Chen Xu said this just to put on airs, because although the patching work could be left to Xiao Min, he still had to pretend to do it himself.
Five minutes later, Chen Xu typed in the chat box: "It's done. Yeah, only ten minutes have passed. Ask the Snake people and tell them to attack."
At this moment, Guan Pingchao couldn't help but type in the chat box: "Hello, please forgive my bluntness, but are you too confident in the firewall you developed? The opponent is Snake."
"But we are the real local bullies, don't worry." SMMH's words made the members of the Red Hacker Alliance laugh, further convincing them that SMMH was definitely a native Chinese, otherwise how could he use such a proverb so skillfully?
However, out of caution, the experts from the Red Hacker Alliance began scanning the server, but the results of the scan surprised everyone.
What was originally a server riddled with holes, which could be easily breached by an average hacker without any defenses, was transformed into a space fortress in just five minutes?!
The TCP/IP protocol was fixed, but the method used was something that none of them could understand.
The CMD backdoor has been fixed;
The backdoor was fixed after powering on;
The sethc.exe backdoor has been fixed...
Besides these common backdoors and vulnerabilities, what's even more surprising is that those less common backdoors, which are now exploited by advanced hackers, have all been patched one by one!
At least after one scan was completed, the members of the Red Hacker Alliance felt like a dog trying to bite a hedgehog, with no way to get a grip.
Is this the true strength of SMMH?!
He only took five minutes!
Everyone in the Red Hacker Alliance couldn't help but feel a sense of awe and admiration... Of course, no one doubted SMMH's offensive capabilities, because for hackers, defense is more difficult than offense!
Hackers believe that offense is the best defense. While defense may seem advantageous due to firewalls and hardware safeguards, no firewall can block all attacks. Hackers operate on a defensive counter-attack strategy, hiding behind firewalls and firing sneak attacks. However, if they remain silent, their opponents can bulldoze them down completely.
Imagine how effective their defense is—it's like they have an impenetrable shield. Imagine how powerful their understanding of both hardware and software would be if they launched an attack!
It's probably beyond description, even the phrase "stormy waves" can't fully capture it!
At this point, Snake finally launched their attack. Just how fierce was Snake's enraged attack? Just look at the data stream detector to find out.
Snake initially used the most common and outdated method among hackers: a DDoS flood attack. However, the same attack method can feel completely different when used by different people!
The index on the data stream detector instantly surged past ten thousand. This detector isn't an official product; it's a small piece of software created by hackers to detect spam. Basically, an attack on a regular civilian computer counts as one index, and an index suddenly reaching tens of thousands means the attacker either possesses a powerful supercomputer or has controlled over ten thousand botnets! And this number is still increasing!
It must be said that although DDoS attacks are jokingly referred to by hackers as the least technically sophisticated attack method, the advantages of this method are very obvious!
The massive data flow forces the server to process it, consuming a large amount of memory and CPU, giving attackers an opportunity to exploit it.
The problem is that the senior members of the Red Hacker Alliance are staring blankly at the Device Manager, which shows that the server is running normally, the CPU usage is only 5 percent higher than usual, and the memory consumption is only 1 GB higher.
What does this mean? It means that such a powerful flood attack is merely scratching the surface of the firewall!
While the exact workings of firewalls are not yet fully understood, they must possess special mechanisms to distinguish and ignore spam messages; otherwise, no software could magically boost server performance several times over. Keep in mind that such a massive flood attack would have overwhelmed older servers long ago!
No wonder Snake dared to boast that they were going to attack major Chinese portal websites, their tone suggesting they didn't take Chinese programmers seriously. It turns out they really have the skills.
As for SMMH... the Red Hacker Alliance members had nothing to say. The better their skills, the more mysterious and powerful they felt about this person. It was like standing in hell and looking up at heaven!
Now everyone is pretty much convinced that SMMH's claim of blocking attacks solely with its firewall is not an exaggeration. And this firewall... this firewall is absolutely the best in the world, its value is self-evident, and many of its technologies are many years ahead of the rest of the world... Of course, they don't know that it really is 80 years ahead of the rest of the world.
If the Chinese military uses such a firewall and analyzes and absorbs its technology, it will represent a qualitative leap in the Chinese military's computer software capabilities and network security!
Blue Baby Xiao Lingran fell silent for a moment, because she knew that one of the hacker's rules was not to be affiliated with any political force. However, as a member of China's military hacking force, she naturally understood the significant importance of this firewall.
After a long pause, Blue Baby finally typed in the chat box: "SMMH, perhaps my request is a bit presumptuous, but I still have to say it. Your firewall technology is already leading the world. I wonder if you would be willing to sell it to our military to enhance the security of the military network?"
Chapter 28: Punishing Snake!
After the message was sent out, everyone fell silent, including Chen Xu.
Others felt that while Blue Baby's request was reasonable, it might not be entirely ethical. Chen Xu, on the other hand, was wondering if giving the technology to the military would lead to the discovery of his secret.
That's technology that was eighty years ahead of its time!
In reality, Chen Xu himself wouldn't have any objections, because such a firewall would be a waste for him; he would naturally be willing to contribute to the country. Of course, the prerequisite for this contribution is to protect himself, because Chen Xu is, after all, human and selfish. If the country were to search his supercomputer, Chen Xu would probably not agree.
Chen Xu couldn't make this decision on his own, so he asked Xiao Min, "Xiao Min, if I give the information about this firewall to others, will they realize that it's technology from the future?"
"No, because for confidentiality reasons, the firewalls and vulnerability patches installed on these two websites will all be automatically uninstalled after 12 hours. With current technology, it is impossible to analyze and crack them."
"This isn't the right time for me. I'm thinking of giving this firewall away and sharing the technical details with them. Would that expose our identities? Would it reveal that this technology is from the future?"
“It shouldn’t be,” Xiaomin said. “Because I’m just using the data in the database to patch the systems we use now. These patches were released no later than 2015, and the core programs follow the standards of current PCs and servers. So in a real sense, it doesn’t go beyond this era. At most, other people will find that these vulnerabilities are ones they didn’t discover. They shouldn’t suspect that the computer comes from the future.”
Meanwhile, Blue Baby and the others were also worried.
How much should I ask for?
From a programmer's perspective, the value of this software is immeasurable. If SMMH were willing to release this firewall for bidding by security companies worldwide, who knows how insane the price would be... thirty million? Fifty million? And the unit would probably be US dollars.
While the Chinese military has no shortage of funds, how can we convince them to pay such a high price for this firewall? After all, it's just a firewall!
A price exceeding ten million RMB was beyond Blue Baby's control. However, she was too embarrassed to quote such a price, so at this point, she had no choice but to call her superiors for instructions.
But as soon as the phone dialed a number, before it was even finished, a message flashed on the communicator: SMMH had sent me a compressed file, a compressed file of more than 300 MB.
"No...no way?!" Blue Baby quickly tapped "accept." This thing, could this thing be...?
But her inquiries on the communicator went unanswered... This wasn't because Chen Xu was deliberately being arrogant; he simply saw that the 300+ megabytes would likely take some time to transfer, so he went to take a shower in the hotel room's bathroom...
In Feng Gong's words, this is just too absurd!
The problem is, no one expected SMMH to be so unreliable, just as no one expected that this guy was actually a newbie. Blue Baby sent a few messages but didn't receive a response, so she didn't dare to send more, because she knew that some hackers, the more skilled they are, the more eccentric they are... just like Kevin? Mitnick, who was a withdrawn and ignored child from a young age.
Snake's attack slowed down because, after discovering that the flood attack was ineffective, they began intercepting information codes in hopes of analyzing what methods the firewall was using, so they wouldn't launch another attack for the time being.
Ten minutes later, the software was transferred. Blue Baby opened it and immediately widened her eyes in surprise: "This is... the entire firewall program and its source code?!"
Source code is the core of a program; it's the instruction set for writing the program. Having the source code means that the program is completely exposed, both in its technical aspects and its writing instructions!
SMMH is being incredibly generous?! They didn't even ask about the price?!
Putting herself in their shoes, Blue Baby felt it would be very difficult for her to be so generous. For programmers, the programs they painstakingly develop are like their own children, especially since many of their creations are things that others haven't discovered yet, or might only be discovered many years later!
Is he really the only remaining traditional hacker?