I’m Really a Superstar

In the bedroom.

It was 7PM, so the night was still young.

Zhang Ye drew his curtains and placed the laptop on the table. He tested the internet connection and mouse pointer then stretched his arms a little and prepared for action. Although he had ‘eaten’ the two types of computer programming skills experience books, he had never put them to practical use before. He did not know if he could do it, nor did he know whether the experience he gained was enough to let him do what he planned to do, or rather, how much he could execute the plan with his experience. There was never enough of these experience books. It seemed like he could keep gaining more experience no matter how many he ‘ate’. The more he ‘ate’ the more experience he received. If he only ate a few, then he would certainly only know a trivial amount. The 11 [ Computer Programming Skills – Network Technology Experience Book ] could not be considered few, but to be on the safe side, Zhang Ye still needed to know how he’d do.

Zhang Ye found a foreign website and with the computer knowledge from his world and the skills experience that he’d gained, he was soon doing his thing. He installed an add-on for his browser. This was something similar to his previous world’s Firefox browser’s add-on called Go2 proxy, but was named differently in this world. The browser was also a different one, but they were similar in most aspects. After installing the add-on and activating it — after around 2 minutes, Zhang Ye had successfully loaded that foreign website. This was actually one of the simplest forms of proxies.

Hot pictures started loading up one by one!

One by one, tempting videos of hot foreign women came into view!

Zhang Ye looked hard at this outstanding foreign website that he had just loaded up with his outstanding skills! He couldn’t help but exclaim ‘Godly!’. Although it wasn’t a difficult technique, Zhang Ye knew that he never had such skills in the past!

After the warm up!

His confidence was boosted!

He started off by browsing some programming-based websites and researched on this world’s development of computer programming, techniques, and software, etc. After spending the whole night, until midnight, when the public lights were turned off, Zhang Ye finally took a rest, rubbed his eyes, and took a deep breath. He found out that this world’s computer systems, hardware, and software had no big differences to those from his previous world. The principles of it were all the same, like the types of programming language used and the concept of programming. The main differences were only the naming conventions. For example, those operating systems that were like Microsoft Windows, but were not called Microsoft Windows were also available in this world. Even the commands were the same. After comparing for a long time, Zhang Ye had reached a preliminary conclusion. This world’s operating systems and hardware, etc were slightly less advanced than his previous world’s. It was behind by a few years, except for the technology in server firewall and antivirus softwares, which were somewhat more advanced. This was why amateur hackers like those from his previous world were not so apparent in this world. This world’s network security protocols were of a much higher standard. Any download of a firewall software would be able to block out 99% of non-professionals. Even professional hackers would have to put in some work, as there weren’t many people silly enough to not install a firewall or anti-virus software on their computer. As such, there was no chance of any mass amateur hackers.

This resulted in the current situation. There were only very few hackers in this world and they were not as rampant compared to Zhang Ye’s previous world, but conversely speaking, the hackers, who were more well known here, had more sophisticated skills and were at the top of the pyramid. They could do as they wished in the online world.

These were the main differences between the two worlds.

Operating systems, hardware, programming languages, and software architecture were also of similar origins. This was a good thing as it meant that Zhang Ye could conveniently use his past experience from his previous world. Even if there were slight differences, Zhang Ye also had the experience he gained from the skills experience books. The experience he gained was knowledge from this world and could be used here. From this point, there was nothing Zhang Ye needed to worry about. However, one thing that gave him a headache was the security of networks here. Even before he could even satisfy himself with the thrill of hacking, he would already be stopped by the firewall?

He still had to do it anyway!

Li Tao wouldn’t be able to escape him!

Zhang Ye had already set his mind to the task and did not hesitate. When he went to the bathroom outside, he saw no lights from the gap under Dong Shanshan’s room door. She must’ve fallen asleep, so he made his way back to the room silently!

Let’s get started!

By trying out a little hacking!

This world’s hacking tools were also available freely online, but most of them were not available in it’s source code form, so they couldn’t be considered open-sourced. In Zhang Ye’s previous world, the hackers there were very particular about open-sourced. They felt that it was a general rule and honor to list them in open-sourced forms. This was where the notion of such matters differed between the two worlds.

Zhang Ye began downloading a simple software — This was a hackers knife, an essential tool to hacking. Without them, you couldn’t even find the IP address of someone, let alone attempt to gain access.

Command injecting plugin.

Remote access Trojans.

Event logs clearing software.

Etc, etc, etc. Zhang Ye downloaded a list of tools.

Then, he started testing this world’s software and trojan horses, and as expected, they were the same as his previous world’s. It was just like any other common hacking software. You are going to say that they were useless, right? That’s not really it. Such softwares were normal and could be used. but to say if they were effective? This sort of hacking software that could be freely downloaded off the internet was not so effective. They might not even break past a firewall, especially when this world’s network security was so tight. The chances of them being intercepted as malicious code was too high. The truly world class hacking software was all written by the hackers themselves. These hackers wouldn’t even share them with their hacker friends, let alone put them up on the internet. Such softwares were considered their own trade secrets.

Another reason why common software and the world class hacking software had such a gulf of a difference was mainly down to the system loopholes that these hackers knew of. The common hacking software had already been researched thoroughly by others, such as the operating system developers or network security companies. These system loopholes had been patched by these researchers. Unless you were using a pirated system that did not get updates, these genuine operating systems would get patched with every update. Then, the hacking software’s effectiveness would greatly decrease. It might not be totally ineffective, but its damage would be considerably reduced. However, a world class hacking software was different. It could invade a system based on the creator’s own knowledge of loopholes and control of the operating system. Besides the creator, no one else would know of the loopholes. As such, the operating systems developer would not be able to patch these security loopholes. They would not be able to know how the hacker invaded either. Such confidentiality was the reason why world class hacking software has such widespread damage and basically could not be stopped!

But Zhang Ye read a thread that explained that there were only about ten world class hacking softwares in this world. Of course, these softwares only appeared in this world slightly over ten times. And naturally, all of these have been patched after being discovered, so they were no longer as effective. Although it was certain that there were many other undiscovered hacking softwares, it could also be seen as the reason why such softwares were extremely rare. It was comparable to a top pugilist’s weapon. The world class software or trojan horses — were those divine weapons, precious and rare. To exploit a loophole that even the software developer did not know of was already extremely difficult and this world’s software developers were a lot more reliable than his previous world’s. Yes. Once a vulnerability was found, one still had to take into consideration the nature of the loophole to exploit it with either a software or trojan horse. This was prohibitively difficult to achieve.

This was the reason why such software was so rare. Zhang Ye did not think too much about it. What he needed to do now was to get into the SARFT’s network and locate Li Tao’s workstation.