Chapter 369: Chapter 369

2030, Chiang Mai, Thailand.

Zhu Xinyu leaned back in the hotel chair with a computer in front of her. The computer was connected to the hotel’s wireless network, which used generic routers and servers. Zhu Xinyu easily found the system’s backdoor; these were vulnerabilities that had already been published, but not every user promptly updated their patches.

The screen displayed an unfamiliar interface—Zhu Xinyu’s own analysis software, which was quite rudimentary.

Meanwhile, Zhu Xinyu was staring at the ceiling.

Her performance was "commonly excellent." She had always maintained this impression. At the same time, she seemed more and more rebellious in the eyes of her "guardian," often running off to play by herself. In her father’s and that woman’s view, this was a sign of a girl starting to rebel. They had no idea their daughter had already stolen countless corporate secrets.

They just thought the girl liked to travel, heading abroad at the slightest disagreement.

Zhu Xinyu had her reasons for doing so.

Every time she wanted to steal technical secrets from major corporations, she would find an excuse to travel.

Going abroad was best.

This was quite helpful for concealing her real IP address and even had a certain disruptive effect on social engineering tactics—not strong but better than none.

Zhu Xinyu preferred to leverage the countries of Southeast Asia. Close to the developed regions of East Asia, with decent internet conditions but without an overly strong police force. Second to that was the Russian Federation, a decaying superpower whose xenophobic forces she could use for cover.

Of course, in theory, the best places to be were those war-torn places beyond the reach of the United Nations—like Iran, Yemen, Somalia. Even if someone managed to track her down there, the danger wouldn’t be too great.

However, entering those places was inherently dangerous. Zhu Xinyu’s pocket money certainly wasn’t enough to hire mercenaries. And even if she had the money, she wouldn’t do it because hiring mercenaries would leave a trail that could lead to her being targeted through social engineering.

Zhu Xinyu was so cautious because she was trying to undermine big capital.

After parting ways with her master, "Fire Virtue Star Lord," Zhu Xinyu set up her own Hero Arena.

She had become stronger than her master. Therefore, she could also bear the respected title of "Fire God" on her own.

"Zhu Rong," a Cyberspace Guerilla specializing in stealing corporate technological secrets and making them public, was thus born into the world of the World Wide Web.

Her first target was her father’s company.

It was a somewhat famous security enterprise that had also acquired and was operating an online medical mutual aid app. The company even had government cybersecurity contracts.

Zhu Xinyu made all the enterprise’s security products’ source code public and posted it online.

The big event Zhu Xinyu had anticipated did not happen. Her father didn’t go bankrupt, and the family’s finances didn’t even suffer slightly.

Firstly, a limited liability company’s debts aren’t tied to the owners.

Secondly, most security companies aren’t actually triumphing due to their technology.

Apart from one or two genuinely tech-savvy cybersecurity enterprises, most of their products are merely reskinned works.

A source code leak amounted to a "no big deal" scenario.

If Zhu Xinyu’s father’s company were publicly traded, perhaps the stock price would have plummeted?

But her father’s enterprise was not listed.

So, apart from getting a scolding at the board meeting, the impact was almost negligible.

The company could even continue to handle the cybersecurity for local businesses and the government.

To enterprise users, a cybersecurity company could still play the role of a security consultant and provide technical support, which doesn’t lose value due to the disclosure of source code.

Zhu Xinyu’s father was indeed depressed for a while. He felt that the security software system he created had been insulted.

Zhu Xinyu was disappointed with the outcome.

But she had also come to realize the issue.

Many enterprises, in fact, didn’t have core "technology." They survived by selling services that weren’t highly technical.

If she wanted to change the world, perhaps it would be better to start from something more core.

Larger enterprises. Those holding the technology, using intellectual property to block human progress.

Those larger capitals were the "evil" core. They were the key power components in the machinery that plundered humanity.

Zhu Xinyu began to act against these entities.

Of course, this was difficult.

Zhu Xinyu was but an individual. She had found some like-minded individuals—extremist Cyberspace Guerillas from the Open Access Movement—but they were few. It was difficult for her to use social engineering to steal technical information.

And when it came to computer technology, some data physically isolated couldn’t be stolen.

Naturally, Zhu Xinyu had her own methods.

Any technology doesn’t materialize out of nowhere. It must be researched by scholars. And enterprises can’t sequester every step of a scholar’s research in physically isolated places. Some data will inevitably be taken out. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ N0velFire.ɴet

Zhu Xinyu would look at the corporate collaboration lists, then find those corporate scholars, locking on them and even their other partners, trying to extract as much information as possible from all angles.

Not only the results. The trial-and-error data, discarded ideas—she wanted it all.

And by chance, she could also obtain "things that were only a few steps away from the result" as well as "materials whose security levels had slightly decreased over time."

As time passed, she learned to write "viruses capable of identifying files that might be technical documents and automatically pack and send them."

This was Zhu Xinyu’s masterpiece. As long as the virus unintentionally invaded a place originally inaccessible, "packaging" could possibly be completed unnoticed. Afterward, those packaged data could also be hidden in someone else’s computer, waiting for the next transmission.

Zhu Xinyu’s most frequent targets were various high-tech enterprises, especially those in electronic information technology.

She had always wanted to try breaching some pharmaceutical companies. However, pharmaceutical companies were, after all, selling products. Compared to "mastering technology," they were more inclined to "mastering patents." So even if Zhu Xinyu stole some process flows, she couldn’t enable people to use them independently.

At this moment, "Zhu Rong" had already been through countless battles.

——Has the world changed because of this?

Zhu Xinyu looked at the ceiling of her room.

Perhaps because it was the rainy season in Thailand, the continuous gloomy rain made Zhu Xinyu’s mood also turn gloomy without reason.

She began to reflect on her past.

Has what I’ve been doing changed the world?

Is creating "reputation" like my master the only viable path?

At this thought, Zhu Xinyu shook her head, trying hard to get rid of such ideas.

——My master’s principles don’t really make sense. I have to find my own way...

——In the future, I will definitely become even more...

Just then, a chatting application sounded a notification.

This was a chatting application written by Zhu Xinyu herself, with only the most basic functions. It had no other advantage but "concealment" and "secrecy."

Only a few people had received the client for this software from Zhu Xinyu.

Those people were all "cyberspace guerrillas" from the extremist faction of the Open Access Movement. Some of them were hackers, while others were scholars and intellectuals who published various calls online. Among these people, some also had connections with social activists in the real world.

They were Zhu Xinyu’s "allies."

However, Zhu Xinyu had always been active in the form of a "hacker." She only contacted a very small number of people.

Zhu Xinyu remembered that this person was also a scholar.

Ichigo:[Zhu Rong, where on Earth did you get this data from? It’s amazing. Really amazing.]

Zhu Xinyu thought for a moment. Indeed, her last batch of viruses had automatically sent back some biological materials, which seemed to be related to molecular biology or biochemistry. Although Zhu Xinyu had stolen a lot, she wasn’t much stronger in non-specialist fields than an average high school student.

Zhu Rong:[Judging by the code, it should have come from that translation software company.]

Ichigo:[Are you joking?]

Ichigo:[This could be related to proteomics, genetics... oh my, it’s hard to describe, but this doesn’t involve cognitive science. It absolutely couldn’t appear on the server of a translation software company.]

Zhu Rong:[Is that so? Then it might be collateral damage.]

Using a scholar with whom she had cooperated as a stepping stone, the virus secretly infected others and then sent back information that was not the original target.

Many scholars have cross-disciplinary projects. A virus jumping from Scholar A to a different field’s Scholar B might only require one or two transfers.

Zhu Xinyu’s viruses had strict conditions for self-destruction. The viruses she wrote would self-destruct after acting once. At the same time, a batch of viruses and their clones would all delete themselves after reaching a predetermined system time—regardless of whether they had acted or not.

Although there were not a few cases of collateral damage, they were seldom discovered.

At this time, Zhu Xinyu faced two choices.

If the inadvertently affected scholar was also a capitalist lapdog who would contribute to the capitalist’s intellectual property, Zhu Xinyu would not hesitate to disclose the data.

But if not, then Zhu Xinyu would consider it carefully.

At this time, she would need an expert to evaluate it.

This person with the ID Ichigo was her assistant.

Zhu Rong:[Just tell me the result. Whose research is this, and is it necessary to disclose it?]

Ichigo:[I don’t know... It’s difficult to say. This is so rare. I searched all the public papers. Do you know? There’s only one person on Earth researching this. She is definitely going to win a Nobel Prize.]

Ichigo:[Oh my, this is incredible.]

Zhu Rong:[So what is this?]

Ichigo:[Research on the enzyme system of thermophiles. Only Ms. Niyaguti Endeby is studying it.]

[Do you know Ms. Endeby?]