Many people equated geeks with hackers, but there was still a certain difference between the two.
The word geek originated from the American slang geek, which originally referred to people who had a fanatical interest in one or several specific fields and devoted a lot of time to research. It was mostly used in the computer field. At first, it had a certain derogatory connotation, and in the early days of the PC revolution, it also extended to a derogatory term for hackers.
But now, especially after the rise of a group of Silicon Valley moguls such as Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, the word geek had taken on a new meaning. It began to be labeled more as free, creative, and iconoclastic.
Yes, geeks were such a group of people. They were adventurers on the Internet, hardware enthusiasts, hackers, communication enthusiasts, tech geeks, programmers, engineers …
"To put it simply, you can be anyone. As long as you meet our spirit, you can join the 01 guerrillas," Philip said. "Of course, most of the people who join are still related to computers, although we have always hoped that girls who are cheerleaders or dancers will join us."
"…"
"We have our own secret forum with a homemade instant messaging software. We usually discuss some technical problems on it. You can also put your problems on it and wait for someone to solve them. Or, you can just show off your skills. The people on it are very nice."
"Is Edward also one of you?" Zhang Heng asked.
"No, Edward … he's not one of us," Ponytail said.
Zhang Heng raised his eyebrows.
"About a year ago, Edward hacked into our forum, the website we built together." Waldo was still surprised when he mentioned this matter.
"Is it difficult?"
"Well, it's not too difficult. It's a little easier than hacking into the national defense system," Philip said. "The most important thing is that he did it quietly. If he didn't leave us a message afterward, we wouldn't have known he was there."
"What message?"
"In the beginning, it was just something like a greeting. You know, hackers keep a low profile, but in fact, many of them are a group of guys who are eager for attention, especially when it comes to difficult goals and places to enter. They can't help but leave something after they enter. For example, I know of a guy who sneaked into the human resources system of the telecommunications giant SFR and sent a lot of little red flowers to every employee who was working overtime that night."
"Ha."
"That guy was the same. He left a pixel image of Pac-Man, but it was very small. It was in the lower right corner of the homepage. If you didn't look closely, you wouldn't be able to see it. In short, that was our first encounter with Edward. After that, we redid the firewall and encryption system, but that guy still managed to hack in."
"Are you angry?"
The ponytail guy pushed up his glasses. "Angry? No, no, no. To us, it was like an interesting game. We enjoyed the feeling of playing against that guy, so we remade the forum again. As you can probably guess, he defeated us again … But in the process, we all had a lot of fun. From then on, we began to communicate further.
"We always thought that the other party was a group like us, but the truth surprised us. That guy said his name was Edward, and he was alone. He said that he was hired by a very powerful organization and was working on a very cool project that could subvert the world. Once it succeeds, it will change the way everyone lives and travels, but the content and address must be kept secret.
"At first, we didn't take this matter too seriously. You know, hackers love to brag. They will always brag to you about how good they were in the past, but in fact, most people aren't even half as good as they boast. Edward is very good, I admit that. No, it's not an exaggeration to say that he's the best guy I've ever met, but it's still a bit of an exaggeration to say that he's going to subvert the world. Anyway, we made a new friend.
"After that, Edward would come to our forum from time to time and brag to us. Occasionally, he would reveal some of the recent happenings, but it was basically about what short skirt the administrative staff wore today and how their lunch was. He's a very contractual guy, and he never discussed specific work details. Until a month ago, we suddenly received a group message from him saying that he didn't know if he was doing the right thing," Philip said.
"I asked him what happened and if he was under a lot of pressure at work recently, but he didn't reply. About a week later, he suddenly contacted me and said that he had escaped and that he had something very important with him. I asked him what it was, and he sent me a document. From that document, I could tell that things might not be good."
"What's not good?"
Philip looked around, lowered his voice, and said, "It's a project called CTOS. They plan to build a powerful central control system that connects all public facilities in the city to the network. It's like installing a brain for the city, and from the massive amount of data, it can discern hidden patterns that can't be seen by the naked eye. This way, they can overcome the problem of limited information in the past, where the decision-makers could only make local optimal strategies and not really find the global optimal solution. Through calculation, they can redistribute public resources and avoid waste.
"Let me give you an example. If the signal lights at all intersections are connected to the network, you can replan and calculate the optimal time allocation for each signal light, saving travel time. At the same time, if there is an accident on the road, the city's brain will also send an alarm directly to the hospital, so that the ambulance can arrive in the shortest time possible."
"Sounds good."
"Yes, Edward thought so at first, but later he found out that CTOS had another hidden purpose. Once this system is established, it won't just be those public facilities. It will also actively collect the data and information of all citizens. Your phone calls, text messages, medical records, medical insurance numbers, criminal records, favorite websites, chat partners, browsing history, chat content, and every credit card purchase will all be collected by it."
"It's a disaster," Ponytail said.
"Yes, it means that from now on, our every move will be under the surveillance of others. We no longer have any privacy. Even the room is full of cameras," Waldo said seriously. "You don't know when they will use your PC, mobile phone, or even your drone." Waldo's expression was unusually serious.
"And if things continue to develop like this, things may get worse. This is only the first stage. In the second stage, CTOS will automatically analyze and mark everyone's dangerous tendencies. Of course, it's a good thing to be able to stop crime in advance, but we don't know how and how it calculates everyone's dangerous tendencies. Without any restrictions, all of us may be labeled as dangerous."
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