1031 What a Coincidence, Just Righ
It was 2:00 PM on the east coast of the United States.
The President of the United States was arguing vehemently with the media on Twitter.
“Dear US citizens, our media is a wholesale center for fake news. Please don’t believe the fake news, you must trust me. PS: Those who don’t retweet this aren’t Americans…”
“I’m proud to be American!”
“Believe me! I will make America great again!”
He was just about to send out a few more tweets when he heard the landline on his office desk ring. This was the President’s direct line, so it was typically an important matter when calls came in.
The President of the United States unwillingly put away his cellphone and picked up the landline. He lazily answered, “h.e.l.lo?”
“Mr. President, this is Hillent, are you free? I need half an hour to report to you about a recent cyber attack against our nation!” The person calling was the Major General Hillent of the CIA.
The President of the United States was instantly so furious that his breath shuddered. “What?! Say that again!! Someone dared to attack my great internet network?! Do they want to force my hand?”
Without the internet and Twitter, how could he continue as the President?
Major General Hillent had long ago become accustomed to the President’s image as a “chronic patient of internet addiction.” He didn’t take it to heart and continued to use a business tone. “Mr. President is very wise. We will take a series of follow-up measures to combat the person who dared to violate US cybersecurity.”
“Good! I support that!” The President of the United States sighed in relief. “Major General Hillent, I know that you will make another great contribution to our country!”
At that moment, Major General Hillent was repeating in his heart the phrase, “Motherf***er, I’ll just ignore him.”
He arrived at the Oval Office,
“Mr. President, this is a report on the recent cyberattack. Please take a look.” Major General Hillent placed a 500-word report before the President.
The President of the United States frowned while he read it, then pointed to the report and said, “I can see from this that we had a cyberattack, but what was the damage caused? Have you evaluated it?”
Major General Hillent nodded, then took out a 1,000-word report. “This is the fixed a.s.set loss a.s.sessment report, as well as the intangible a.s.set a.s.sessment report.”
Both reports were filled with numbers, so typical people had a hard time reading them. However, the President of the United States was a very successful businessman, so he had a keen sense for numbers.
When he read both reports, he became even angrier and slammed the table as he shouted, “How dare they! Didn’t you say it was a cyberattack?! How could we have lost so many computers?! You think I’m a fool?!”
Could the enemy have crawled over from the internet and smashed up their computers?!
Major General Hillent was silent.
The vein on his forehead pulsed as he pushed the sungla.s.ses up his nose and said expressionlessly, “That’s because this location is the largest database of our nation’s backup copies. All the data in the world, some of it created even before the birth of the internet, had backup copies there. Of course, that’s excluding data from encrypted intranets in various countries.”
The encrypted intranets were difficult places for their automatically downloaded programs to enter. This was also one of the reasons why they had started experimenting with AI programming languages.
If AI programming languages could be optimized, then they could a.s.sign the tasks of downloading data from encrypted intranets to AI programs.
This time, the Huaxia Empire’s intranet had been invaded by their AI programs. Unfortunately, their AI program development hadn’t been optimized before they’d noticed it was already deleted…
“So what?” The President of the United States glared at the Director of the CIA. “Why would worldwide internet data be backed up here? Did you have them pay for usage fees? Are they using our backup database for nothing?”
Major General Hillent bit his tongue.
Whatever… He’d already given up on treatment.
Major General Hillent didn’t explain more security content to the President, but directly said, “Mr. President’s suggestion is very good, we will consider it. But the problem we face now is recovering from the ma.s.sive losses caused by the invasion of Huaxia Imperial hackers.”
“…You still haven’t explained why the invasion of our network caused such a big loss in hardware.” The President of the United States was a very shrewd businessman, so he was hard to fool.
Major General Hillent explained once again, “It’s because the backup database was extremely secure. From electrical to fire protection, we had directed it all for centuries of uninterrupted storage time. So when the cyberattack from the Huaxia Empire suddenly happened, our personnel had no choice but to physically destroy the computers infected by the Trojan virus.”
Because of the unique nature of the backup database, they had no way of shutting down the facilities. They could only physically destroy all the infected equipment.
Of course, the biggest reason was that the head of the Secret Laboratory had never expected the Pink Piggy to emerge again after disappearing for six months. He had also joined the Huaxia Imperial hacker alliance to initiate a cyber attack against the United States!
The most insidious part was that the Pink Piggy had used a Trojan virus disguised as a system file that their personnel brought home…
He wanted to vomit blood at the thought of it.
Mr. X, the head of the laboratory, kept whining about how the Pink Piggy was too crafty. He wanted to find him and battle him once and for all!
However, Major General Hillent believed that if the Pink Piggy wouldn’t join them, then he should disappear. That meant he should die.
The President of the United States understood what Major General Hillent was implying. After considering it in silence for a while, he said, “What do you need me to do?”
They were finally getting on track…
Major General Hillent nearly cried with happiness.
He quickly replied, “Mr, President, if our efforts do not work, then we are hoping that you can directly pressure the Huaxia Imperial government into handing over the Pink Piggy!”
The President lifted his hand and didn’t hesitate to agree. “That’s not a problem. As the President of the United States, this is something I should do for the sake of American cybersecurity. If you can’t find out who the Pink Piggy is, I’ll pressure the Huaxia Imperial government into handing over this individual.”
Major General Hillent was both surprised and a bit flushed.
He hadn’t expected the unreliable president to somehow instantly understand what he was implying.
He had been thinking about how if he was unable to unearth this Pink Piggy’s true ident.i.ty, he would do it by force. He would ask the US Foreign Ministry to pressure the Huaxia Empire into handing over this individual.
But by doing so, it would imply that the CIA was so incompetent that they were unable to find a mere hacker. They needed the government to step in and use diplomatic pressure to force the other nation to hand over this person, so it would certainly be a bit embarra.s.sing.
Typical people couldn’t understand this convoluted thinking.
Yet their Mr. President had been able to understand clearly it in one instant.
Their seemingly very unreliable president had been elected as an underdog. Aside from the voters who elected him, the President himself was probably the most surprised that he’d been elected into office!
But since he was now the country’s leader, he had to do the work a.s.sociated with the job. He would still complete his work as President and work hard to make America great again!
After Major General Hillent finished discussing the plan of action with the President, he expressed great grat.i.tude for his support of their work. This was the first time he’d sincerely saluted the President.
The President of the United States detected a change in the Director of the CIA’s att.i.tude. He was also bursting with happiness and couldn’t hold back his tongue from saying, “Don’t worry, if they don’t hand over this person, I’ll make sure to yell at them on Twitter! I’ll embarra.s.s them in front of the entire world!”
Major General Hillent wanted to retract all the positive feelings he’d just felt…
Closing his eyes, he urged the President, “Mr. President, before we exert diplomatic pressure on this incident, we must keep it completely confidential. I hope that you can refrain from tweeting for the next 24 hours.”
To prevent the President from leaking the news, he had to ask him to not use Twitter at all.
If possible, Major General Hillent very much wanted to take away the President’s phone.
Of course, that was only a thought.
How could he take away the President’s phone?!
“I know what to do.” The President of the United States waved his hand. “Don’t worry.”
…
While it was 2:00 P.M. in the United States, it was 2:00 A.M. in the Huaxia Empire.
Inside the Huaxia Imperial Central Control Room, everyone had just experienced a tense cyber battle.
Aside from the personnel who were still scanning the network for traces left by the cyberattack from the United States, most of them were resting.
Gu Nianzhi sat next to Huo Shaoheng and chatted with him from time to time. They a.n.a.lyzed the source code they’d recovered from the four-lined AI program.
“From the looks of things, this four-lined command was planted into this surveillance software six months ago.” Gu Nianzhi pointed to the Secret Service’s exclusive surveillance software displayed on the screen.
“Yes, it must’ve been planted because of the Prime Minister elections.” Huo Shaoheng was much more farsighted.
He would never forget how that person had seemingly cast an invisible net.
First, they’d transferred him abroad, then they’d tricked Gu Nianzhi into leaving, and finally, they’d taken control of the Central Control Room to “monitor” the elections.
Coincidentally, the Secret Service and the Special Operations Forces had been monitoring the elections from the Central Control Room together at the time.