Chapter 11

Hacking is not a simple matter. Besides having strong soft skills, hard skills, which refer to hardware, are also indispensable. With Zhang Qiu's low-configured second-hand laptop, it is not suitable for high-level hacking.

Therefore, Zhang Qiu decided to capture some bots before launching his attack. He did not target government websites, which, although easy to breach, would be the most strictly monitored if any problems arose.

He also temporarily left the large corporate websites alone and instead chose the servers of various schools in Suxian City as his targets, perhaps due to his special feelings for schools.

However, Zhang Qiu did not cause any damage; he only obtained hidden administrative privileges on these servers, which he could use as bots when necessary.

Starting with the smaller servers, Zhang Qiu used the captured small servers to control more small servers, and then combined the small servers to control larger servers. After four hours, Zhang Qiu miraculously captured eighteen bots.

Among them, ten were workgroup-level servers belonging to small enterprises, and eight were department-level servers belonging to middle schools. As for the more advanced university and large corporate servers, Zhang Qiu did not dare to touch them.

Compared to universities and large corporations, the cybersecurity of middle schools and small enterprises is undoubtedly weaker, making them easier to capture.

The total computing power of these eighteen servers reached 13 Tflops. Even considering the losses due to network, system, non-idle resources, and compatibility, they could still deliver a maximum performance of around 8 Tflops.

Such powerful performance, a few years ago, would have been a top 100 supercomputer in the world. The computational power of one second would be enough for all 1.3 billion people in China to calculate for several years.

The basic unit of computer computational power is FLOPS, which stands for floating-point operations per second. 1 FLOPS means one operation per second. The commonly used unit for supercomputers is TFLOPS, which represents one trillion operations per second.

The world's first computer could only perform 5,000 operations per second, while today's mobile phones can perform billions of operations per second.

Top-tier home computers and entry-level servers have reached the level of billions of operations per second, and workgroup-level servers have reached the level of tens of billions of operations per second.

As for better enterprise-level servers, they can easily reach the TFLOPS level, even tens of TFLOPS, comparable to world-class supercomputers a few years ago.

If it were a few years ago, such powerful servers would all have extremely strong defenses, making them difficult to control even with world-class technology.

However, now such computers are everywhere, and most of them have only average defenses, giving Zhang Qiu the opportunity to easily infiltrate them.

After controlling such a vast amount of computing power, Zhang Qiu officially set his sights on Lin Lai's private photo album.

Regardless of whether there were bikini photos inside, just because the album had tricked him before, Zhang Qiu had to crack it.

This time, Zhang Qiu's methods were much more sophisticated than before, and with the sufficient performance of the controlled bots, he managed to crack the album in just a few dozen seconds.

Upon entering the album, Zhang Qiu cursed, finding nothing inside.

However, Zhang Qiu checked again and discovered two other IP addresses that could access the album. He traced them simultaneously and found that one IP pointed to a personal computer with almost no system defense. Zhang Qiu guessed it was Lin Lai's computer, and he felt a bit excited.

The other IP was a jump server. Those who use jump servers are either hackers or understand hacking. Zhang Qiu immediately thought of the powerful hacker who had breached his computer and felt a competitive spirit.

Zhang Qiu set up some anti-tracing measures on this jump server and then traced the IP. As he began tracing, he realized that he did not encounter the legendary resistance, and the hacker seemed unaware of his tracing.

Could it be a trap? Does the other party have some sinister plan? Thinking this, Zhang Qiu set up several trap honeypots. Even if it was a trick, he could still handle the counter-tracing with ease.

Layer by layer, he cleared the jump servers and traced five IPs before entering a personal computer.

Needless to say, this computer must be the hacker's.

After entering, Zhang Qiu did nothing to avoid alarming the hacker.

Checking the IP address, Zhang Qiu was surprised to find that it was an IP from Suxian City, specifically pointing to the Jinfeng Community.

Wow, could it be so coincidental? It turned out to be a neighbor. Zhang Qiu took a deep breath, feeling somewhat incredulous.

The Jinfeng Community is right across from the Jinling Community, separated by a twelve-lane road. Unlike the Jinling Community, the Jinfeng Community is a commercial housing complex, divided into two phases: Jinfeng Garden and Jinfeng Mansion. It was unknown which side the hacker lived on.

If the hacker lived in the Jinfeng Community, they would indeed be neighbors.

Zhang Qiu couldn't help but think of Lin Lai taking the bus, wondering if she had gone to the Jinfeng Community to meet the hacker that day.

After about ten minutes, seeing no movement from the hacker, Zhang Qiu began to take action. Using world-class perfect technology, he left a backdoor on the computer, allowing him to trace the computer by inputting its MAC address.

Unlike IP addresses, MAC addresses directly point to the computer. Theoretically, even if the IP changes, the computer can still be traced. However, if the IP changes, it would be more troublesome to find the computer's new IP.

Now that Zhang Qiu had both the IP and the MAC address, he could directly locate the computer using the MAC address.

IP addresses have a lot of shared characteristics, and many people share the same external IP. For example, in internet cafes or schools, all the machines or students generally share one external IP. In such cases, using an IP to locate an individual is very difficult.

Although internal IP addresses can help, they are often dynamically assigned. Only the MAC address, like a computer's ID number, does not change easily.

After connecting to the computer through the backdoor, Zhang Qiu obtained a hidden super-administrator privilege. However, he did not use the privilege to cause damage; instead, he immediately began monitoring the computer's actions.

On the screen, the hacker was typing lines of code, learning to write hacking software. So focused, it was no wonder they didn't notice their computer had been hacked.

However, Zhang Qiu was still a bit disappointed. The anticipated hacker confrontation did not occur, and he had succeeded too easily. It was like when he was initially hacked, and he had no way to fight back, only thinking to unplug the network cable in a panic.

Now the situation was reversed. He could easily infiltrate the hacker, and they had no idea.

Could provincial-level technology be so powerful? Zhang Qiu wondered. He concluded that the hacker was too weak and inexperienced. But thinking about how he had been embarrassed by such a novice hacker, he felt extremely ashamed.

But remembering that before obtaining the Super Beauty Search Device, he wasn't even a real hacker, he felt more at ease. At that time, he was completely a novice, not understanding the various levels of hacker skills and not having conducted any real hacking, so it was normal not to understand hacker capabilities.

Knowing that the hacker was a novice, Zhang Qiu did not hold back. He directly captured a bunch of viruses and quietly deployed them on the hacker's computer. He did not find the type of virus that had destroyed his hard drive, or he would have made the hacker's hard drive smoke!

Powerful viruses can indeed damage hardware, especially mechanical hard drives, which are prone to damage. Whether by controlling power supply, controlling rotational speed, or suddenly rebooting during formatting, they can all damage the hard drive.

After deploying a large number of viruses, Zhang Qiu immediately erased all traces of his actions and cut off the connection. He took a deep breath and laughed heartily.

"Finally avenged! Too bad I can't see the hacker's embarrassed face."

After dealing with the hacker, it was Lin Lai's turn. The other IP address in the private photo album was quickly traced by Zhang Qiu. The IP address was located in Suxian No. 1 High School, which must be Lin Lai's.

Since Lin Lai did not use a jump server, although her computer had some professional help to strengthen its defenses, it was still much simpler compared to the hacker's computer.

With almost no effort, in just a few seconds, Zhang Qiu had obtained secret administrative privileges on Lin Lai's computer. Lin Lai's computer was like a naked little lamb, at his mercy, and he felt excited again.

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All the technical and theoretical content in this book is fictional and written for the sake of the plot. It cannot withstand scrutiny. Science students, please don't take these details too seriously (*^__^*).