Less than 24 hours after the outbreak of the computer virus named "HNY" (Happy New Year), the creator of the virus was successfully arrested by the Hong Kong Crime Squad.

The author of the virus was a freshman from Hong Kong who went to study at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD) in the United States. UCSD's campus is home to the San Diego Supercomputer Center (SDSC), one of the six supercomputer centers established by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States.

In fact, this SDSC also has some origins with the Eastern Bloc, because its host is the "Pearl of the Orient" series of supercomputers manufactured by the Eastern Bloc. And the reason why this Hong Kong international student fell in love with computers is also inseparable from his admiration for Li Xuan.

The two most famous subsidiaries of the Oriental Group are Aikang and Oriental Games. In particular, as the first listed company under the Oriental Group, Aikang Company was transformed into a giant company with a market value of tens of billions of Hong Kong dollars overnight when it was listed on the London Stock Exchange, which caused a huge sensation in Hong Kong.

It was after this that Li Xuan was completely pushed to the altar by the Hong Kong media. And many Hong Kong teenagers who follow his example have also fallen in love with computers. Because of Li Xuan, there was a computer boom in Hong Kong, and even the Education Department deliberately added computer courses to the secondary school curriculum.

Of course, Li Xuan has actually been working hard to promote the foundation of computer education in Hong Kong. For example, Li Xuan's charity foundation has donated computer classrooms to a large number of primary and secondary schools in Hong Kong.

It has been six years since the ABC-1 computer was first launched, and Akon has discontinued these low-end products two or three years ago. The entire Hong Kong computer market is now flooded with more than a dozen ABC-1 compatible machine brands. There is a fierce price fight with each other. But even if you go to buy an ABC-1 compatible machine, if you are equipped with a color display. The cost of the whole set of computers is still about 5,000 Hong Kong dollars.

This is equivalent to a month's income of an average working family in Hong Kong, so buying a computer is by no means a cheap thing. It is necessary to build a computer classroom equipped with more advanced ABC-3 computers. A minimum of HK$500,000 is required, which is a significant burden for most schools.

Li Xuan's large-scale funding behind it can be said to be one of the important reasons for the rapid popularization of computer culture in Hong Kong, especially the investment and cultivation of basic computer education at the bottom.

It was against this backdrop that the students who had fallen in love with computers since their middle school years were in love. His father was an elementary school principal, and the family income was enough to cover his study abroad expenses. Teachers in Hong Kong are no better than their counterparts in China, which is a very high-paying profession, and principals are definitely high-income groups.

So he doesn't need to stay local. It's like crossing a single-plank bridge to compete for a place at only two universities, the University of Hong Kong and the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Because he loves computers, he quickly found a part-time job at SDSC after studying abroad at UCSD.

One of the seniors who worked with him happened to be a fan of the core wars, and often secretly played the games of the core wars with people on the SDSC supercomputer. Two people compete for their programming skills and fight each other on a computer through a set of programs. After a few encounters, he quickly fell in love with the game of wits and wits of tech nerds.

And it is with the help of the programming idea of the core war. and a vulnerability in the East-DOS system that he knew about to write the "HNY" computer virus. In fact, the system vulnerability of East-DOS was not discovered by himself. Rather, he learned about it through communication with other computer experts on the Internet.

For true technical prosper. As long as you take the time to patiently find and crack, you will always find a few vulnerabilities in your computer's operating system. Before the start of the Internet wave, there are many vulnerabilities in computer systems. But it is not easy for hackers to use this to complete the intrusion into other people's computers.

Because for most computers that are not connected to the Internet. Hackers can't connect to their systems at all. No matter how good your skills are, it is difficult for a clever woman to cook without rice. So for all software companies. There has always been a lack of preparedness when it comes to security.

Even like Dongfang System Software Company, Li Xuan, the major shareholder, has always emphasized that he should pay more attention to this aspect. But the company has never suffered a serious blow in this regard, and it is inevitable that the top management will not pay enough attention.

And even if the technical staff of Dongfang System Company found a new vulnerability in their system software, most of them chose to remain silent and make up for it in subsequent versions when most users could not automatically update the patches online. And this approach naturally leaves a lot of hidden dangers, such as the vulnerability exploited by "HNY" this time, in fact, Dongfang System Software Company has not found it before.

Taking advantage of the Christmas winter break, this Hong Kong student who went to study in the United States flew back to Hong Kong to celebrate the holiday with his parents. Perhaps out of the rebellion of his youth, he decided to create a prank on New Year's Day, so he wrote this extremely aggressive online virus.

He first sent the virus to a few middle school classmates by email, hoping to see if those people would be recruited the next day. But he didn't expect the huge diffusion effect of network communication far beyond his expectations.

By the time he contacted a few of his friends who had been recruited the first day the next day to solve the problem for them, the "HNY" virus was already raging throughout Hong Kong. As the author of the virus, he actually retains a solution to the virus, but he is a little scared when he realizes that something is wrong.

But after much hesitation, he finally chose to upload the antivirus program on several major BBS forums in Hong Kong. And this information is precisely the important reason why he was quickly locked up by the Hong Kong police less than 24 hours after the outbreak of the virus.

Fortunately, this computer virus is not too destructive, even if the user really can't find a solution, just format the computer in full, and then reinstall the system to restore it to normal, and it will not damage the hardware.

It also attacks primarily on PCs with East-DOS systems, and not on mainframes with Unix systems. Otherwise, the consequences will be much more severe.

However, since Hong Kong's Internet can be connected to the ARPANET and NSFnet networks, the disaster in Hong Kong was quickly extinguished due to the timely intervention of the Eastern Bloc. The "HNY" virus still spread, sweeping the world in just a day or two.

Keep in mind that the New Year period is supposed to be the peak time for sending and receiving emails. Although the Eastern Bloc gave a timely warning and launched a series of remedial measures. However, people who have never experienced a cyber virus attack are still difficult to develop a sense of prevention. According to the statistics of relevant agencies, in just one week, more than 20,000 computers around the world were infected by the "HNY" virus.

Due to the war of words between Britain and the United States over World Wide Web technology, and the emergence of "Sleepless in Hong Kong" like a dark horse in the Oscar selection for Best Foreign Language Film, the term "Internet" was originally a hot topic focused on by the media at the end of 1986.

And the sudden outbreak of the "HNY" virus raged. It added another scoop of oil to this raging fire. For the first time, the huge information security risks brought about by the global networking of computers have been taken seriously by everyone. This gives many conservatives who are reluctant to accept new things an excuse to attack the Internet.

However, more people of insight have also spied on the rising Internet from this sudden outbreak of network security crisis, which is a huge subversion of the way human information is disseminated. This disruption was achieved by the telegraph and the telephone, which for the first time connected the earth as a whole.

The advent of the Internet is bound to make this connection even closer. Li Xuan was also invited by the Wall Street Journal to write an article called "Let's Really Embrace the Global Village Era".

The concept of a "globalvillage" was actually introduced back in 1967. It has already been proposed by the Canadian communication scientist McLuhan. Human society has undergone major changes with the emergence of new electronic media such as ships and airplanes, as well as new electronic media such as radio and television. The distance between people and countries is shrinking, and the process of global integration is unstoppable.

Before the advent of the internet. We've been able to keep up to date with the news happening on the other side of the world on television. We were also able to pass by plane, just within twenty-four hours. Arrive in any country in the world.

But there are actually a lot of barriers to this, such as the world news we see on TV. They are all carefully screened by the TV station. We want to fly all over the world, in addition to getting a visa. There are also significant travel expenses to incur.

However, the emergence of the Internet can truly make every individual in the world intertwine without barrier through the virtual network of the Internet. When we can freely communicate with the world without leaving our homes, the earth really becomes like a small village.

In fact, Li Xuan's article "Let's Really Embrace the Global Village Era" is only an excerpt and refinement of part of the content of his first book he is currently writing, "The Road to the Future".

The previous global discussion of WWW technology led by the World Wide Web Alliance was the first bomb for Li Xuan to detonate Internet issues. And then with the help of "Sleepless Nights in Hong Kong" and the American Oscar, it is Li Xuan's second round of hype plan.

Originally, the third installment he planned would be the new book "The Road to the Future", which will be launched in May and June this year. The richest man in the world published a book about what the world in his mind would be like in ten or twenty years, which is sure to arouse the curiosity of many people.

To say that Li Xuan is really lazy, he simply did not even change the name of the book, but plagiarized the title of the book written by Bill Gates in another time and space. It's just that compared to Gates's imagination, he can make incomparably precise words like God. Twenty years later, when people open the book again, they may be amazed to find that his prophecy seems to have been experienced in advance.

And with these three consecutive rounds of hot speculation, Li Xuan believes that it is difficult for the term "Internet" to become popular. After this sufficient foundation of public opinion is established, Li Xuan can persuade Bush Sr., Gore, and other politicians to come forward and start the construction of large-scale information infrastructure in the United States, and things will suddenly become logical. And the Eastern Group, as the leader of Internet technology, can easily take the opportunity to get the fattest piece of meat from it!

This sudden outbreak of the Internet virus incident can be said to be completely out of Li Xuan's plan. But the benefits outweigh the disadvantages for his entire strategic layout, because this incident has created an excellent publicity opportunity for the Internet.

And the reason why he personally posted the article was also to take this opportunity to guide everyone's discussion to the way he wanted to think. That is how crucial and central the Internet will play in the future development of mankind. For him, the world's richest man and a leader in the computer industry, to express these views is undoubtedly more likely to arouse everyone's thinking.

And when the focus of the discussion shifts from concerns about Internet security to the huge role that the Internet will play in the information age, the pressure on the Eastern System Software Company and the US government will be much less.

Judging by the number of computers infected by the "HNY" virus this time, the United States is definitely the biggest victim. Of the more than 20,000 virus-infected computers worldwide, more than 12,000 are located in the United States. In the wake of the HNY attack, the U.S. government has begun work on the creation of a new unit called the Computer Emergency Operations Team to deal with similar challenges that may arise in the future.

The East-DOS system of Dongfang System Software Company has also been questioned because of the stain that "HNY" is proliferating through its system vulnerabilities. Competitors such as Apple have taken advantage of security and other topics to launch fierce attacks on the entire ABC computer system.

Even the IPO plan of Dongfang System Software Company was once impacted. Fortunately, the remedial measures of the Eastern Group were timely, and users who were infected with their computers almost always got the right solution the first time, thus avoiding most of the losses.

The "Shield" security software of Dongfang System Company has become a well-known star software product in the world by taking advantage of this Internet virus incident. In just one week, it sold 100,000 copies worldwide, saving a lot of reputation for Oriental Systems!

Of course, Hong Kong, the place where the Internet virus broke out and the hardest-hit area, is also facing a lot of difficulties. When the "HNY" virus raged around the world, the author of the virus who was arrested by the Hong Kong police immediately became the focus of media attention around the world.

But Hong Kong's Department of Justice and the courts are troubled by this globally concerned case, which is difficult to sentence in the existing laws of Hong Kong and the United Kingdom.

It is estimated that the direct economic loss caused by the "HNY" virus to the world's Internet industry is likely to exceed 100 million Hong Kong dollars. But in fact, there are only 5 dangerous emails sent by the virus writer himself. The computers infected by these five emails were all restored by him the next day, without any financial losses.

And can the losses caused by the self-replication and spread of the virus be attributed to the writers of the virus? This has even sparked a debate in the legal scholars of Hong Kong and the United Kingdom! (To be continued......

PS: In the last chapter, happy was written as heap, and I was also drunk! Alas, it's only been a few years since I graduated, and I've returned all my English to the teacher, hey!