The first day of winter vacation.

In the box on the second floor of the Shangdao Coffee on Hubin Road, covered by brown glass, Gu Mojie was waiting there early again. This time he came to Sheng Wei, and naturally there was another business to discuss.

Sheng Wei is usually not very punctual, and likes to be a little late; Gu Mojie unceremoniously served a pot of coffee first, and slowly poured himself a drink and thought about things.

Today's business is a bit creative, and if Sheng Wei takes over, it will not only mean making money, but also a transformation.

Gu Mojie and Sheng Wei's previous cooperation experience was quite pleasant. From the bottom of his heart, he also hopes that Sheng Wei will slowly transform and then use it for him.

People who have been in the Internet circle often recognize a phenomenon. That is, people who do hackers and people who do cyber security are actually just double-edged sword manifestations of the same type of talent.

Some people who have done evil things for several years will be cleaned up and recruited one day; Putting on a new skin, it has become the technical backbone of the company. There are many such examples in the future, but at this point in time at the beginning of '04, there are not many precedents. After all, the famous "Panda Burning Incense" Zhao'an incident was far from happening in this time and space.

The sword can kill as well as save people. There is nothing wrong with a talent in itself, it is nothing more than whether it is used well or not.

When Gu Mojie's thoughts were so chaotic, the box door opened, Sheng Wei walked in with his head held high, sat down on the sofa, and then greeted him.

As soon as he opened his mouth, it was a high-spirited gesture: "Who is it to buy broiler chickens again?" ”

Gu Mojie smiled, poured a cup of coffee, and pushed over an envelope: "Senior brother, this time it's another business, don't buy broilers." ”

Sheng Wei had no intention of being polite at all, and pushed the envelope back without hesitation, but he couldn't look down on the small amount of money of tens of thousands of yuan: "Why don't you buy broiler chickens for me?" I'm very busy. I don't think you know how big a family business I have right now. ”

In this tone, he almost said, "My lord is hundreds of thousands of dollars a minute, and I will accompany you, a person who doesn't buy broilers, to drink coffee here?" ”

was rejected as a red envelope, and Gu Mojie was not discouraged; He knows that hackers are a little arrogant, especially hackers who have made enough money, and they are easy to talk and ridicule. He followed Sheng Wei's words unmoved: "Could it be that Senior Brother also has tens of millions of family businesses now?" ”

When this sentence was asked, Sheng Wei's eyelids jumped, and it seemed that his appreciation and respect for Gu Mojie half a year ago had returned a little.

"That's a good guess, I'm also worth 20 million less now - but you used the word 'also', it seems that your achievements are not bad."

Gu Mojie replied lightly: "Half a catty and eight taels, I am also a family business of more than 10 million." My money is lighter than yours though. ”

Sheng Wei didn't feel sorry at all, and sometimes he was not ashamed of making gray money, but was proud of it. He took a sip of coffee and asked Gu Mojie rhetorically: "Then tell me, how did you guess that I have such a big family business now." If you guess right, I might be interested in hearing about your plan and working with you on a new business. ”

Gu Mojie remained silent and talked eloquently: "You were born as a broiler with gray pigeons, what other means can you suddenly make a lot of money within half a year?" It's nothing more than finding a channel to monetize broiler resources in large quantities. ”

"Yes, then guess what's the channel?"

"IT SHOULD BE THAT IN THE PAST SIX MONTHS, THE NUMBER OF WEBSITE OWNERS WHO HAVE ASKED YOU TO CLICK ON ADSENSE ADS HAS BEGUN TO SURGE, RIGHT?"

Gu Mojie's understatement came out, and Sheng Wei finally restrained the arrogant posture of "after the wealth, after the brocade clothes see the old man" when he first came in, and his expression became solemn.

In fact, Sheng Wei is not a very arrogant person, but he has also had adventures in the past six months, and his property has suddenly skyrocketed many times, which makes him lose himself a little; Coupled with the hackers' low emotional intelligence, they were a little arrogant when they saw their original partners again.

At this moment, Gu Mojie broke his knack for making a fortune, but let Sheng Wei start to evaluate the relationship with Gu Mojie again. The arrogance of "Lao Tzu is the best in the world" just now has also been reined in.

Sheng Wei's adventure, in fact, is also lucky.

IN JUNE AND JULY 2003, GOOGLE LAUNCHED ADSENSE, AN INTERNET ADVERTISING MEDIATION PLATFORM, FOR THE FIRST TIME IN THE WORLD, AND SINCE THEN, THE BILLING METHOD OF INTERNET ADVERTISING HAS BEGUN TO CHANGE FROM THE ORIGINAL FIXED PRICE OF THIRD-PARTY TRAFFIC STATISTICS OF MAJOR PORTALS TO THE PER-CLICK PRICING OF EACH EFFECTIVE CLICK.

Prior to this, the controlled broilers on the botnet could only be used as distributed denial-of-service attacks to resolve private grievances between Internet service providers, and could not be used to make money directly. Google's ad mediation platform has since provided a channel platform for botnets to quickly cash out.

Sheng Wei has a good vision, and was inspired by the malicious burning of advertising fees that Gu Mojie asked him to do half a year ago, after Gu Mojie's business was cut off, in the next six months, he actually took the initiative to find some website owners who began to accept ADSENSE advertising space in large quantities, and then peddled his business of "manipulating botnets to help website owners click on advertisements placed by customers on this site".

After the website owners were woken up by Sheng Wei, how could they refuse such a business? You must know that before this, a certain advertising space on their website, placing a certain advertisement, how much money is charged per day, is fixed, and the more points and less are not directly linked to the income of the website owner; Now you are charged based on the number of valid clicks, and each IP address is charged once a day.

AS A RESULT, SHENG WEI COLLUDED WITH A BLACK-HEARTED WEBSITE OWNER AT HOME AND ABROAD, AND HE HAPPILY DRANK THE SALIVA BROUGHT BY THE LAUNCH OF GOOGLE'S ADSENSE PLATFORM AND BECAME RICH OVERNIGHT.

Because Google's new platform was launched not long ago, many botnet operators with inactive brains did not transform in time, so during that time, Shengwei was almost raging in a blank blue ocean market, almost no competitors, and no one bargained; Even if he and the website owner open a five-five share, or even six or four, he takes the big head, and the website takes the small head, and many websites agree. Similarly, Google's "effective click" algorithm is still in the stage of testing, running-in, and optimization, and there are countless vulnerabilities for botnet owners to enjoy this feast.

It was this coincidence that made Sheng Wei meet Gu Mojie again after half a year, and his own worth had increased several times.

However, although Gu Mojie has a deep view of the fire and can see through the essence behind Sheng Wei's appearance, he does not envy Sheng Wei at all, nor does he regret that he did not intervene in this gray business in the past six months.

First, he Gu Mojie didn't have the technology and resources, and second, he knew that this kind of money was a one-shot deal and could not last long. What's more, Gu Mojie is a person who wants to do great things in his life, and he doesn't want to be written into the history books because of some flaws in the primitive accumulation stage of blood type in his early years after he reaches the top.

"Senior brother, listen to me, although I can see through how you are developed, I really don't think about the sustainability of this business. After all, this is just a quick amount of money - Google's algorithm was not perfect in the first six months, can it continue to be imperfect? With Google's technical prowess, perhaps within this year, they will be able to come up with an algorithm that accurately distinguishes between valid clicks from real users and malicious clicks from botnets. You'll have to find another way. ”

Gu Mojie's translation of this passage is actually very easy to understand: not to mention Google, even a certain point of Chinese network, after the brush dog is raging, can update the click algorithm, and distinguish the tens of millions of clicks that those who write vegetables and fruits by brushing software. Dignified Google, is the technical strength not as good as a certain point?

Sheng Wei listened to Gu Mojie's words, and was a little anxious. This is also normal, anyone who is in the current business is cooking oil, and is persuaded by a partner to retreat bravely with a basin of cold water, will feel unhappy.

Gamblers who are on the right track, investors who have hot brains when the continuous limit is up, and zombie network owners when broilers are selling hot, are actually a kind of mentality.

However, Sheng Wei finally knew that Gu Mojie was for her good. The medicine is bitter, and the advice is against the ear, and he doesn't mind reluctantly listening to it.

"Then let's talk about the business you brought me today—you should be trying to persuade me to transform. I'll be blunt, if making money wasn't as enjoyable as manipulating botnet ads, I wouldn't have invested much of a resource to work with you. ”

Gu Mojie smiled happily, it took so much effort to drag Sheng Wei's values back, and finally got to the point. He took out two copies of the plan from his school bag and threw them on the coffee table. Pointing and saying:

"My plan is for you to transform into a 'search engine optimization' business, of course, the first business is naturally to help my company's two new software, do search engine optimization, and the resulting advertising cost optimization. In the future, if you are proficient in this kind of business, you will naturally be able to find others to take orders. ”

Sheng Wei was stunned: "Search engine optimization? I'm not familiar with this thing. Can you be specific. You're not going to make me give up my current foundation and do something with a big technical span, right? Then I'm not going to do it. ”

"Absolutely not, I think SEO is definitely a good fit for your resource and technical reserve structure. Compared to what you're doing now, the inheritance is definitely very good. ”

"Very good technology inheritance? So why haven't I even noticed? It can't be blind, right? ”

Sheng Wei was full of suspicion, and he was so slanderous in his heart. However, today, Gu Mojie's foresight and accuracy of prediction ability had convinced him, so he had to suppress his doubts for the time being and slowly listen to Gu Mojie's words.

Gu Mojie knew that Sheng Wei didn't care about this at all, so he decided to use the most in-depth and simple way to explain the things in the outline first.

"Let's put it this way, let me summarize it for you first: if you say that the business you did was to manipulate the botnet to cooperate with the website owner and pit the advertiser's money, and then you and the website owner to share the spoils; So what I want you to do is to get you to work with advertisers to prevent them from being cheated on by website owners, and then you collect a protection fee from advertisers. ”