Action was taken immediately!
HP company staff began attempting to remove the shell of this server set, but soon discovered that the shell was secured by special screws for which no common tools existed. Only a specially made tool, designed to fit the screw holes, could loosen them.
This was likely a measure by Jiangnan Group to prevent others from disassembling the equipment.
This presented a considerable challenge, so someone suggested, "Why don't we just drill holes in the shell? That way, we won't have to deal with the screws!"
This suggestion was met with widespread agreement. Soon, technicians found a drill and began making holes in the shell.
However, to everyone's surprise, shortly after the drill started working, even before a hole was fully opened, two beams of fire shot out from inside the glass cover. Then, thick smoke began to billow out through the gap created by the drill, carrying a strong smell of burning.
"Not good!" everyone exclaimed in alarm. Those nearby fled in panic, fearing there might be a bomb.
About ten minutes later, seeing that the server showed no signs of exploding, they cautiously returned with gas masks, completed opening the holes, and then blew away the smoke.
However, they then discovered that the entire motherboard was essentially charred black, and thick black smoke was also emanating from the chips. It was obvious to anyone that both of these critical components had been destroyed.
A technician examined the damage and shook their head, saying, "It's beyond repair. There's a special coating near the motherboard and chips. Once this special coating is struck by a sudden high-voltage discharge, it immediately ignites, completely burning the motherboard and chips."
"The motherboard and chips are completely ruined. Not only can we no longer examine the code inside, but it will be difficult to even study the materials of these devices! This server set is finished!"
"Damn it!" Hearing this, the HP technicians nearby couldn't help but curse. The representative from Gao Sheng also looked extremely displeased. The equipment they had acquired with significant expense and favors was now destroyed, and they had no recourse.
"Didn't you say it wasn't powered on? How did it catch fire instantly?" the representative questioned with a headache.
"This... this server set has a separate battery!" a technician exclaimed, pulling out a battery pack from the wreckage.
"This battery pack is likely dedicated to powering the server's anti-tampering device. I suspect this device is equipped with a vibration sensor. If it detects an abnormal vibration, such as one caused by forceful disassembly, it will immediately trigger the device's self-immolation mechanism. It directs the battery's power directly into a high-voltage capacitor, which then instantly discharges, using the high voltage to ignite the coating, and ultimately physically burning the chips and motherboard!"
HP technicians were quite capable. In just a few moves, they had deciphered the anti-theft mechanisms and principles of Jiangnan Group's servers.
"How can such a despicable mechanism exist? Is this another mechanism used by your HP?" the representative retorted unhappily.
"No, we at HP would never implement such a perverse anti-disassembly mechanism. However, I've heard that ASML's photolithography machines have similar mechanisms. Jiangnan Group likely learned from them!" a technician from HP stated.
"..."
"Is there any way to bypass this mechanism?" the representative then asked.
"It's very difficult. It's probably impossible to force open the shell. We'll have to find a way to remove the screws using specialized tools and disassemble the shell through normal means. Otherwise, this mechanism will be triggered!"
"Son of a b**ch!"
In their helplessness, the decryption work had to be temporarily redirected. HP contacted a professional company specializing in screw equipment and tools, asking them to develop specialized disassembly equipment for these screws.
After spending over $200,000, this company finally developed a specialized device, but this was a month later.
However, at least they could now proceed with the disassembly. With the new tool, the HP engineers once again excitedly removed the shell's screws. But then, fire and black smoke erupted again, and this second set of equipment was also burned.
"What's going on this time? Which company's anti-theft mechanism is this?" the representative, who had returned to the scene again, demanded furiously.
"We don't know... we don't know..." This time, the technicians were also bewildered. They had never encountered such an anti-disassembly mechanism. This was absolutely novel, an original Chinese anti-disassembly mechanism, but they hadn't even figured out its working principle.
Afterward, these technicians studied the wreckage of this server set for a long time without discovering how the device achieved its physical anti-disassembly. Then, someone proposed trying to crack it through software, as long as they could bypass the exclusive password and stop trying to force it open.
This approach wasn't wrong, but when their technicians connected their devices to the server and attempted direct password cracking, they found that all their equipment was unable to access the servers' systems.
Yes, that's right. The system of this server set seemed to be from another world. Currently, all system access devices and programs, including specialized viruses, were unable to access the server cluster's system. There was no response to any information, and after 10 minutes, the device directly displayed an alarm... Fortunately, for safety reasons, they had placed this server set in a completely shielded and signal-isolated safe room, so Jiangnan Group should not have been able to receive the alarm signals from these devices.
However, perhaps due to the lack of signal response, after twenty minutes, this server set spontaneously combusted... the third unit was directly scrapped!
This time, the entire HP group was completely stunned. In their helplessness, HP could only instruct the technical department to temporarily leave the unactivated equipment untouched and focus their efforts on researching the three burned-out devices to see if they could uncover any secrets from the debris and wreckage.
[PS: Let's see who can guess how these servers are protected against theft!]
However, this greatly slowed down the investigation. About three months later, researchers finally made some discoveries. They found that the materials used for the server chips were very special, even more mysterious than those used for the Jiangnan server storage chips. There were also many technical aspects that were incomprehensible for normal chips.
In short, even with ten sets of servers in hand, they couldn't crack it.
Of course, as time went by, they gradually uncovered the secrets of the five-进制 (quinary) computer system. But even with this discovery, there was nothing they could do, because they couldn't, like Jiangnan Group, create an entirely new quinary chip construction system from scratch.
Therefore, even if these things were invented, they were meaningless.
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Meanwhile, thanks to the efforts of Jiangnan Group's technicians, all 2,000 servers were installed and debugged in just half a month. Weibo then officially announced that it would open the short video function for all accounts to experience.
However, unlike the expected viral explosion, the popularity of the short video function was not particularly high. The main content on Weibo was still text-based, with very few photos.
This was because mobile phones with video recording capabilities were not yet widespread, and mobile networks were not well-developed. It was far from the time when short videos would become dominant.
But because Weibo provided an excellent and relatively high-speed video playback experience, many video creators who were originally attracted to YouTube began to upload their original videos to Weibo one after another. YouTube could no longer develop as rapidly and without rivals as in the previous life. At the very least, it had encountered a formidable opponent named Weibo.
More importantly, as previously discussed, short videos of the TV series "Piao Miao Zhi Lu" (Journey of the Wandering Immortals) began to be continuously uploaded to Weibo by an official account for the TV series. These videos quickly received significant resource recommendations and appeared on Weibo's homepage.
Initially, there wasn't much attention given to these videos. After all, "Piao Miao Zhi Lu" was still showing in cinemas. Although the number of screenings had decreased, anyone who wanted to watch it could still see it in a cinema.
The versions on Weibo were only about 2 minutes long, and due to network limitations, the picture quality was terrible. Who would want to watch "Piao Miao Zhi Lu" on Weibo?
Therefore, even with the recommendations, the initial popularity was not high, causing some anxiety on Weibo. This was a resource they had acquired at great expense. If it failed to have any impact, someone would surely be in trouble.
However, soon it became clear what happens when officials are clueless and the wisdom of the masses is boundless.
A Weibo user, after watching a short video of "Piao Miao Zhi Lu," was surprised to discover that it contained plot points not present in the movie. They immediately added a title: "Shocking! Unreleased Footage from 'Piao Miao Zhi Lu' Movie: How Li Qiang Spent $5 Million in One Day."
This plot segment showed Li Qiang, after deciding to leave, spending all his hard-earned money in a single day, engaging in various extravagant consumption.
This plot segment was only present in the TV series and not in the movie. Given the precious screen time in the movie, these plot points were omitted. Instead, the movie quickly transitioned from coming out of Qin Shi Huang's Mausoleum to directly reaching the summit of Mount Everest and leaving via a teleportation array.