“For this?” the person on the other side asked incredulously.
“Otherwise, I don’t care if I lose 1 billion, but I can’t stand this humiliation.”
“Huang He, you truly are…”
This, however, brought about a significant problem: Fantasia Computers had consumed, and even overdrawn, substantial funds, leaving the entire company’s capital chain in an extremely tight state. Once a large-scale loss of funds occurred, leading to a breakdown in the capital chain, it wouldn’t just be Fantasia Computers; even Microsoft would collapse as quickly as you could see it.
Knowing this situation, Fantasia Computers still dared to acquire companies on such a massive and rapid scale. Besides the ambition of its helmsman, it was more due to their sufficient financial backing to undertake these endeavors. This financial backing originated from their income in China.
Fantasia Computers’ annual revenue in China reached a staggering 300 billion RMB, with net profits exceeding 10 billion. This was precisely why Fantasia Computers dared to aggressively acquire so many companies – because they possessed China as an inexhaustible and endless fund pool.
As long as Fantasia Computers’ market position in China remained, they could gradually settle these enormous acquisition costs.
However, their fundamental base had been shaken. A drop of over 40% instantly put Fantasia Computers’ capital chain under severe strain.
Currently, Fantasia Computers’ total annual loan repayment amounted to a staggering 16 billion RMB. If they failed to repay this loan, Fantasia Computers would inevitably be on the verge of collapse.
Nevertheless, the helmsman was quite confident about this. In an internal executive meeting, he stated with extreme certainty that the 40% sales decline would not pose a significant problem. Firstly, this sales decline was temporary.
Most importantly, Fantasia Computers currently had no major competitors in China. Without major competitors capable of threatening their market position, the 40% drop in sales would eventually rebound, as users would still need to purchase complete computer systems.
And when purchasing complete computer systems, apart from Apple, the strongest and best brand was Fantasia.
Furthermore, to further boost the morale of all employees, the helmsman also stated that domestic individual computer users only accounted for 38% of Fantasia Computers’ total user base. The truly dominant portion of Fantasia Computers’ sales was enterprise office computers and computers for various institutions. This was the market where Fantasia Computers held the largest share and also the most profitable market.
And this market could not be disrupted by any public opinion. After all, the consumers in this market were the least price-sensitive consumers in the world, and they also wouldn’t care about prices in other countries.
In fact, the helmsman’s words largely aligned with the actual situation. Fantasia Computers indeed did not need to pay too much attention to public opinion issues and could completely wait for time to smooth things over.
Of course, this came with a prerequisite: Fantasia Computers’ partners must be reliable, not some colossal screw-ups who, for instance, liked to install backdoors in operating systems.
There was also an international friend named Snowden.
Edward Snowden, having joined the U.S. Army in 2004, was eager to participate in military operations in Iraq. However, during training, he accidentally broke both his legs. Although he vehemently requested to rejoin his unit after recovery, he was still forced to retire.
However, due to his strong patriotism displayed during military training, he secured a job at the NSA and later served as an information technology security specialist, rapidly advancing due to his exceptional knowledge of networks and computer skills.
In 2007, he was responsible for the computer network security operations assigned by the security department to Geneva, Switzerland, but in reality, he was a…
Later, he left the security department and worked for Dell Computers, and then joined Booz Allen Hamilton, a company that specialized in working for security departments and handled a vast number of cybersecurity issues.
In the process, Edward Snowden acquired a large amount of first-hand information. By the end of 2015, he felt he could no longer endure the torment of conscience and morality. Therefore, he resolutely chose to abandon his job with an annual salary of $200,000, secretly copied all the information, and then, through covert means, traveled to Russia. He then handed over the information to major global media outlets, which subsequently triggered the world-shattering Lj incident.
In recorded history, the trigger date was actually 2013. In this timeline, two years later, many changes would naturally occur.
For example, the information collected by Snowden was more comprehensive and not solely limited to the United States. Instead, he managed to obtain data from its global surveillance network, and the total amount of information ultimately posted online was 12 times that of another world. The total data provided reached an astonishing 12.8 terabytes.
In his previous life, apart from Americans, the public in various countries treated the Lj incident as mere entertainment, and the revelations did not generate much anger.
This was because the previously leaked information almost exclusively involved the personal privacy of Americans; foreign ordinary citizens’ privacy was not of interest.
Secondly, everyone understood that government collection of personal privacy did not pose significant harm to the individual. Conversely, if this privacy fell into the hands of neighbors or colleagues, it would be the greatest crisis.
If the government wants it, let them take it. After all, they wouldn't use this privacy to blackmail me for money. This is why, in his previous life, Snowden's actions, although seemingly causing a great stir, had almost no impact on the government. Instead, the U.S. government directly legislated these actions, which were originally meant to be kept secret, and brought them to the forefront. This turned Snowden’s efforts into a complete joke.
But as the information in this world continued to expand, much of the data that was never revealed in the global timeline was also made public.
For instance, there was a complete set of communications memorandums between security agencies and major global terminal enterprises. In these memorandums, the security departments demanded that these communication companies embed a hidden surveillance program in their personal products to secretly monitor all terminal chat messages. Once sensitive keywords and letters were involved, the entire message was to be recorded in full and uploaded to the security department.
Not only that, but the security agencies also initially demanded that this hidden background program have the authority to directly control the user’s mobile phone in emergencies. Unless the user directly removed the battery, even if the user chose to shut down the device, the entire terminal could be controlled in a black screen state to protect U.S. security.
These commands were very direct and forceful demands. If these terminal companies refused to comply, they would face severe repercussions, and ultimately, major terminal companies accepted this requirement almost entirely.
However, in their responses, these terminal companies also stated very frankly that they could not fully comply with this request. At most, they could add a hidden mini-program to their phones that could monitor text messages and keyboard input. However, controlling the operation of the entire terminal from the background was absolutely impossible.
This was because to achieve this, one would need to control the terminal’s operating system. But all terminal operating systems in the world at that time were the new generation Lingxiao Terminal System provided by Jiangnan Group.
Although the Lingxiao Terminal System was made available to all manufacturers for free, the manufacturers only possessed the right to use the system and the right to edit external applications. The underlying logic of the entire system could not be modified. Unless the security department found someone within Jiangnan Group to modify the marketing terminal system to meet their requirements.
As a result, the security agency actually went to do just that. However, the person they contacted was reported immediately after only a few words were spoken, and he was currently still incarcerated.
The security agency was furious but had no recourse. After all, they only licensed the system for free, and they weren’t even in the terminal business anymore. What leverage did they have to threaten them?
However, the security agency did obtain a significant amount of private information regarding terminals.
In addition to terminal surveillance, there were many other types of surveillance. Among the most explosive was the demand made to the Windows operating system.
Just like the demands made to terminals previously, the security agencies naturally made the same request to Microsoft. As a result, Microsoft readily agreed and fully accepted the security agency’s requirements, designing such a backdoor program.
Furthermore, Snowden’s data even provided the complete code and data for this backdoor program. This backdoor program was not only effective for individual users but also for businesses, servers, and even data exchange centers.
This backdoor program could not only monitor various private messages but, most crucially, it could also lock the system in a locked state at critical moments.
This locked state was not a user lock or a blue screen that could be resolved by simply reinstalling the system.
Instead, it directly locked all hard drive data of the user.
Some might find this absurd: even if a system locks hard drive data, one could simply pull the power, remove the hard drive, and have someone recover the data. How could a program lock hard drive data?
However, this was indeed achievable because Microsoft designed a small trick: encrypting all files.
Many people should have used compression tools. Compression tools can compress a file, turning it into a new file with entirely different data. If you also add a password to the compression, and that password is a 268-character alphanumeric password, then unless you can obtain the decompression password, even if Steve Jobs were resurrected, he couldn’t help you crack the password.
Microsoft specifically developed such a compression program that could compress all files and data on the user’s hard drive, and then add a 268-character alphanumeric key to this compressed file. Even if you had someone recover the data from the hard drive, you would only get a compressed and encrypted document, making it impossible to access the various information within.
This kind of backdoor was now widely present in all Microsoft systems. Once the security agency deemed a user’s computer to be a threat to security, they could directly order Microsoft to use the backdoor to lock all files within the system. This would render the computer and all its data essentially useless.
The importance of files and data to users is self-evident. For example, imagine the despair you would feel if your thousands of gigabytes of educational films suddenly became locked.
Besides these two most significant pieces of news, the documents also revealed many other sensational pieces of information, which naturally caused a worldwide uproar, with countless media outlets reporting on it.
Setting aside how the U.S. security agencies would respond to this disastrous situation, within China, there was a surge of sentiment. Simultaneously, an old tune was played again:
China should use its own operating system and not rely on systems developed by foreigners, as this poses a critical threat to China’s network security.
Initially, only one or two experts proposed this, which was quickly supported by many netizens. However, soon after, a heavyweight expert joined this proposal, immediately elevating the entire matter to a new level.
That expert was Academician Ni Guangnan, former chief engineer of Fantasia Computers, former chief engineer of Jiangnan Group, and currently honorary dean of Jiangnan University. He publicly and under his real name suggested that the use of all Windows systems should be immediately ceased, and domestic computer systems should be fully promoted to ensure China's network security.
[PS: My health has improved slightly, but this is all I can write. Please forgive me. Also, for the new book, I had originally planned to save up more words before announcing it. If you are interested, you can search for "This Novel is Very Healthy," which is the title of my other account.
Furthermore, the new book will not affect the old book. The old book is estimated to finish in about three more months. Thank you for your support!]