I'm Really a Superstar

Saturday morning.

The alarm shrilled loudly. Ring Ring Ring.

Zhang Ye opened his eyes and saw that the sky was still dark. He yawned and got out of bed to take a shower. His movements were light, as he noticed that Dong Shanshan’s room door was still closed. She was still asleep. When he came back to his room, Zhang Ye was refreshed after taking a cold shower. He sat in front of his computer and waited. He waited for the other party’s email read receipt. If he downloaded and activated the trojan horse, Zhang Ye would receive a response on his trojan horse software from his side.

Waiting.

Waiting.

Why was this grandson still not online?

Has he even woken up yet or has he just not switched on his computer?

……

At the same time.

In a residential district.

After getting up, Li Tao had breakfast with his family.

His wife asked, “Do you need to go to work today?”

“It’s my rest day.” Li Tao did not say much, just a sentence.

His wife asked, “The trouble that Zhang Ye caused, is it giving you a lot of pressure? Will it affect you? Nothing will happen right?”

Li Tao was eating a dumpling as he laughed, “If I say it wouldn’t affect anything, I’d be lying, but don’t worry. He can’t cause much trouble for me, he’s no threat.”

His daughter looked up, “Dad, is Zhang Ye really done for?”

“He’s done for.” Li Tao patted his daughter’s head, “He has already provoked the masses, there’s many other who want him to go down. Even if I didn’t deal with him, he’d be dealt with sooner or later!”

His daughter clapped her hands in joy, “That’s great, that’s what happens when he scolds our Lee Parkwoo! Hngg. Oh yes, Dad. Can you get Lee Parkwoo’s autograph for me?”

Li Tao dotingly said, “OK, OK, OK, when he comes to Shanghai for any programs, I will give the television station a call for the favor. It’s just a small matter.”

His daughter excitedly said, “Dad, you’re the best!”

Li Tao said, “Hur Hur, quickly eat.”

After breakfast, Li Tao’s wife went to work. His daughter went out with her classmates. He was alone in the bedroom, so he turned on the computer to read some news and check his Weibo and email.

Di.

You have mail.

Li Tao looked over at the notification and did a double take.

Not a man if you don’t look? Voyeur shot? Zhang Yuanqi’s private photo?

Damn, so erotic and so blood-stirring! This…I must see this!

Without another word, Li Tao navigated his mouse and clicked on the email’s picture attachment. This world’s network security was very good. It had managed to limit a large number of hackers or those hobbyists with selfish motivations. To them this was a form of abuse, but as with all matters, there were always pros and cons. From a different perspective, there was a pro in this being that the netizens’ awareness had greatly lowered. They were not as wary as people from Zhang Ye’s previous world. As such, Li Tao had totally no sense of wariness. All he wanted to do was to quickly view the picture, but when the picture finally loaded, Li Tao couldn’t help but curse, “F**k your grandma! Who is this foreigner?! Where is Zhang Yuanqi? Where is the very erotic shot? Isn’t this cheating! Do you still have a shred of humanity left!

……

At the other end.

Zhang Ye’s house.

After drinking his tea and having a smoke, Zhang Ye suddenly saw that his trojan horse client software had responded. On the control interface, a client PC had appeared. He had only sent the trojan horse to Li Tao, so needless to say, this must be his PC!

It’s done!

He had finally succeeded!

This grandson was really using pirated software!

Zhang Ye suddenly sat up straight. Nowadays, trojan horses were basically controlled with a C/S structure. This was what they were called back in Zhang Ye’s previous world. Over here, it was called B-IC structure. The meaning was the same and it was easy enough to understand. The trojan horse had been planted successfully and had made its way past Li Tao’s firewall. Using a very old vulnerability in the system, it could be said that Zhang Ye now had total control over that PC. It had become a part of his botnet — simply to say, it meant he could control that PC freely now.

Entering a command, Li Tao’s IP address was displayed on screen. It was a non-static IP and every time he logged onto the internet, it would be different. but with this trojan horse active in his system now, Zhang Ye did not need to worry about verifying his IP address each and every time anymore. Every time that PC connected to the internet, the trojan horse would send its IP address over to Zhang Ye’s trojan horse client. Unless the infected system had been patched or had its firewall upgraded, he would not be able to get out of Zhang Ye’s control.

As for the language and style of entering of the command, there were no large differences between the two worlds. This was due to the fact that all programming languages were made in English. If this world’s English did not change, then programming languages would not differ by too much either. Zhang Ye entered a few more commands. His victim’s current web browsing details, the computer’s workgroup, computer name, account name, and administrator passwords were all gathered by Zhang Ye and no one else knew a thing besides him.

Zhang Ye was afraid that his victim would disconnect from the internet. If that happened, then no matter how skilled a hacker was, he wouldn’t be able to do anything. So he quickly executed his plan — To check all of the computer’s documents, including the hidden ones!

C Drive — Nothing.

D Drive — Nothing.

E Drive — Nothing.

Li Tao’s computer was clean. Except for a few games and softwares, it had nothing else on it. Not even a movie file. Zhang Ye checked the web browser’s history and did manage to find traces of several unhealthy websites, but that was useless, it would barely get Li Tao into any trouble. Zhang Ye was not satisfied. He searched high and low, but could not find anything!

This was impossible!

Who would not have any shameful things in their computers!

Zhang Ye was left scratching his head. This plan wasn’t fruitful either, but he still had something else up his sleeves. Since his victim’s computer was now under his control, then he could still gather more information!

Like turning on the webcam!

This was Zhang Ye’s next course of action, but before that, he had to adjust some settings. So he entered a command. These days, webcams would usually come with LED lights. Some camera LED lights were used to brighten the subject and were common in standalone webcams. The other type would be those webcams built into computers which has a small pin-like light indicator. Even a fool would know that those wouldn’t brighten up any subjects with such a small pin-like light. This light was instead used as a signal to let the user know that their webcam was in use. So naturally, this setting would have to be switched off. Otherwise, it would give away everything. Some hacking softwares had a setting to switch off this light, but others didn’t. It required some effort to switch it off, but it was necessary to ensure stealth. Of course, the CPU resources usage would hike quite a bit after turning on the webcam, but that couldn’t be helped. This was a hardware issue, no one could do a thing about it.

It was all set!

The webcam was activated!

Suddenly, a large face appeared in front of Zhang Ye. He focused and the smiled coldly. It was indeed that asking-for-a-beating face of Li Tao!

Li Tao was staring at his screen. There was no transmission of sound from the other side.

Zhang Ye took another action — activating his victim’s PC microphone.

Da, da, the sound of mouse clicks could be heard by Zhang Ye now. He could hear everything going on in the room of his victim. Everything was in Zhang Ye’s control!

Subsequently, Zhang Ye didn’t care about the consequences as he began recording the video and audio — This was a process that was happening on his own laptop. He recorded every move made by Li Tao. The objective was to find something that could bring him down. However, when he started the recording, Zhang Ye’s laptop with normal specifications began to crawl. Even if he did not try to open any other application, his mouse pointer was already severely lagging as it jumped across the screen. Zhang Ye smiled bitterly as he disabled some background tasks to ease the load on the CPU.

After another long wait.

About 10 minutes later, Li Tao suddenly got up. He left the screen to where the camera could not see. Zhang Ye could hear from the audio feed that Li Tao went out into the living room. He did not disconnect from the internet since Zhang Ye was still connected to his PC.

So he waited.

Besides waiting, there was nothing else he could do.

After another few minutes, Li Tao returned. He sat in front of the computer once again.

Being a hacker carried its risks. This was the reason why Zhang Ye did not leave his seat. In the event someone started tracing the hack back to him, he could quickly erase his tracks.

A cellphone’s ringtone started playing.

Zhang Ye subconsciously glanced over, it was not his own cellphone.

Then he saw on screen that Li Tao had answered his phone. He was smoking a cigarette and talking, “Hello, Little Yong ah….Yes….Yes….How are the investigations of those Talk Shows going….I know there are violations…but just symbolically take some actions against them and it will be fine, there’s no need to halt their broadcasts….Right…Copyright? I know they plagiarized Zhang Ye’s program, but whether there’s an issue with the copyright, it does not concern us. It’s the job of the relevant copyright departments. Even if they bring it to court, it has nothing to do with us…..Right, right, just issue them warnings and that will be enough. We don’t need to met out overly harsh punishments on them, but don’t make it too light either. At least we have to show the public that we mean business. Do you even need me to teach you?”

What?

Talking about me now?

Zhang Ye’s eyes lit up!

Then continuing on, Li Tao said, “That girl from Weiwo Video…that Dong something girl. Her program’s been halted right? Good…who? Whoever calls in….Yes… I know, but it doesn’t matter who pleads for her. She’s Zhang Ye’s university classmate, so we will ban the both of them…Right, to go against our team and cause us so much trouble, hur, did they even think they would live peacefully? No way! In the future, keep an eye on this Weiwo Video company as well. If there’s any problem with any of their programs, report it to me….Yes, we will use them as an example to others. Let’s see who still dares to rebel….Hur Hur, you think I’m not aware that ‘Online Talents’ doesn’t have any problems? Even if there are no problems, we will still take action against it! Who can do anything about it…. You understand?…..Alright, go and take care of it. You must repress all of those negative opinions! Whoever refuses to accept it, report them to me!”

The call ended.

Li Tao extinguished his cigarette and continued surfing the internet. He was completely oblivious that every word he just said had been recorded by Zhang Ye!

Zhang Ye was very excited, he slapped his thighs loudly!

It’s done! This was just what I wanted! With this, Li Tao still wants to flourish? He won’t flourish another day!

After waiting for another 15 minutes, with nothing worthy to show for, Zhang Ye disconnected from that computer. He switched off its camera and microphone and cleaned up the event logs on his victim’s computer. He eliminated all traces of the hack except for the trojan horse, which he couldn’t delete. There was no way to do it as it was a very common type of trojan horse. There was no uninstall program for it, only the world class trojan horses would have that, but it was harmless. Every hacker would leave some traces of softwares, emails, trojan horses, and such when they hacked into someone’s system. As long as the event logs were deleted, there wouldn’t be a problem. It would be untraceable from there.

He closed the control program.

Zhang Ye disconnected from the internet to be safe. Only then did he review the recorded footage and edited the most crucial part of it out.

You wanted to take a bite at me and my old classmate?

Li Tao! You’re….finished! Even if your father from Heaven comes, he wouldn’t be able to save you!