Chapter 58: The Hacker

Of course, this was only the most basic part; to achieve the various front-end and back-end functionalities of a website, things grew far more complex. Based on what he had previously learned, Xiao Cheng realized that the most popular, cutting-edge, and convenient programming language in the country at present was Mang Language, designed and developed by Liu Mang, the CEO of MangYou. As early as the year 2000, Mang Language, thanks to its security and convenience, had gradually replaced the then-popular programs like ASP, CGI, and JSP, becoming the mainstream language for large-scale websites.

Very well, then—he would learn Mang Language! Mang Search was also a product under the MangYou company, so it was obvious it must have been developed using Mang Language.

Many universities had set up dedicated courses in Mang Language. For a beginner, an ordinary person only needed about a week to get started, as mastering the basic rules was sufficient—the rest could be learned gradually through use, accumulating knowledge bit by bit. It was much like speaking, which even a three-year-old could do, but to pen a beautiful essay would require at least a decade or two of practice.

But for a genius who grasped everything at once, a week was far too long. Intelligence in learning was reflected in drawing inferences, and many gifted programmers could gain a general mastery just by glancing at the basic rules of Mang Language; for them, the process would take no more than an afternoon. Wen Xiaocheng, however, completed it in four minutes and thirteen seconds.

From a programmer’s perspective, a web page was actually quite simple: every web page could be summarized in a single sentence—as a means to display, input, and manage data in a certain form.

Earlier, Xiao Cheng had posted a message, which was akin to adding a piece of data to the database, while the administrator deleting it was the same in principle. As for an IP address being blocked, that was simply a programmatic determination: if the visitor’s IP matched one in the database, access would be denied. Xiao Cheng, as an ordinary registered user, had different privileges from an administrator, and those privileges, too, were enforced by the program’s logic. The key to hacking a website, then, lay in this programmatic determination—one only needed to make the program mistakenly believe oneself to be an administrator!

Xiao Cheng began to look for vulnerabilities with purpose, while searching online for various ways to deceive the server. Attempt after attempt failed. Clearly, Mang Forum, serving hundreds of millions of users daily, had already anticipated and guarded against all the common methods circulating online. So Xiao Cheng simply closed his eyes and began to recall, line by line, the source code of the login page and related references, deducing the entire process in his mind.

When logging in, a username and password were entered, which the system would compare against the database; if they matched, login succeeded. If the user’s group was “administrator,” administrator privileges were granted. Translated from code, it was something like: if “user group = administrator,” then grant administrator privileges. The condition in quotes was the check for administrator status.

A slight smile appeared on Xiao Cheng’s lips—he had found a loophole in that line.

He registered a new account called “1>0 or”. Once logged in, that line of code became: if “1>0 or user group = administrator,” then grant administrator privileges. One is always greater than zero, so this ID was immediately treated as an administrator.

With administrator status, a great deal more became visible. The person who had deleted his post was an ID called Xuan0988—0988 was the area code for Xiangyang City, but who this ID belonged to, he still didn’t know. Using his administrator rights, he restored his own post, marked it as highlighted and featured, and pinned it in the local section. Next, he unlocked all the frozen accounts, set one of his alternate accounts as moderator, and, still unsatisfied, went ahead and changed Xuan0988’s account password.

Damn, that’s the kind of audacity that comes with high intelligence!

Elsewhere, Professor Dai had already made more than a dozen phone calls—to students, colleagues, and quite a few heavyweights in the academic and educational fields, all of whom were frequent guests on TV and interviews, with very high public profiles. In fact, Professor Dai himself was rather low-key, but had two or three thousand followers, and the friends he contacted had tens or even hundreds of thousands of followers each. All of them reposted the questioning article, which had originally been drafted by Xiao Cheng—titled “Is the Math Olympiad a Competition or a Lottery? Is the Exam Just a Game of Chance?”—a pure web article, inflammatory in tone, expressing the emotions but somewhat hollow in content. After Professor Dai’s editing, however, it became much richer, not only exposing the core issues but also adding much reflection and advice. The Math Olympiad was meant to encourage children gifted in mathematics, which was a good thing, but if it became a mass movement and was tied to high school entrance exams, it would betray its original intent.

Under this wave of public opinion, several major portals also reposted the blog post, amplifying its impact. The Xiangyang City Education Bureau was compelled to respond on its official microblog: as the organizing body, publicizing and running the competition was their duty; awarding extra points in entrance exams for good Olympiad results was a long-standing practice, a way to encourage and support gifted students. Although this year’s competition had generated unprecedented enthusiasm among local students, the increased numbers would not affect the fairness of the contest.

So much had been said, yet nothing meaningful was conveyed.

But it hardly mattered now—the purpose of this round of publicity had been achieved. Previously, many schools had not realized the advantage of leaving things to chance, but after Xiao Cheng’s post exposed it, even more students signed up. Now, almost every eligible student in Xiangyang City had registered, to the point that the planned examination venues proved insufficient, and three university buildings in the city had to be requisitioned to accommodate everyone.

...

Shengyang City, Hushi Town, headquarters of MangYou Group. Han Peng, head of Mang Search, holding a file, knocked on the door of the chairman’s office. Inside, a young man of about twenty-five or six was on a call at his computer.

This was Liu Mang, president of MangYou Group.

He wore many hats: president of MangYou Group, honorary dean of the Harvard China Campus, chief consultant for Lu Real Estate, executive chairman of the China Internet Association, and so on and so forth. But right now, he was playing the role of a father.

“Son, reading extracurricular books in class isn’t a big deal—I did it plenty myself. But you still need to respect the teacher. I’ve explained things like the Property Law to you before, and it’s not wrong to apply it here, but you should consider the occasion; making the teacher lose face is never good. If you want to achieve something, the best way is to seek consensus, not to overpower the other side. Understand, son?”

He was wearing a headset, and it was unclear what the other party said.

“That’s right, the proper way is to give the teacher plenty of face in front of your classmates, and reason with him in private. But even if reasoning fails, it doesn’t matter—we’re smart people, and smart people have a hundred ways to deal with him!”

———

Liu Mang’s Journal: I am back.

As for the hacking technique mentioned in the story, it’s actually a widely known SQL injection vulnerability. No website in the past decade would make such a rookie mistake, nor would it be as simple as described here. But this is a novel, not a technical manual, so I tried to write it plainly. For those who understand programming, please don’t take it too seriously. Also, “Mang Search,” “MangYou,” “Mang Language,” and even Liu Mang from Hushi Town, Shengyang City—those who have read my first book, “All Because of Black Silk Stockings,” will know what’s going on. If you haven’t read it, it won’t affect this story at all.