Algorithm system

System, take action!Musk granted the mysterious person he had never met one minute of access to his user database.

The one-minute access was not due to concerns about a leak, but because it was a fun game.

For the strong, it’s all about the thrill.

So, even though Musk didn’t know who sent him the email, he was still willing to cooperate, because such an action in itself was full of excitement.

What kind of genius would think that traditional Feng Shui from the Dragon Country could be combined with AI?

For people who have reached that position, because they understand and possess so much of the world, mysterious and unknown things often greatly stimulate their desire for exploration. This is even more true for a tech fanatic like Musk.

But people like Musk are not willing to be manipulated.

So, he was willing to cooperate, but he would add restrictions.

You want my data? OK, no problem. But I’ll only give you one minute. Let’s play this race against time.

From Lin Yuan’s perspective, he was conflicted.

Because Musk only gave him one minute. What the hell can you do in a minute?

It wasn’t that a minute wasn’t enough time to find the data for those accounts, but that a minute wasn’t enough time to find the data for those accounts without being discovered.

The X platform is a social platform for the whole world. Its users span the globe, so its user information database is naturally massive.

One minute is only enough for a precise search; it’s simply not enough time to perform a fuzzy search.

For a precise search, one must first be clear about one thing—every user on a social platform has a unique ID, and WeChat is no exception.

After gaining access to the user information database, one only needs to use this unique user ID to perform a precise search to get all of that user’s data. To get data for a group of users, one only needs to use the IDs of that group of users as the search condition.

This is the most efficient way, just like finding someone with their ID number.

However, the trouble is that one’s purpose will be known.

The search action itself leaves a trace. Why are you searching for these people?

If something happens to these people later, for example, they are arrested or disappear, then one might suspect that they are connected to you.

Therefore, Lin Yuan was thinking of using a fuzzy search method.

A fuzzy search means that when you want to search for someone, you don’t use their ID number, but rather search for everyone in an entire area where they are located.

This way, no one will know exactly which specific individuals you are trying to find.

However, the trouble with doing this is that it’s not efficient enough, and the query time will be very long.

Musk only giving Lin Yuan one minute was clearly a move to turn the tables.

Logically, Lin Yuan would definitely not choose to use a precise search. He didn’t want to leave any traces.

But it was truly impossible to complete the information retrieval for those accounts in one minute, and Lin Yuan didn’t want to interrupt his investigation into OCR. After all, he had already done so much preliminary work, and this was the final step.

Finally, he turned his attention to Musk’s promise—the other party swore on his mother’s name that he would absolutely not record any traces of this data search.

It was equivalent to saying, ”Brother, I’ll give you one minute, and for that minute, I’ll close my eyes and let you do whatever you want.”

However, Lin Yuan had no way of knowing if the other party’s eyes were truly closed or if they were secretly peeking through a tiny crack. He didn’t have the authority to inspect the other party’s network security monitoring system.

Nevertheless, Musk had, after all, sworn on his mother’s name.

Lin Yuan believed that in any civilization, ”mother” is a very noble word. Based on gender equality, he sent Musk another email.

”Can you include your father and your children? Swear on your entire family’s name.” In the context of the Dragon Country, this is called: swearing on one’s household registration book.

Musk quickly replied on the X platform with Martian ciphertext:

”My friend, to show my sincerity, I am willing to swear on behalf of all my family members: my promise to you contains no lies. Oh, by the way, my father is a scumbag, so I apologize that he cannot be included in my family. But my Xavier, my deceased Xavier, I will also use his name.”

Xavier? Lin Yuan didn’t know who that was at first.

He only found out after a quick search. It was one of Old Ma’s children who was alive but effectively dead.

That was his eldest son; although Xavier’s body was still alive, for Old Ma, his soul was gone.

”I have received your sincerity. I deeply sympathize with and regret your experience.”

—

The evening of the second day.

Lin Yuan had turned off his phone an hour in advance.

To avoid sudden network problems, Lin Yuan didn’t plan to use his own code to retrieve user information. Instead, he would use the computing power system.

Musk had already sent out the link exposing the X platform user data to the external network; this link was similar to a website address.

In today’s vast global internet, the number of accessible resources is like the water in the Pacific. Even if the computing power system needs to acquire data, it must first be given a clear resource path.

Lin Yuan stared at the time on his phone.

Three minutes,

Two minutes,

One minute,

10,

9,

,

,

0

”System, act!”

The system was quite cooperative with this type of pure data retrieval and collection task; it only became arrogant with Lin Yuan when it involved data analysis.

The system probably still thought that collecting this data was for running AI training.

So, the system being a bit stupid also had its advantages.

”Oracle database detected.”

”Successfully logged into the database with existing account password.”

”Executing precise user ID group matching search.”

...

”Data successfully acquired.”

”Operation execution complete.”

In 35 seconds, Lin Yuan completed the retrieval of user information for those accounts within one minute.

He immediately went to check the system panel.

”User ID: twid_kv21skk82332, Nickname: ..., Frequent Login Location: NY.US, MAC: XXX”

”User ID: twid_jk21jsq298k2k, Nickname: ..., Frequent Login Location: TYO.JP, MAC: XXX”

”User ID: twid_p2i8swk021k9, Nickname: ..., Frequent Login Location: HK.CN, MAC: XXX”

”User ID: twid_9s21u982ju8j2, Nickname: ..., Frequent Login Location: SH.CN, MAC: 87-E2-D1-A6-32-CA”

After Lin Yuan saw this information, his first reaction was: ”Damn, you 50-centers, you must never have imagined that foreign social platforms even collect your frequent login locations and MAC physical addresses, right?”

Although, domestic access to foreign websites can use transit strategies like VPNs.

However, Lin Yuan guessed that when these people used the X platform, they overlooked one point—whether accessing it through a client or a browser, the X platform can collect your personal information. The only difference is that the client can collect more information.

Browsers also have IP positioning functions; although they cannot precisely locate the visitor’s exact position, they can locate them down to the city level.

And client applications have more permissions, easily obtaining the device’s MAC address.

This MAC address is a globally unique ID for network-connected devices, such as personal computers and laptops.

So, what exactly did the VPN ’VPN’? VPNs aren’t meant to be used like that!

However, Lin Yuan then thought, this can’t really be said to be unprofessional on their part. Because the X platform is from Eagle Country, who would have thought that a madman like Musk would open up one minute of access to a complete stranger just for the thrill of it?

Lin Yuan looked at the collected MAC addresses, barely able to suppress the corners of his mouth from curling up.

With this ”device ID,” plus the frequent login location, there was only one step left to find the target.

However, Lin Yuan was not without risk.

If this group of users were to be arrested later and OCR investigated the reason for their arrest, they would likely suspect a leak of social account information. Then, they would very likely ask the X platform for assistance.

And once Musk received the user IDs of the arrested individuals, a simple comparison would reveal: ”Aren’t these the IDs from the user group precisely retrieved by the mysterious person?”

This is the trouble with precise retrieval—this operation itself leaves a trace.

Now Lin Yuan could only hope that Musk wouldn’t joke about his own household registration book.

Of course, there might also be another possibility: perhaps the arrest of these small fries wouldn’t be significant enough to alarm the X platform for assistance, in which case Musk wouldn’t even notice.