Are You Crazy? He’s only an Intern Lawyer?
Chapter 412 - 408: Zhang Lang Presents Ironclad Evidence? Becomes a Body Double!

Chapter 412: Chapter 408: Zhang Lang Presents Ironclad Evidence? Becomes a Body Double!

Is there sufficient evidence to prove that the defendant colluded with foreign forces to betray national secrets?

Such a statement even startled Zhang Wei.

Evidence, what evidence?

It doesn’t seem to be in the publicly disclosed documents.

If there were any evidence in the public exhibits that could directly prove Zhao Xiaoxiao and the other two committed espionage, wouldn’t he have been prepared?

Clearly, the prosecution either hid the evidence or it was never included in the public exhibits.

Zhang Wei did not raise an objection because Zhang Lang and Qin Yang had not yet revealed the details of the evidence.

He decided to wait and see, biding his time for now.

"Mr. Zhang, you say you have evidence that can prove the espionage committed by the three defendants?"

In fact, Qin Yang was also unaware of this evidence and was surprised as well.

"Yes, I have direct evidence!"

Zhang Lang said and took out a USB drive from his pocket.

Seeing the USB drive, the face of an assistant from the prosecution’s side collapsed instantly.

Indeed, it was Tan Yingying.

She even got up and took the USB drive to the witness stand without needing the court guard’s help, then hurried back to her seat, plugged the USB drive into her laptop, connected to the projector, and completed the actions seamlessly.

The projection screen lit up again.

This time, Zhang Lang bypassed Qin Yang and started speaking on his own: "Everyone, please look at the screen. Those strings of code are actually the signature identification codes of domestic and international cyber threats that our CSB department currently has, which is the ’network signature’ I mentioned earlier!"

"Network signatures cannot be forged. Whenever someone logs onto the network, uses a program, or downloads software, even any other action, their IP address and signature are unique."

"These signatures are from a list of cyber hackers wanted by various national cybersecurity agencies in countries where Blue Star has jurisdiction. If any hacker from the list is identified online, the local cybersecurity departments will begin to track them with all their might!"

"Therefore, to avoid exposing their tracks, cyber hackers use concealment or defensive measures to protect their network signature from being swiftly identified. But every time you take action online, you leave traces in some unique places."

"So the top hackers not only need to hide themselves but also know how to erase all traces of their activities afterward, just like clearing the search history in your browser after surfing the web."

Zhang Lang said and gestured to Tan Yingying.

The projection screen switched again to display a long string of code.

"For skilled IT professionals, all actions on the network turn into lines of code, strings of characters; what you think you see on websites as pictures, videos, are nothing but interactions between codes, the flow of resources, and those activities ultimately turn into long strings of code like this."

"Within these codes, your login information is hidden, including the identification numbers of the computer or mobile device you use to surf the net which are generally protected by encryption and concealment programs to prevent others from finding and decrypting your information."

"Just yesterday, foreign hacker forces suddenly attacked a network area in Dongfang Capital and engaged in a confrontation with several domestic hackers located on servers in that area."

"The number of participants in this engagement was beyond anything we’ve known in previous hacking activities, and afterwards, we found several interesting network signatures among the trillions of codes generated during this cyber confrontation."

On the projection screen, among the long string of codes, a few information strings were suddenly highlighted in red.

"These three network signatures belonged to the ones attacked that day, they are Ghost, Keyboard, and Zhuzhu Xia, who are precisely the individuals our CSB department has been hunting."

"By checking the IP addresses logged on that day, we found that these three hackers logged onto the network from an address located on Sifang Gate Street in Dongfang Capital."

"The battle online yesterday also caused network and electrical equipment in Sifang Gate Street to nearly paralyze in the evening, leading to complaints from local residents."

Zhang Lang said this, then turned to the jury and explained, "The place where the three defendants have been staying these past few days is precisely Sifang Gate Street, so their identities as Ghost, Keyboard, and Zhuzhu Xia, the hackers we’ve been chasing for years, are absolutely certain!"

Zhang Lang said this with a trace of triumph in his expression.

Although they suffered heavy losses last night, it was not without gain.

The devices had been monitoring the foreign hackers’ attacks the whole time, and during the attack, a part of Zhao Xiaoxiao and the other two’s information had been decrypted by someone.

And as the ones monitoring these activities the entire time, the CSB department had also captured such a segment of information.

Unexpectedly, this piece of information would be so useful!

The jurors nodded mechanically.

Although they did not understand what he was saying, it seemed very formidable and professional.

"Next is the detail about the espionage, for which I will disclose our CSB department’s detailed investigation materials on the three defendants, which were originally not public!"

Zhang Lang continued speaking as he gestured for Tan Yingying to open a previously encrypted folder.

After entering the password and decrypting the folder, many images, records, and code screenshots appeared within the folder.

"As you can see, within these investigation materials, there are many screenshots from chat rooms that include information about Yuanfeng Series enterprises."

"Someone released a task in a certain chat room to attack the Yuanfeng Series, and many people participated in the task, including three defendants with the handles Ghost, Keyboard, and Zhuzhu Xia."

"They broke through the corporate defenses of the Yuanfeng Series, stole core data, and then sold the information to foreign forces!"

On the projection screen, many records from chat rooms were displayed.

And in the last photo, a pale-faced man with brown curly hair appeared.

"He is one of the foreign forces we have captured—a member of an online extremist organization. He also admitted that it was their organization that released the task to attack the Yuanfeng Series, and they hired dozens of hackers, including Ghost, Keyboard, and Zhuzhu Xia, to complete the task. In the end, it was these hackers who traded the secret documents to him!"

Zhang Lang reached this point and made a gesture to Tan Yingying to zoom in on the photo.

The photo was enlarged, and a document lay in front of the man.

"This document is his confession agreement. On the basis of this, we officially issued arrest warrants and conducted an online manhunt for dozens of hackers involved in those operations, including Ghost."

Zhang Lang’s expression became serious as he said, "Through last night’s cyber hacker attack, we can confirm the three defendants are the cybercriminals my department has been chasing for years."

"And through the evidence collected by my department over the years, we can prove that they conspired with foreign cyber extremist organizations in specific online chat rooms and persisted in illegal cyber activities, attacking confidential facilities and stealing core data, knowing full well that they could cause irreversible harm to Dragon Country!"

"The screenshots of the chat rooms that I am presenting now, this code data, all serve as the strongest evidence of the espionage crimes they committed!"

Although the code was incomprehensible, the jury could still make sense of some of the records in the chat rooms.

Seeing the records where Zhao Xiaoxiao and the other two agreed to the task initiator to prepare to attack Yuanfeng’s data repository and steal information, they understood.

The subsequent events had also been mentioned by earlier witnesses.

Liu Dashun used his surveillance tools; Zhu Erdan hacked into the electronic devices of Yuanfeng Chemical’s employees using his favorite methods.

As for Zhao Xiaoxiao, no one knew what she did, but judging from the content in the chat rooms, she must have been involved as well.

All entities in the Yuanfeng Series serve Dragon Country and have solid backgrounds.

The hackers who attacked the Yuanfeng Series naturally committed acts that endangered national security: by stealing state secrets, they were guilty of espionage.

Zhang Lang testified, having confirmed the identities of the three defendants using methods such as IP addresses, matching them to the hackers’ handles.

So isn’t that it?

Zhao Xiaoxiao and the others are the hackers, the ones who attacked the Yuanfeng Series.

They committed espionage!

More than ten members of the 12-person jury began to look serious.

Because they knew that espionage is a very serious charge, they became cautious when they felt that the defendants were guilty.

And seeing the change in the jury’s expression, Zhang Lang finally showed a smile.

This was the impact he wanted. Now it was in the bag, wasn’t it?

Although Qin Yang knew that Zhang Lang might have evidence in his possession, he had not expected that the evidence would be so substantial.

He also had no clue about the hacker attack that occurred last night.

Zhang Lang had obtained evidence without communicating with him.

"This is very bad!"

Seeing this, Zhang Wei sensed the change in the jury’s mindset.

This looked like a losing battle.

He patted Zhao Xiaoxiao on the shoulder and then leaned in to ask, "Xiao Xiao, let me ask you something. If you were to hack some electronic devices, what would you need?"

"What do you want with this question?"

"Nothing specific, just thought of a good idea..."

Zhang Wei lowered his head and began to communicate with Zhao Xiaoxiao.

In the courtroom, the "interaction" between Qin Yang and Zhang Lang continued.

But calling it an interaction was a bit of a stretch, as it was mostly Zhang Lang speaking, with Qin Yang occasionally chiming in, hardly resembling a prosecutor’s questioning.

"Thank you for your answers, Mr. Zhang. The prosecution has no further questions!"

Finally, Qin Yang ended his questioning, though without a hint of a smile on his face.

Having Zhang Lang show off like this irritated him inside.

Even though the prosecution had the upper hand and the jury seemed to believe the defense and the defendants were guilty, which was what he desired, he was unhappy because it all hinged on Zhang Lang’s performance.

Now, Qin Yang sat back down at the prosecution’s table with a stern face.

The stage was once again yielded to the defense.

Zhang Wei approached the stand, walking up to Zhang Lang.

"Mr. Zhang, hello!"

"Hmph!"

Zhang Lang’s response to Zhang Wei was a disdainful sneer.

He didn’t even deign to glance directly at Zhang Wei.

Contempt!

Pure contempt!

"Mr. Zhang, in your earlier statement, I believe there were several very interesting points you mentioned, and the evidence you presented was equally intriguing to me."

"Firstly, you mentioned that last night there was a hacking incident conducted by foreign hackers, is that right?"

"Yes."

"And the location was in Dongfang Capital, right on Sifang Gate Street, just outside my home?"

"Yes."

"Then may I ask, what were you doing at the time?"

Feeling slightly displeased by Zhang Wei’s question, Zhang Lang replied curtly, "I was working at the time. Our CSB isn’t like you; I too was very busy."

"Is that so? Then I find it curious, isn’t your department’s duty to maintain the network security of Dongfang Capital? You introduced yourself earlier, stating that was your responsibility, didn’t you?"

"What of it?"

"Then I would like to ask since there were so many foreign hacker organizations attacking Dongfang Capital’s network last night, why didn’t you mention what your department was doing at the time? Did the CSB even attempt to stop this cyber attack?"

At these words, Zhang Lang’s pupils contracted slightly.

On the witness stand, in the jury box, and even including Qin Yang on the prosecution’s side, there was a moment of surprise.

Indeed!

If a massive cyber attack had taken place yesterday, the CSB Department should have reacted immediately, right?

Did they intervene?

If they did, why hadn’t Zhang Lang reported it?

Seeing Zhang Lang’s reaction, Zhang Wei sneered inwardly.

Your CSB Department did not stop it; in fact, you likely deliberately allowed the foreign hackers to attack Xiao Xiao and the others, didn’t you?

Because these hackers were let in by you guys, right?

"Mr. Zhang, why can’t you answer? Could it be that I should assume that yesterday your department simply allowed foreign hackers to attack the area around my home?"

"Impossible, our department did respond to the hacker attack!"

"What kind of response? As one of the victims of the attack, am I allowed to review the response measures your department took yesterday? If there are data at the code level, I would also like to have a look."

"Would you understand it?"

"I may not understand it, but Uncle Zhao would!"

Zhang Wei turned around and pointed to Zhao Qingyan, who was sitting in the corner of the witness stand, "Uncle Zhao was also a victim yesterday; he lives right next door to me. Moreover, he is employed by a prestigious technology company in Dongfang Capital, a senior programmer within the group. He can certainly understand the technical aspects of the code!"

"Mr. Zhang, we just want to see if the CSB Department truly did protect our Sifang Gate Street and actively respond to the foreign hackers’ threat amid such a dangerous attack yesterday. I trust that as the head of the department, you wouldn’t oppose our request, would you?"

Would Zhang Lang agree?

Of course not.

"Sorry, our CSB Department’s internal records are not available for your perusal as many of them involve confidential information. We do not disclose these records, as this is the policy handed down from above," Zhang Lang curtly declined, citing higher authority.

"Alright then!"

Zhang Wei simply curled his lip, not insisting further.

After all, he knew it was impossible to take down Zhang Lang in one blow.

"Let’s skip the hacker attack from yesterday and talk about that chatroom instead."

Zhang Wei said, pointing to the projection screen, "As I’ve stated earlier in court, chatrooms as online communication tools, some of their content doesn’t necessarily reflect reality."

"Just take ’TheGhost’ for instance, how can you be so sure it’s my client Zhao Xiaoxiao? She might be a big, foot-scratching guy in real life for all you know!"

Upon hearing this, Zhao Xiaoxiao, who sat in the defendant’s seat, turned livid.

Sitting on the witness stand, Liu Dashun and Zhu Erdan also struggled to hold back their laughter, pursing their lips tight, and dared not make a sound.

"You think my client is a ghost, but did you see my client directly logging into the account or entering the chat room?"

"You’re just twisting words to suit your arguments!"

"Mr. Zhang, since you have such a request, why don’t we do a little experiment?"

Zhang Wei said this and gave Tan Yingying a meaningful glance.

Tan Yingying was totally confused. What are you up to, I can’t understand that look in your eyes.

"Xiao Tan, hand me the laptop you have!"

Tan Yingying felt a bit speechless, but as it was Zhang Wei’s order, she could only comply.

She picked up the laptop and handed it to Zhang Wei.

"Next, I will hand this computer to my client, and she will set up a simple program on it, and then answer the question I just asked."

With that said, Zhao Xiaoxiao began to work on the computer.

"Done!"

After a quick five minutes and hitting the final enter key, Zhao Xiaoxiao looked up.

Zhang Wei took the laptop from the desk and placed it in front of Tan Yingying.

"Xiao Tan, follow my command, just do whatever I tell you, okay?"

"Oh!" Tan Yingying nodded in complete cooperation.

"To everyone in the hearing seats, I’m going to set up a simple WiFi hotspot using my cellphone, and anyone with a phone can connect to it. The WiFi name is the pinyin of my typing, and the password is 12345678."

"Xiao Tan, connect your laptop to this WiFi hotspot as well."

In the hearing seats, many people took out their phones, and Tan Yingying also connected to the hotspot, entering the password to log in.

"Everyone can try connecting; I’ll give you 1 minute."

After one minute, Zhang Wei spoke again: "Okay, Xiao Tan, open the file in the very center of the desktop, and then run the program inside!"

Tan Yingying did as instructed.

Instantly, the computer screen lit up with a string of code, flashing rapidly.

At the same time.

Ding-a-ling!

Ding-a-ling!

Suddenly, countless phones in the courtroom began ringing.

The owners checked their phones only to find there were no incoming calls.

"What’s going on, I had set mine to silent?"

"Me too, I had it on vibration, why did the ringtone go off?"

"Why would the ringtone go off without any reason?"

Many were perplexed, what was this about?

"As you can all see, what really happened was just an intrusion program on the laptop, which hacked into your phones through the WiFi hotspot link."

"Here I want to ask, the person who created this program is my client Zhao Xiaoxiao, but can you all confidently say that the person who executed the program and hacked into your phones was also her?"

As he finished speaking, all eyes in the room turned to Tan Yingying.

Indeed!

The person who hacked their phones wasn’t the defendant over there, but rather the prosecutor’s assistant, right?

"The example just now was actually to show everyone that while my client may possess a bit more technical expertise in network matters than others, who can assert without a doubt that my client is that cyber hacker Ghost?"

"As you have seen, the hacking program was set up by my client, but the actual operator was the assistant on the prosecution. Is there not a possibility that Ghost is someone else, and my client has simply become a scapegoat for Ghost?"

As soon as he said this, Zhao Xiaoxiao was the first to be alarmed.

Crap, I’ve become a scapegoat!