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Chapter 1035 - 1035 998 Sharpening the Knives to Attack the Wicked!

1035: Chapter 998: Sharpening the Knives to Attack the Wicked!

1035: Chapter 998: Sharpening the Knives to Attack the Wicked!

People die for money, and birds die for food!

Wu Jie had always believed that where there is demand, there will be a market.

As long as there is enough profit, there will be people willing to take risks.

In this information-packed age, people increasingly seek “fast-food” entertainment.

They always crave the freshest and the most exciting, whether gossip news or films and television.

They always want the simplest and most direct, whether in enjoying life or making a living.

That is why there have been so many issues such as a thirst for instant success, vanity projects, and deceit.

Having a public persona, then rigging all sorts of publicity stunts, leads to more fans, more fame, and, naturally, an endless stream of money-making opportunities such as ads, movie roles, and variety show invitations.

And why do advertisers, filmmakers, and variety shows do this?

Because working with famous stars with followers brings in the traffic, the very capital needed to fuel discussion trends.

How would inviting nobodies or has-beens bring in traffic or attract attention?

And who would take responsibility if the ratings were low or the box office disappointing?

Thus, hiring popular influencers minimizes risk, which also encourages stars to pull out all the stops to keep themselves “popular,” creating a cycle of vested interests.

In this chain, the internet black market plays a pivotal role.

They need to hype up the stars, making every trivial matter well-known, and help productions increase their numbers; if ratings are low, they buff them up, if the box office is weak, they buy it up, and if the debate isn’t heated enough, they stoke the fires…

Of course.

In this age where fast-food entertainment reigns supreme, the black market isn’t just serving the film and entertainment industry.

It’s also exceedingly common among ordinary people.

For instance, many people now enjoy watching short videos in their free time.

In a video lasting only a few seconds or dozens of seconds, one can see lots of funny, prank-filled content, experience others’ lives, or witness extraordinary scenes.

With enough entertainment packed into an extremely short duration, many are addicted to it, sometimes scrolling for an hour or two without realizing it.

With a larger audience comes greater traffic and more opportunities to make money.

So quite a few people desire to go from ordinary citizens to internet celebrities, then from internet celebrities to stars, or they start businesses, open shops, and make money from ads.

Such demand inevitably brings about black market services.

Imagine, for a moment, two people making short videos and publishing them at the same time.

Those with black market services are like using cheats; they see their views, comments, and shares surge rapidly.

Under the recommendation of big data, more and more people see their work, and it gets hotter and hotter.

On the other hand, without the help of the black market, the content remains unknown.

How can it catch fire?

Through faith?

Of course, these black market services aren’t just simple software cheats.

Some data service providers offer “real-person brush” services.

Hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of second-hand smartphones provide playback, commenting, liking, and sharing services that seem like they’re from real people.

How can those who can only find friends and family to support their videos after publishing compete?

Just like the situation Wu Jie faces now.

The BigShot App is hot, with tens of millions of daily active users.

But the hotter the platform, the more attractive it is to the black market.

Because among the creators on the platform, some strive for shortcuts, and this desire creates a demand for data manipulation.

No matter how sophisticated the management system Wu Jie devises, he can’t put an end to the manual boosting by the data merchants.

According to the tip-off provided by Wang Lei…

In the black market industry, data can be manipulated on all major social platforms and video apps.

The strictly managed BigShot App is no exception, though the cost is steep.

On other platforms, you can get 10,000 views for five yuan, and a series can easily boost tens of millions of views in a day, even adding a multitude of comments and shares.

Because the platforms are lax in monitoring, data merchants can simulate tens of thousands of phones with one server using specially designed software.

But on BigShot, because of sophisticated identification systems and abnormal IP detection, the quote for 10,000 views is hundreds of yuan, and there are no refunds.

“Refund” is industry slang, meaning that data merchants do not guarantee that the manipulated figures won’t be deducted after detection, offering no bottom line.

For example, spending ten thousand yuan for a million views but ending up with only a few hundred thousand cannot be blamed on them.

And if you want guaranteed numbers, the price is even higher, and the data merchants can only “manually boost” the numbers.

That is, using a large number of real smartphones to generate genuinely fake data, leaving the platform with no means to detect and deduct.

In a word.

No matter how clever the technology, it cannot stop the data merchants from “manually boosting.”

When the BigShot App first started, Wu Jie built up a cash pile of 200 million to attract high-quality content creators, literally handing out money.

The beginning was indeed tough.

But as the app got popular, more and more people found out they could make money on it and eagerly participated.

This resulted in more high-quality original content in a wider variety, attracting more users and making the platform even hotter.

In this virtuous cycle, it is inevitable that some would look for shortcuts, wanting their work to have higher visibility, more followers, and make more money, so…

some turned to the black market to cheat.

The key issue is, it’s bloody hard to trace.

Data merchants all manually inflate their numbers.

Could they possibly trace the internet cable to see who’s using their smartphone?

Moreover, the accounts they employ are carefully cultivated.

These accounts log in daily, watch videos, scroll through comments, write feedback, click on share, and more.

The range of operations they perform is comprehensive, outdoing many genuine users in terms of activity.

When it comes to inflating data, they don’t just suddenly all go online en masse to upvote a single video and cause a sharp change in the metrics.

Instead, they progress steadily and methodically.

Perhaps it’s because of such caution and care that the cost of manipulating data on the Divine Shot app platform is quite high.

Wang Lei and his technical team weren’t without their own ideas, though.

They figured that if data merchants were to massively create and inflate accounts, there must be a huge data factory with thousands of phones working together.

So why not just track these phones to see if they share the same internet address?

But could the astute data merchants really be so unguarded?

They use proxy servers, construct virtual private networks…

even conspiring with local broadband service providers.

Furthermore,

Data merchants’ timing for inflating the platform’s metrics isn’t fixed.

Their cultivated accounts are hidden among hundreds of millions of users, behaving unremarkably most of the time, which only further complicates the task of rooting them out.

In short,

Wang Lei openly admitted that there are data merchants lurking on the platform, ready to offer their services of inflating numbers for clients at a high price, but not frequently.

Given the immense difficulty in investigating these cases, they were essentially at a loss, letting things take their own course.

And compared to other software platforms, the horrifying acts of inflating numbers and the resulting adverse impact were almost negligible on Divine Shot.

In fact, the vast majority of users and content creators were unaware that in the video industry, Divine Shot was seen as a beacon of integrity…

However, Wu Jie outright rejected such ‘truths.’

“…Black, we can’t just let things slide, let data merchants infiltrate and profit covertly!”

“We can’t just turn a blind eye because they commit fewer crimes, cause less damage, and have negligible negative impact!”

“It’s like theft, no matter the amount stolen, or robbery, no matter the haul; it’s still a crime that must not be tolerated or condoned!”

Hearing this, Wang Lei found himself in a bind.

“But Mr.

Wu, I understand all that, but the difficulty in tracking them down…

it really isn’t small!”

“I’d like to drag them out and beat them senseless, but I don’t have the authority or the ability…”

Wu Jie immediately responded, “Alright, alright, I know you’re really not in a position to handle it.

Leave it to me!”

After hanging up the phone, Wu Jie hurried back to the Intelligence Center.

Wang Lei was out of options.

He was, at most, just the company’s head of technology; he had no right to infiltrate or fight violence with violence.

But Wu Jie was different.

At the Security Bureau, Wu Jie was already the chief of the Cyber Security Division.

Sweeping the online world of its destructive parasites and purifying the internet was precisely Wu Jie’s duty.

Therefore,

Upon reaching the control room, Wu Jie immediately began to deploy and arrange his strategy.

Nighttime was when people used the internet for entertainment, and it was also when cybercrime thrived.

The night was vast.

Evil was endless.

Cybercriminals exploited human weaknesses, collecting waves upon waves of ‘stupidity taxes’, reaping rows upon rows of ‘suckers’.

A small video website could easily make tens of millions a year in profit.

Offshore gambling sites could see daily financial turnover amounting to billions.

The profits of cybercrime were astounding!

Though human nature has its weaknesses, exploiting these for rampant profit is the greatest evil!

Tonight,

Wu Jie aimed the scythe that reaped energy points at the vile cybercrime network.

Initially, to locate Lin Yuan, he had only needed to monitor and eavesdrop globally.

But tonight, he added ‘strict investigation and prohibition.’

The artificial intelligence program went to battle, delving into the network for a full-blown investigation, with comprehensive big data analyses…

rigorous to the end, a complete ban!

Phone landlines were cut off, major software accounts were banned, and bank funds were frozen.

Regardless of what the cybercriminals did, if they engaged in black-market activities for illegal profit, their ultimate goal was of course to make money.

Freezing all their accounts so they couldn’t transfer or withdraw funds was effectively fatal.

To deter crime (and draw ire), Wu Jie made sure that various major websites and software platforms released a public notice.

Courtesy reminder from Wu Jie of the Cybersecurity Division:

There are countless ways to make money, but safety comes first.

Irresponsible internet usage brings two lines of tears to your loved ones.

…