Hidden moth

Chapter 341 is about the law of washing robes.

To a programmer like He Kao, this was just a system bug. But for Xiaomeng, it was a major data breach.

The original text of the Zongfa Hall's announcement, including translations in various languages, was sent to all members of the Xiaomeng, causing extremely negative consequences!

At the Supreme Council, Merlin presented the findings of the investigation into the incident and the remedial measures taken.

The remedial measure is simply to issue another announcement, stating that the aforementioned content was merely an internal test, a false propaganda by the Zongfa Hall attempting to deceive the disciples of the Xiaomeng, and that everyone must not believe it and should immediately delete the file without keeping it.

It is difficult to assess the effectiveness of remedial measures.

After all, many disciples of the Free Alliance had never even heard of the Art Sect before. Now, they not only learned about the existence and history of the Art Sect, but also saw the announcement from the Art Sect's ancestral hall.

In particular, the announcement from the Zongfa Hall mentioned the historical origins of the Xiaomeng, as well as the many things the Xiaomeng has done and is doing against the Shumen, and the proposed solutions from the Zongfa Hall.

The Sorcerer's Guild will severely punish any violations by the Free Alliance, but the Sorcerer's Guild does not consider any sorcerer from the Free Alliance to be inherently sinful. As long as the sorcerer himself has not violated any rules or prohibitions, the Sorcerer's Guild will not impose any punishment.

Whether they are disciples of the Free Alliance's martial arts sect or other independent cultivators, as long as they break through to the fourth level of cultivation, they can accept the summons of the grotto heaven and return to their martial arts sect to receive a second inheritance...

Too many people have already seen it, and may have even saved it privately and circulated it among themselves.

The investigation is progressing smoothly, and the results are in.

Investigators first determined that it was a programming error that identified the document in question as an "announcement," which led to the system automatically sending it out on a large scale.

Even the data entry personnel within the Xiaomeng did not make any mistakes, because they did not know that the program would run in this way.

So this is the responsibility of the system developers? But the person in charge of developing the information system is not an employee of Xiaomeng.

Information management systems like this should, in principle, be developed in a closed system by internal personnel, which is what Shumen Zongfatang did.

However, the Xiaomeng was different. The Supreme Council approved a large sum of money, first discussed the project requirements internally, and then handed the project over to a local software service company for development, acting only as the client.

Confidentiality is definitely a factor to consider, and there are three safeguards in place when developing the project plan.

Firstly, the software company that is the supplier is also controlled by several senior executives of Xiaomeng, so there is certainly no problem with its qualifications.

Secondly, a confidentiality agreement was signed, stipulating that Party B will not disclose any information about Party A to the outside world.

Last but not least, the contractor develops only a platform, which is then delivered to the client for use. The client is responsible for the actual data entry and management; the contractor does not control the database content.

However, in this incident, all three safeguards failed because of a program bug during the trial operation phase. How could this be?
Although the software company owned by Party B is controlled by several senior executives of Xiaomeng, the people who actually do the work, including the management, have nothing to do with Xiaomeng.

They further broke the project down into many sub-projects, and then outsourced the so-called non-core sub-projects. This flaw was created by a software company in Hengzhu Kingdom that provided the outsourcing services.

There are many software development companies like this in Hengzhu. They usually get a project and then find people to write the program. Most of the people they find are local graduates or students, who are just temporary workers.

After this bug occurred, the outsourcing company refused to acknowledge it, or rather, they were only willing to make modifications based on feedback without taking any other responsibility.

Isn't it normal for bugs to appear during the trial and testing phase? Just fix them!
The fix was actually very simple, but the programmer who created that bug had already finished his work, taken his pay, and left. He was long gone and couldn't be contacted anymore... Even if we did get in touch, it wouldn't have made any difference. How could a foreign temporary worker take such a big blame?
As a result of the investigation and accountability, Party B has confirmed the problem and promised to ensure that similar errors will not occur again.

After assessment, further pursuing the responsibility of the contractor and outsourced personnel is largely pointless. As for the actions of internal personnel, they were not the primary cause of the problem, and appropriate penalties have already been imposed.

Today we'll discuss the investigation results and the measures to hold those responsible accountable. If we follow Eastern tradition, Merlin would undoubtedly bear primary leadership responsibility, but this isn't the Eastern Kingdom.

Merlin merely reported the situation to the Supreme Council; she neither offered a personal apology nor voluntarily requested punishment. This was because the buggy program was indeed not written by her.

After Merlin finished his introduction, the scene became somewhat chaotic.

Several elders raised different opinions, the most important of which was that the Grand Elder, the geomancer Madara, suggested that Merlin should not continue to be in charge of the project and that the use of funds for the project should be audited.

At this moment, Fabre coughed a few times and used his divine sense to signal everyone to be quiet for the time being before speaking: "I also have a proposal regarding this incident, which I would like to submit to the Supreme Council for a vote."

We all saw the announcement from the Sect's Dharma Hall last time. It was Grand Elder Grossi who believed that the news should be kept secret and not let ordinary disciples know about it.

At the time, it was treated as a routine matter, and none of the elders present raised any objections, so it was tacitly approved. However, it was not treated as a major issue and submitted to the Supreme Council for a vote. Now that Grand Elder Grossi is no longer present, and the members of the Ancestral Hall have undergone significant changes, this matter should be reconsidered. My proposal is—to prohibit ordinary disciples from accessing this announcement from the Ancestral Hall of the Arts Sect.”

One of the elders immediately retorted, "This announcement has already been sent out to all groups. What's the point of prohibiting access to it now?"

Fabre replied solemnly, “It has the significance of rules! There’s an idiom in the East: ‘If sheep have already run away, then the sheepfold should be repaired even more.’”

Although this announcement has been sent to many people, recipients are no longer allowed to save or view it; it must be deleted immediately according to regulations.

Arthur said nothing more, only nodded and said, "Then let's vote."

Hu Weidong, growing impatient, immediately declared, "I veto it!"

Before some people could even react, the proposal had already been rejected because Hu Weidong was a senior elder and had veto power.

The proposal to "prohibit disciples of the Xiaomeng from viewing the relevant announcements in the Sect Law Hall" was rejected, which means that viewing the announcements is not prohibited.

Based on this premise, the nature of this event does not constitute a leak.

It was just a minor error that occurred during the trial operation and testing phase of Xiaomeng's newly developed information management platform. The relevant personnel were instructed to correct it.

Everything that happened at the meeting was actually planned in advance.

Merlin privately approached Hu Weidong and told him his plan: to arrange for Fabre to formally submit the previous proposal to the Supreme Council, and then have Hu Weidong veto it during the vote.

Since Hu Weidong's motion had already been passed, Hu Weidong would veto Fabre's motion as promised... This was actually a "stage-setting" tactic.

Merlin's expression relaxed considerably, and he said in a friendly tone, "Elder Hu, what are your reasons for vetoing this?"

Hu Weidong didn't speak, but instead sent a divine thought to the group—

He didn't give any ridiculous reasons, such as the announcement had already been sent out anyway, but rather formally mentioned three reasons.

First of all, the announcement from the Sect's Martial Arts Hall is sent to all disciples of the Martial Arts Sect. It is completely public information within the sect, and can be seen even by wandering cultivators who have connections with the disciples.

Secondly, there are members of the Free Alliance who are infiltrated within the Magic Sect, or who have various contacts with the disciples of the Magic Sect through various means. One of their most important tasks is to gather intelligence on the Magic Sect, so it is impossible that they did not see this announcement.

Since they have seen it, it is possible that the disciples of the Free Alliance who know them will also know, and then it will gradually spread. In the long run, it is almost impossible to completely stop it.

Finally, and most importantly, the mechanism of the Grotto Heaven's Summoning exists objectively. Anyone who breaks through to the fourth tier of cultivation will face this problem; it's a mysterious connection between heaven and earth that cannot be prevented.

Previously, only high-level cultivators knew about this matter, and they would ask the higher-ups of the Xiao Alliance for an explanation and to keep it confidential.

Now that this matter has been made public, even ordinary disciples know about it, so the most important task is to control the direction of public opinion.

Hu Weidong's answer not only provided reasons for rejection but also offered solutions to the problem, prompting Merlin to nod repeatedly in approval.

Arthur began in a concluding tone: "Elder Hu is right. The main problem we need to solve now is guiding public opinion and preventing people from being misled by the magic."

This task will mainly be handled by Elder Monroe..."

Elder Menlu was a fifth-tier Love-Stealer who cultivated the Divine Awakening Technique. Actually, the original person in charge of propaganda within the Free Alliance was the sixth-tier Illusionist Grossi; now that Grossi is dead, the responsibility has been handed over to her.

Hu Weidong sat at the table and watched quietly. He had known this would be the outcome, and he knew what kind of mishap would occur before the leak happened.

The software company that took over the project, Hengzhu Software, temporarily recruited a group of people to write the program. The programmer who created the bug was an Indian student at the University of California, who was pursuing a master's degree.

This international student had taken on work for that software company while studying for his undergraduate degree at Hengzhu University in China. After coming to the United States to study, he continued to take on work through online chat groups, which can be considered as working and studying.

He wrote the program right under Hu Weidong's nose, and the computer and Wi-Fi he used to write the program were not his own; they were all borrowed from an after-school tutoring institution, and Hu Weidong was the owner of that institution.

**
(End of this chapter)