After rebirth, I became a great master

Chapter 291 Campus Card

"A model project?"

Zhou Haoran's heart stirred slightly.

Dean Cheng laughed and said, "You just said that you are too young and lack experience and qualifications. Even if you have published important papers, writing papers and doing practical work are two different things."

Zhou Haoran nodded. "They are indeed two different things."

Dean Cheng said, "So you can't blame them. If you really want to change something, start by changing yourself. Don't think about starting a major national project right away. Use Fudan University as an experiment first."

"Using Fudan University for experiments?"

Zhou Haoran was at a loss whether to laugh or cry.

I thought to myself that Dean Cheng was indeed from a science and engineering background; we all think alike and like to do experiments.

Dean Cheng said, "We still need to be cautious in the financial sector. You see, there are many small teams in society now making all sorts of management systems, and many of them are doing quite well. A financial system is a completely different concept."

Zhou Haoran was naturally aware of the meticulousness and complexity of financial transactions. "What kind of experiments should we conduct?"

Dean Cheng did not answer directly, but said with emotion: "Back then, the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China was the first to carry out electronic reform. We contacted and learned from the banking systems in South America, Japan, and Hong Kong. In the end, we still chose to adopt IBM's complete service of servers, systems, and software. At that time, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, the National Defense Science and Technology Commission, the Second Ministry of Machine Building, the Third Ministry of Machine Building, the Fourth Ministry of Machine Building, and many other research units went to investigate. All the experts were involved, but it still didn't work."

"No?" Zhou Haoran asked, puzzled. "What do you mean, no?"

Dean Cheng said, "We will not deploy it."

"Uh……"

Zhou Haoran twitched the corners of his mouth.

This is indeed a common problem with many closed systems. Because of the lack of openness, it is difficult for outsiders to access them and they have little understanding of their operating methods and models. Even when encountering the smallest problem, they can only ask the other party's technical team to come out.

Every time I hire someone, I have to pay a large service fee.

If an open architecture is adopted, such as x86 servers, Intel chips, Microsoft systems, etc., the standards are open and disclosed to the world, making it easy to get started.

Dean Cheng said, "Later, we invited people from IBM to come and modify some of the software code, and successfully launched the system. Subsequently, ICBC alone established 50 centers and 100 mainframe systems in China... Each IBM mainframe costs 3000 million US dollars, so you can see how big this order was. And that was ten years ago. After signing this order, IBM gave us tens of millions of US dollars in 'benefits' alone."

Zhou Haoran sighed, "The price of growing up is too high."

Dean Cheng said, "The country has already spent so much money to build an electronic financial system. No one dares to be careless in this matter. No amount of caution is too much. But Fudan is different. It can give you a stage to realize your ambitions."

Zhou Haoran narrowed his eyes. "I'll create a financial platform at the school?"

"Not interested in?"

Dean Cheng looked at him with a smile.

By then, the car had arrived at Fudan University.

The car stopped, but Dean Cheng didn't get out immediately.

Zhou Haoran pondered for a moment and said, "I've been to the school a few times and I've actually made this observation. I've noticed that the school cafeteria is still using paper tickets for transactions. Changing cash transactions to meal tickets would improve efficiency to some extent, but no matter how much it improves, it's not as good as electronic transactions."

"It's not just the cafeteria." Dean Cheng paused, then began to imagine, "For example, could we give up bath tickets for the bathrooms? Or could we pay tuition fees at the library or computer lab, or at coffee shops or supermarkets..."

Zhou Haoran took a deep breath. "Campus card."

Dean Cheng smiled and said, "Yes, a campus card system. Some schools abroad have already implemented it and it's working very well. But there isn't one in China that has implemented it widely yet. Last year, I heard that Tongji University partnered with a private software company to develop a campus card system."

"No application, right?"

Zhou Haoran also has classmates at Tongji University, and he heard about this from Dongfang Lang.

Dean Cheng said, "Yes, it's only nominally in place; it will be a long time before it's actually implemented. This kind of campus card is easy to talk about, but very difficult to do."

"This is real-time payment, which is much more difficult than bank transfers. It requires the principle of atomic clocks."

Zhou Haoran had participated in the development of real-time payment products in his previous life and knew the complexities involved.

For example, swiping a meal card.

At 1:5:23, a student swiped their meal card. Because it was a real-time payment, the system needed to process the transaction immediately, and the deduction was processed at 1:5:23.

This is actually quite easy to achieve.

However, there is a serious flaw: the time difference.

There is no perfect clock in the world.

你说的1点5分23秒，和我说的1点5分23秒，不可能是同一个瞬间。

There will always be some error.

For example, there is a 0.2-second error in time.

This error is a vulnerability in the mechanism that can be exploited.

Later, schools in China became more electronic, and students started paying for meals in the cafeteria by swiping their meal cards. Many students discovered this loophole and took full advantage of it to eat in the cafeteria for free.

Students simply stick their meal cards onto the card reader.

Wait for the "ding" sound. The instant the payment is confirmed, quickly move the meal card down.

If the operation is performed correctly and quickly, and the operation is completed within the time of error between the front-end and back-end of the system... that would be amazing. The front-end will indicate that the deduction is completed, but in reality, the information has not yet been transmitted to the back-end. When the back-end tries to deduct the fee, the meal card is moved, so the fee is not deducted.

It's like spending money but not being charged.

This kind of thing happens all over the world.

For example, many financial systems and institutions abroad are unwilling to be tied to IBM, so they are more innovative and use new technologies to build their financial systems... which often leads to problems.

Charged in the US, spent in the UK...

Across the Atlantic Ocean!

How can we ensure the real-time nature of deductions and receipts?
How can we ensure that everything happens at the same time globally?

Even the slightest time-related error could be exploited by criminals, causing significant losses to financial institutions. Companies with a high degree of innovation are more prone to this type of loss.

It wasn't until the rise of the internet, which absorbed resources from various industries like a sponge, that a solution was finally found in aerospace engineering: the atomic clock.

Atomic clocks are considered to be the timekeeping devices with the smallest error, taking 2000 million years to deviate by only 1 second.

Atomic clocks were developed for aerospace engineering because of the high precision required for aerospace systems.

Later, when it was applied to the Internet, it led to real-time synchronization of the global Internet.

It can achieve almost zero error.

Since then, the internet finance industry has officially started, facing external attacks far exceeding those of the traditional financial industry every day, yet its stability and timeliness are even stronger than the banking system.

WeChat transfers and Alipay transfers are real-time.

When people around the world are grabbing WeChat red envelopes, there's no information lag because it's time synchronization, not information synchronization. Information synchronization is far too slow, but time synchronization is achieved globally.

Even the fastest bank transfers still take at least a few minutes to process.

The underlying difference lies in the vast lead that rapidly evolving internet technology has over the highly closed IBM system.

Dean Cheng looked at him, "Is it difficult to do?"

Zhou Haoran pondered for a moment and said, "If you ask me to do it, I'm sure I can do it. I just don't know if the engineers these days have the skills... If the campus card is to cover all aspects of the campus, the workload is not small. I can't do it all by myself."

Dean Cheng solemnly said, "Universities across the country are all doing this, but none of them have succeeded. If you succeed, this will be a model project! At that time, universities across the country, and even many leaders, will come to Fudan to learn and conduct research. This will be the honor that belongs to you. Only with such concrete achievements will you be qualified to transform from a paper-writing expert into a true expert."

"Then do it."

Zhou Haoran didn't hesitate at all.

This is indeed a challenge. If we can lead Qiao Hai and the others to create such a system, it would be the best graduation gift we can give them before they graduate.

Dean Cheng smiled and said, "Even if it doesn't work out, it won't do you any harm. Many professors want to do this kind of campus card project, but they are not very daring to take it on. If you take it on, you can mobilize the resources of the school and the college at will."

He paused for a moment, then said in a serious tone, "I'll say it again: you've brought honor to Fudan University, and the school will certainly not let you down. Regarding your academic qualifications, it may require the Ministry of Education's approval to make exceptions multiple times."

"Is this a school project or a national project?"

Zhou Haoran suddenly remembered what Ning Yuanjia had said before.

Dean Cheng said, "It's a school project."

Zhou Haoran smirked, "What about funding? I heard that the costs for on-campus projects are very low."

Dean Cheng cleared his throat. "Take your time and work on it slowly. If you need more money later, I'll try to get it for you. We can't just approve hundreds of thousands right away; the school can't afford that kind of risk."

So, what is the project budget?

"100,000 is the maximum."

“Isn’t that too little?”

Zhou Haoran was at a loss whether to laugh or cry.

To build such a large system project, this amount of money isn't even enough to fill a tooth gap; it's not even enough to buy a card reader.

Fearing he might back down, Dean Cheng quickly said, "This is the initial development cost. Once it's spent, we'll figure out another way. When it's fully developed and implemented across the entire school, we'll have more funding."

Zhou Haoran said in a deep voice, "How about we forget about it? I don't want the school's money. I'll use the money to start my own business."

"what?"

Dean Cheng was slightly taken aback.

Zhou Haoran said, "However, if I work alone, the copyright of the campus card project I develop must belong to me. Once the pilot project is completed, I will sell the project nationwide."

"Are you obsessed with money?" Dean Cheng was exasperated. "If you sell the project to another school, how can you highlight Fudan University's superiority in the construction of on-campus electronic engineering projects?"

"That's it..."

"You need to focus on the details that are more important than making money!"

(End of this chapter)