Who would still start a business seriously after being reborn?

Chapter 689 The Mastermind: Lin Sipeng
“Mr. Booker, welcome to China.” Waters stepped forward and extended his hand warmly.

The team members behind him also looked at him with awe.

Moody Booker is a living legend in the security circles of Microsoft headquarters in Redmond.

He is not known for conquering territory, but for meticulously tracing the source of information. He is hailed as Microsoft's strongest code forensic expert, specializing in handling the most difficult and hidden security incidents.

Booker simply nodded slightly, his handshake light, his eyes behind his glasses calm. He asked in a flat tone, "Are the samples and environment ready?"

“Everything is ready, we’re just waiting for you,” Waters replied immediately.

Even a Microsoft board member would become much more sensible upon seeing such a national treasure.

On the way to the headquarters of Microsoft Asia Group, Booker stared at the scenery of Yanjing City rushing past the window the whole time, without any curiosity in his eyes, as if he was just confirming the coordinates.

Upon arriving at headquarters, he declined the welcome banquet prepared by Waters and went directly to the operations room that had been prepared for him.

Inside the operations room, eight top-of-the-line workstations are arranged in an arc, and eight high-definition monitors are lit up, displaying various data streams and code analysis tool interfaces.

A tense sense of anticipation filled the air.

Booker put down his suitcase, took off his coat, revealing a neatly ironed white shirt underneath.

Without pausing, he sat directly in the central control seat, his hands hovering over a custom-made keyboard like a pianist.

His hands moved rapidly across the eight keyboards, creating afterimages.

The data streams on the eight screens seemed to come alive, refreshing, classifying, comparing, and associating at an unprecedented speed.

Command line instructions poured out like a waterfall, instantly maximizing the use of various internally developed tracing tools.

Waters and several key technical staff stood behind him, dazzled and deeply impressed.

The one before me is truly a humanoid supercomputer, a monster born for tracking.

"The attack source IPs are from the United States, Singapore, the Netherlands... There are more than seventeen jump servers, disguised very casually, like a smokescreen deliberately left behind." Booker's voice was flat, as if stating an objective fact: "But the jump server switching interval has an extremely slight fixed pattern, 0.37 seconds. This is a manually set delay, not an automated script."

His fingers flew across a keyboard, bringing up a global network latency map and backbone network routing data.

"By combining the physical locations of these jump nodes and the real-time network conditions, we can deduce the true entry point of the data packets... The area where the signal was initially emitted is located in Huaxia, Handong Province, and Jingzhou City."

Using his tools to trace the source, the IP address was instantly narrowed down from the entire globe to a single city.

But this is not enough.

Jingzhou City has a population of nearly ten million and millions of internet users.

Booker immediately switched the tracking strategy without any hesitation.

“Analyzing the compilation environment of plugin samples, the versions of system libraries referenced, and even debugging symbols left in the code... although deliberately removed, the compiler fingerprints and the selection of certain specific optimization options are influenced by personal habits.”

He pulled up the code style reports that the technical team had analyzed before, but in his hands, these reports became more directional clues.

“Look here.” He pointed to one of the screens, which displayed a comparison of two code snippets.

"For the logic structure of exception handling, I prefer to use nested try-catch-finally, and I habitually add an empty sleep call in the finally block. This is an almost obsessive way of ensuring resource release, which is very rare."

He then pointed to another spot and said, “When allocating memory, there are specific preferences for the choice between calloc and malloc, and there is a greater than 90% probability that the pointer will be set to NULL after it is freed. This defensive programming style is also highly distinctive.”

“There are also timestamps.” Booker’s speech remained steady, but the information density was alarming: “Although the file creation and modification times were tampered with, by analyzing the evolution of specific algorithm logic embedded in the code blocks and the version update times of the referenced third-party libraries, we can infer the approximate development time window. The core framework of these plugins was actively developed in the last three months, with the peak of code submissions occurring between 7 pm and 10 pm in the UTC+8 time zone.”

He integrated information from multiple dimensions, including code style, compilation environment characteristics, and development time patterns, to create a detailed developer profile.

"The current search area is Jingzhou City. The target is programmers who have superb Windows low-level system programming skills, are familiar with anti-tracing technology, have a rigorous coding style with the above-mentioned specific habits, and have recently been engaged in high-intensity development activities at night."

“The fact that the program was written during this time period means that the creator of this program did not work during working hours,” Booker said. “Based on this characteristic, first search the system for programs originating from Jingzhou City, find the real identity of the other party according to the characteristics, and save the similar target person for me. I will do the final screening tomorrow.”

After saying that, Booker stood up and left the operations room accompanied by Waters' assistant.

Booker narrowed down the target to this area in less than an hour.

That's what a master is like.

He's much better than those useless bastards under his command.

Waters glanced at the technical director beside him and said, "What are you all standing there for? Didn't you hear what Mr. Booker said?"

The technical director quickly snapped out of his daze and instructed the dozen or so equally dumbfounded technicians around him to get to work.

They began filtering programs from Kyoto City from authorized databases and open-source programs.

Jingzhou City is home to one of the three major software parks in China, and tens of thousands of programs have been uploaded to Microsoft systems through Jingzhou City.

Universities, research institutes, well-known software companies, top technical experts...

Names and information were quickly retrieved and compared with the developer profiles to eliminate those that were not found.

This is a huge undertaking, requiring finding programs that match Booker's description from a massive Microsoft system database, and then tracing those programs back to the person who uploaded them.

This also involves whether the person who uploaded the program is real.

Time ticked by, and the only sounds in the control room were the clatter of keyboards and the whirring of server fans.

The following afternoon, when the clock struck two, Booker promptly pushed open the door to the operations room.

Waters and the technical team had been waiting for a long time, their faces showing a complex mix of fatigue and anticipation.

The technical director immediately stepped forward and handed over a compiled list and a preliminary analysis report.

“Mr. Booker, as per your request, we have identified twenty-three highly suspected targets. Here are their information and program sample links.” The technical director spoke as if he were handing in his high school final exam. Booker took the thin list, but instead of sitting down, he stood there, his eyes quickly scanning the twenty-three names and brief information.

His eyes were calm and still, like a scanner reading a barcode.

"Let's start the screening." He said succinctly, sitting back in the control room, his hands once again hovering over the keyboard.

Instead of rushing to run complex comparison programs, he first retrieved all publicly available and even some code records obtained through authorized channels for these twenty-three candidates.

It was as if he were reading a series of unique biographies, using the special language of code to understand each author's thought process, technical preferences, and personality traits.

He still operated very quickly, but without the dazzling speed of yesterday; instead, he adopted an extremely cautious approach.

He would sometimes skim through the code quickly, and sometimes pause in front of a particular code snippet to zoom in and examine it closely.

The first candidate, a senior engineer at a well-known software company in the Momo Technology Industrial Park, was eliminated.

The reason is that its code handles exceptions more practically and lacks the almost obsessive fastidiousness depicted in the portrait.

The second candidate, a freelance hacker from Jingzhou, was eliminated.

The reason given is that the code style is unrestrained, making extensive use of inline assembly and undocumented APIs, which is far removed from the academic and cautious characteristics of the target profile.

The third person, an associate professor in the Computer Science Department of Handong University, was also excluded.

The reason is that the research focuses on theory, with little practical experience in low-level system programming, and the code lacks a deep understanding of performance optimization for specific hardware.

……

Booker's screening process is extremely precise, with each exclusion decision based on clear technical reasons, much like an experienced forensic pathologist searching for evidence on the deceased.

Waters stood behind him, watching names being crossed off one by one on the screen. His emotions were like a rollercoaster, both hoping to find his target as soon as possible and worried that he would end up with nothing.

Booker slowed down when only fifteen names remained on the list.

His gaze lingered on one of the names for a moment.

Lin Sipeng, Chairman of Sipeng Technology Co., Ltd., Momo Technology Industrial Park.

Sipeng Technology Co., Ltd. is somewhat well-known on the Internet, and its management simulation online game "Sailor Moon" has achieved some success.

The game revolves around the story of Sailor Moon girls in sailor suits, with love and justice as its core themes. Players can experience classic story scenes through the game, and it has also obtained authorization from the original author.

Booker quickly retrieved Lin Sipeng's code for in-depth comparison.

The first step is to perform cross-reference analysis with the core logic modules of malicious plugins.

“Look at the implementation of this memory allocator.” Booker pointed to the screen, where the code of the malicious plugin and the code from Lin Sipeng’s Sailor Moon were displayed side by side. He said, “They both use the same variant of the Slab allocator, and in terms of alignment strategy, they both choose to force alignment to the 64-byte boundary, which is rare in general applications that do not pursue ultimate performance. More importantly, they both define the exact same debug number 0xDEADBEEF in the allocator header structure.”

This is an extremely subtle and non-functional coincidence, yet it is highly indicative.

Next, Booker began analyzing the code's meta-features.

He used code style measurement tools to compare variable naming habits, function length distribution, comment density, and patterns.

Booker stated his observations, saying, "Lin Sipeng's code has highly descriptive variable names, highly modular functions, and comments that, in addition to functionality, often include algorithmic thinking and boundary condition considerations... This is very similar to the style shown in malicious plugins."

"Moreover, his log records on the Microsoft system show that he has a history of releasing Trojans to steal accounts."

Booker didn't stop; he pulled up a rough analysis of the network behavior of these last few candidates during the plugin's active period.

Data shows that the closing time for Sipeng Technology Co., Ltd. is 5:30 pm, so it is entirely possible that Lin Sipeng did these things after get off work.

All the clues—code style, temporal correlation of network behavior, matching of technical capabilities…

At this moment, they converge into a complete chain of evidence.

Booker slowly leaned back in his chair, a subtle movement that signaled the end of the screening.

He extended a finger and calmly pointed to the last name remaining on the screen, saying, "Target confirmed, Lin Sipeng."

Waters stared intently at the name and photo, his face initially filled with disbelief, then a mixture of ecstasy and savagery slowly surfaced. He clapped his hands suddenly and exclaimed, "I have information on this guy! He was Cheng Yi's college classmate, and both were student council members. After graduation, Cheng Yi helped him a lot; it was Cheng Yi who helped him get the license for that game!"

Waters couldn't help but exclaim, "Mr. Booker, you're amazing! That accurate judgment could change the course of the battle!"

Booker was already used to this kind of adulation.

Being admired by others has been his daily life since childhood.

He slowly turned his head, his gaze landing on Waters' face, which was contorted with excitement, and said, "How do you plan to use this result? To sue him for damaging the computer system?"

Waters shook his head, a ruthless look appearing on his face, and said, "In China, legal procedures are too slow and there are too many variables. Cheng Yi has been operating here for many years and is deeply rooted. Even if we have solid evidence, he can find countless ways to delay and negotiate. By the time the legal process is over, our market will probably have been completely devoured by his Moc-os."

He sneered, "In business warfare, sometimes you can't be too concerned about the rules, especially when your opponent uses underhanded tactics first."

"This is China," Booker warned Waters.

As Microsoft's code forensic expert, Booker knew exactly what Microsoft would do once he traced the target back to him.

A ruthless glint flashed in Waters' eyes as he chuckled, "I've already contacted professionals in Thailand. They'll invite Mr. Lin Sipeng to Thailand for an in-depth exchange in the most natural way possible. Once he leaves China's borders, many things will be out of his control. The disappearance of a nobody like Lin Sipeng won't cause any chaos; it can even serve as a warning to others."

He spoke casually, but the chill in his words sent a shiver down the spine of the technical director standing next to him.

"A professional?" Booker looked at Waters with some surprise.

(End of this chapter)