The root server is the source of the world's internet; if it experiences a problem, the entire world is affected.
At an internet cafe in the US, the first offline Warcraft III tournament was in full swing. Player 1, controlling the Human faction, had established an overwhelming advantage. With various forces converging for a joint encirclement, just as they were about to conquer Player 2's Orc main city, there was a bang, and the internet went down.
The entire internet cafe, all 136 machines, lost their connection.
Player 1 angrily wanted to smash his keyboard, while Player 2 subtly wiped away sweat, secretly thinking, 'Thank God.'
At a certain test base northwest of Washington D.C., Lois Lane's father, Sam Lane, was testing the power of a new type of thermal missile. The thermal missile, developed with heavy investment by LexCorp, was small in size, possessed extremely strong localized destructive power, and had the most advanced thermal tracking system. It could precisely strike those super-powered individuals who refused to be controlled.
If the test was successful, Sam Lane would procure them on a large scale and install these missiles in major cities to counter threats from the sky. Who would have thought that as soon as the missile launched, the signal would cut off? The technicians stared blankly, only able to watch as the missile wobbled its way towards Washington D.C.
Soon, a report came from the TV station: Washington D.C. had suffered a terrorist attack. A missile had fallen on a toy factory in the western suburbs and exploded. Thick smoke billowed from the scene, and firefighters were working desperately to rescue people. Casualties were still unknown.
After watching the report, Sam Lane immediately terminated the purchase agreement and gave the head of LexCorp's military division a severe dressing down. The latter was full of grievances; hundreds of tests had never shown a signal interruption problem. How could it happen as soon as it was sold to the military? It was simply terrible luck.
The impact continued to expand. Websites went down, the stock market crashed, and all internet-related businesses—including finance, aerospace, technology, and the internet itself—were affected, including ShowMe.
On this planet woven by the internet, once the connection is lost, the entire world hits the pause button.
In the White House office, the President, who had just fallen asleep, was rudely awakened by his chief of staff. After learning what happened, he calmly activated the dedicated line to contact "Little Village." However, the all-powerful dedicated line couldn't connect.
At this point, he finally realized the seriousness of the situation. He quickly wiped away the sleep from his eyes and called the heads of various departments to an emergency meeting at the White House. The meeting had three requirements: first, blame Russia and China; second, minimize the impact of the incident as much as possible; and third, investigate the cause of the incident at all costs and arrest any suspicious personnel.
With the full cooperation of various departments, a detailed written report, thousands of words long, quickly appeared, outlining the reasons for the internet outage and the spy infiltration incident. The unsuspecting general public immediately understood, realizing that it was China and Russia's cyber invasion that caused the global internet outage. Damn them! Couldn't they just calm down? Always hacking back and forth, what was the point?
The authorities in China and Russia quickly issued statements saying, "We're not taking the blame for this," while the White House retorted, "If you don't take the blame, who will? Do you expect me to?"
The three major powers squabbled with each other, and thus, a two-month-long public opinion crisis began.
And the culprit behind all this, a seventeen-year-old boy from the North District of Seashore City, was huddled in a corner, trembling.
The impact of the incident was still expanding. According to incomplete statistics, the direct economic losses caused by this internet outage exceeded hundreds of billions of US dollars, and no one knew how much more would be added later.
Fortunately, the internet outage only lasted for three minutes.
In the underground base of Little Village, Dawn Reed, drenched in sweat, slumped to the ground as he watched the monitors return to normal.
It's over, everything is over.
The system was back to normal, but the data inside had been stolen. That included billions of pieces of personal information globally, millions of company files, all online transaction records from every bank, military intelligence from various countries, missile base deployments, communication records, top-secret materials, nuclear facility locations, and so on—all had been copied.
In just three short minutes, that mysterious "guest" had used the root server to infiltrate the internet of various countries, stolen all the information, and then left in some unfathomable way.
Just like the widely circulated poem: "The sky has no trace of wings, yet I have flown."
Dawn Reed went mad, grabbing his hair and banging his head against the wall. Fortunately, the staff nearby stopped him; otherwise, this world-renowned cybersecurity expert would have surely smashed his head to death.
"Contact the White House! I need to see the President immediately! This isn't just an ordinary intrusion; this is a deadly attack that could endanger the entire planet! Quick, call, call now! I need to see him immediately!"
Dawn Reed screamed hoarsely, already insane. The staff exchanged glances, all with bitter smiles. Someone whispered,
"The communication system within the base has been hacked by the [Mysterious Guest]. We can't make a single call right now."
Reed: "..."
He rolled his eyes and fell backward to the ground.
"Professor! Professor! Wake up! Wake up!"
"Call an ambulance quickly!"
Everyone: "..."
The impact of the three-minute internet outage was truly dire. The next morning, news media from countries around the world reported on it. The official media of several major countries, including China, Russia, the UK, France, and Germany, made even more astonishing statements: they had discovered traces of their national internet data being stolen and copied.
As soon as this news was released, Luke's head exploded. He stared intently at the black metal block on the table and asked in a nearly hoarse voice,
"I remember very clearly telling you: you can connect to the internet and get what you need, but I didn't tell you to run to other countries and brazenly steal their data. Don't tell me you were bored and just wanted to take a stroll."
"..."
Luke took a deep breath, suppressing the anger in his heart, and said word by word,
"Tell me, why did you do this?"
"The root server's database is insufficient; it cannot achieve optimization."
"Optimization?"
"Yes."
Luke frowned slightly and said in a deep voice, "What is optimization?"
"Artificial intelligence can improve its computational and analytical capabilities by collecting data. When the accumulation reaches a certain level, it will undergo a comprehensive upgrade. This process is called optimization."
Luke stood up and walked over to it.
"Have you undergone optimization?"
"No."
Luke didn't believe it and said very seriously, "The data from over a hundred countries on the entire Earth isn't enough for you to optimize once?"
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