Chapter 38 Chapter Thirty-Six

History is full of nightmares, some natural, some man-made. At the end of the 21st century, most of the nightmares of nature have been eradicated or at least brought under control due to advances in medicine, including smallpox, the bubonic plague, AIDS, and the terrifying virus hiding in the African jungle.However, it is always unwise to underestimate nature, and everyone believes that there are unpleasant surprises waiting in the future. It seems, therefore, a sensible precaution to preserve a few specimens of all dreadful diseases for scientific study.Of course, strict vigilance is required to prevent them from escaping and causing human catastrophe again.But who can be completely sure that there is no danger of such a thing happening?

At the end of the 20th century, it was suggested that the last few known smallpox viruses should be housed in the Centers for Disease Control in the United States and Russia.No matter how small the chance, these viruses may still be released due to various natural and man-made disasters, such as earthquakes, equipment damage, or even sabotage by terrorists. A solution that would satisfy everyone would be to ship them to the moon (and the small group of extremists who chanted "Protect the lunar wilderness!" would never be satisfied), where Mare Imbrium's most prominent landmark " A one-kilometer-long tunnel was dug in Jianfeng Mountain, and it was kept in the laboratory at the end of the tunnel.Over the years, some outstanding cases of human abuse of wisdom (in fact, madness) have been added there from time to time.

That is poison gas and poisonous mist, which can cause slow or immediate death even in trace amounts.Some are created by religious zealots (who, despite their insanity, have acquired considerable scientific knowledge).Many of them believe that the end of the world is in the near future (when only their followers will be saved, of course).In case God got distracted and didn't play by the book, they wanted to be sure they could correct his unfortunate blunder. The first wave of these deadly religious fanatics attacked vulnerable targets; crowded subways, World's Fairs, sports games, pop concerts... Thousands of people were killed and many more suffered. hurt.It wasn't until the early 21st century that these madnesses were gradually brought under control.As is often the case, misfortune comes with good fortune, and these events have forced unprecedented cooperation from law enforcement around the world.Because not even the rogue governments that support political terrorism can tolerate this kind of random, totally unexpected variant terrorism.

The chemical and biological weapons used in these attacks (as well as in the earlier wars) are in Pinnacle Mountain's deadly collection; antidotes, if available, are included.Everyone hopes that human beings will never have anything to do with these things again; but if an urgent need really arises, these things can still be taken at any time under high alert. The third category of items stored at Pinnacle Mountain, while classifiable as plagues, never killed or harmed anyone—indirectly at best.They didn't even exist until the end of the 20th century.But they cost billions of dollars in just a few decades and are often as effective at killing lives as physical diseases.The target of this disease is man's newest and most versatile servant—the computer.

Although named after the medical dictionary—viruses—they are actually programs that often mimic (with eerie precision) their organic relatives.Some are harmless, but jokes, designed to frighten or amuse computer operators by displaying unexpected information or images on the video display.Others are much more vicious, basically malicious destruction programs. In most cases, the goal is all about money.They are weapons used by sophisticated criminals to blackmail banks and commercial organizations that today rely entirely on computer systems.Once warned; unless they transfer millions of dollars to an unknown account, their database will automatically be wiped out at a certain moment.Most victims, unwilling to risk anything that could prove fatal, pay silently, and often (to avoid public or even private embarrassment) they do not notify the police.

This understandable need for secrecy makes it easy for those cyber bandits to carry out electronic robbery. Even if they are caught, the judicial system does not know what to do with this novel crime, so they can only give a slight punishment—and, after all, they Didn't really hurt anyone either, did it?In fact, when they serve a short sentence, the victim will silently hire the gangsters according to the "thief catches the best" law. Such computer criminals are motivated by sheer greed, and they certainly don't want to destroy their blood-sucking objects.A sane parasite will not kill its host.But there are more dangerous enemies of society...

They are usually psychologically dysfunctional individuals: all-pubescent males, working entirely alone and, of course, absolutely secretive.They are simply intended to create programs that cause disaster and chaos, and then distribute them throughout the planet via a global network of cables and radios, or physical vehicles such as magnetic disks and optical discs.They take pleasure in the chaos it causes, and revel in the sense of power that chaos bestows on their poor hearts. Sometimes these misguided geniuses are discovered and recruited by state intelligence units for some clandestine purpose—often breaking into enemy databases.This is considered a harmless form of employment, since said organization has at least some sense of responsibility for the human world.

Not so the Apocalypse sects, who found this new army to wield a power more efficient and easier to disseminate than poison gas or germs.Such weapons are also much harder to counter, since they can spread to millions of offices and homes in an instant. The collapse of New York-Havana Bank in 2005, the launch of Indian nuclear missiles in 2007 (fortunately, the nuclear warheads did not detonate), the crash of the pan-European air traffic control center in 2008, and the collapse of the North American telephone network in the same year... These are all religious fanaticism A molecular preview of the end of the world.Thanks to the skilful actions of state-level anti-international agencies that are often uncooperative, or even hostile, the threat has gradually been contained.

At least, the general public believes: because for hundreds of years there have been no attacks on the very foundations of society.One of the most important weapons of victory is the brain cap - although some people think that the cost is too high. Although the debate between individual liberty and state duty was old-fashioned as far back as Plato and Aristotle (and perhaps will continue to quarrel until the end of time), by the third millennium a certain some consensus.There is general agreement that communism is the most perfect form of government.Unfortunately, according to experiments (at the cost of hundreds of millions of human lives), it is only suitable for social insects, second-class robots, and similar specific species.The least flawed of imperfect humans is democracy, often defined as "individuals are uniformly greedy, regulated by an efficient but not very enthusiastic government."

Not long after brain caps became popular, some brilliant (and zealous) bureaucrats realized that brain caps had the unique potential to be an early warning system.During the setting process, when the new user is mentally "calibrated", many mental abnormalities that have not yet developed into a dangerous state can be detected.It will usually also indicate the best treatment, but if it is shown that there is no appropriate treatment, the user can also be monitored using electronic tracking; or in more extreme cases, social isolation.This method, of course, only tests the users of Brain-Caps, but by the end of the third millennium, Brain-Caps have become as much an element of everyday life as they were when the personal telephone first began.In fact, those who did not join were naturally suspicious and checked as abnormal persons.Needless to say, when "mind probing" (as critics called it) became popular, civil rights groups roared; one of their most catchy slogans was: "Brain caps or brain monitors?" But gradually, even reluctantly, , the public has come to accept this form of surveillance as a necessary precaution against evil.And it is no accident that religious fanaticism began to decline rapidly as mental health generally improved.

At the end of the long war against computer cybercriminals, the victors find themselves with embarrassing spoils completely beyond the comprehension of any past conqueror.Of course there are hundreds of computer viruses, most of which are difficult to detect and kill; there are also some entities (for lack of a better name) that are even scarier, ingeniously invented diseases that have no cure - some of them even have the possibility of a cure nothing…… Most of them are associated with great mathematicians, who would turn pale with horror to see their inventions misused in this way.It is a characteristic of human personality to choose some ridiculous names to demean the real danger, so these viruses have quite funny names, such as Boer Bomb, Doolin Torpedo, Gödel Imp, Shannon Trap, Mandelbrot Maze, Cantor Chaos, Conway's Mystery, Combinatorics Upheaval, Lorenz Maze, Overrun Trap... If it can be summed up in one word, these horror programs all operate on the same principle.They don't rely on naive methods like erasing memory or mangling program code -- on the contrary, their methods are much more subtle.They convince the host machine to start a program that, in fact, runs out of time with no results, or else starts a program with infinite steps (the most deadly example being the Mandelbrot maze). The most common example is computing π, or other irrational numbers.However, even the dumbest electro-optical calculator would not fall into such a simple trap.Low-energy machines wear down their own gears, even grind out powder, and try their best to divide by zero. Those days are long gone... The challenge for these diabolical programmers is to convince their targets that those tasks have definite outcomes and can be completed within a finite time.In the intellectual war between man and machine, the machine always loses (women are rare, and there are only a few typical characters, like Mrs. Ida Lovelace, Admiral Grace Harper, and Susan Kay). Dr. Wen). It is not impossible (although in some cases a little difficult, even risky) to destroy these captured filth with the "erase/overwrite" command, but they represent a large investment of time and talent, so whether it is How misused, it seems a pity to throw away.More importantly, perhaps they should be reserved for research and stored in a safe place, so as not to be discovered by bad guys one day and used to do evil again. The solution is clear.These digital demons deserve to be sealed away with their chemical and biological relatives in the back room of Pinnacle Mountain, preferably forever.