Chapter 126
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Chapter 126 Aftermath
Two days after the Twin Towers Bridge car crash incident, news coverage reached unprecedented heights.
In particular, the video of a car speeding toward the top of the rising bridge became a trending topic worldwide. Online discussions varied widely, with some criticizing the Twin Towers Bridge impractical design prioritizing aesthetics over function, others called for a ban on autonomous driving, and many others insisted that the L City government should bore full responsibility. The fact that the victim was a wealthy businessman further fueled public interest.
The official British response was clear.
Police declared the incident a premeditated act of malice. Preliminary investigations had ruled out operator error and equipment malfunction. The perpetrators had remotely hijacked both the bridge’s lifting mechanism and tampered with the victim’s vehicle. Recovery operations for the car were underway, and authorities vowed to bring the culprits to justice.
The question of who murdered Jason Tyler, the prominent entrepreneur, became the media’s favorite topic to explore.
Meanwhile, another event surfaced, though its impact paled in comparison to the Twin Towers Bridge tragedy.
The entire Sunflower Project archive had been dumped online.
Ever since Snowden revelations, leaks caused by individuals had become commonplace. Some contained genuine classified intelligence, while others were fabricated to sow confusion and divert attention. Most people barely batted an eye anymore.
As a result, only a few niche forums paid attention to this particular leak.
Alex was one of those people.
As a hacker, his primary interest lay not in the leaked documents themselves, but in how they had been leaked. Whenever he made a new discovery, he shared his insights on Silent Wall, a private hacker club used for internal discussions.
This time, Alex tagged his post as #MindBlowing.
Given the Sunflower Project’s creator and its security classification, it should have been one of MI6’s most closely guarded secrets. Everyone in the community knew that MI6 maintained a completely isolated machine room for storing such sensitive data, theoretically impervious to cyber hacking. Therefore, Conventional wisdom suggested that the most likely source of the leak was a disgruntled insider who had stolen the project files directly from the machine room, probably driven by a sudden surge of moral conscience.
However, Alex proposed a radically different theory.
Alex believed that stealing MI6’s top secrets in the real world would require a custom-built data reader, not just a USB drive or data cable. This was standard practice for many companies with physically isolated machine rooms, let alone an intelligence agency that lived and died by confidentiality.
These specialized readers could only access specific data, which are then translated into human-readable text and images. They lacked civilian-compatible output ports, so stealing the information would require manual replication methods, such as taking photos or transcribing the data by hand.
This explained why most leaks involved photographs.
However, the Sunflower Project files leaked online were different. It seemed like someone had downloaded the entire source files directly. When Alex analyzed the data, he could even extract raw metadata like creation and modification timestamps were still embedded. This would be impossible through normal theft methods.
Therefore, he boldly speculated that someone had infiltrated MI6’s isolated machine room through the network, essentially scraping and dumping the entire hard drive.
Shortly after he posted his theory, other cybersecurity professionals began chiming in.
[Bell]: If I told you we could harness solar power without sunlight, would you think I was crazy? So here’s the question how do you hack a device that isn’t connected to the internet?
[Cobra]: Guys, consider microwave programming. It can remotely alter a program’s operation via EM waves.
[Bell]: Has anyone actually pulled that off in the real world? If the target device could convert specific microwaves into electrical signals, we’d call it a cellphone. It’s 2023, right? Doesn’t everyone have a phone by now?
[Blackwater_Emperor]: Actually, there’s another way to achieve the same result. Physically infiltrate MI6’s isolated machine room and haul out the entire mainframe. I think that’s far more feasible than Alex’s sci-fi approach.
[Frey]: Speaking of which, I just saw someone mention that two days ago they spotted an ambulance and a fire truck parked outside the Vauxhall Cross Building, with black smoke billowing from the windows.
Seeing the conversation drifting further off-topic, Alex interjected irritably, “I’d prefer we focus on the technical aspects of this discussion. As hackers, you should be curious about the unknown, not stubbornly dismiss it.”
[Frey]: I completely understand what you mean. Just a month ago, our leader claimed to be… Ugh, it’s hard to believe something so unimaginable unless you see it with your own eyes.
[Bell]: Was it a unicorn?
Alex rapidly typed on his keyboard: Private conversations should be taken to another topic room, please. Thank you.
[Avalon]: Has anyone noticed that the Twin Towers Bridge car crash and the leak of this document happened on the same day? I happened to be near the bridge that night, and when I saw the accident, I immediately hacked into the surveillance system and found something interesting. Of course, I just used a physical connection port—no real hacking skills required. Nothing compared to the god-level hacker who breached MI6.
[Blackwater_Emperor]: Wait, are you agreeing with Alex? Someone actually managed to harness solar power in a sunless world?
Seeing someone support him, Alex perked up. “Ignore him. What did you find? Share it with us.”
Soon, a video clip was posted.
Alex readily opened the video and immediately recognized it as surveillance footage from the Twin Towers Bridge. Unlike the usual static shots, this clip almost completely tracked the out-of-control car, with the camera rotating nearly 150 degrees from the moment the vehicle appeared until it vanished.
Someone was controlling the camera?
The video was only eight seconds long. Alex opened his video analysis software, replayed the footage, and zoomed in as much as possible.
This time, he saw it clearly.
The person inside the car seemed to be fighting the vehicle itself. In those eight seconds, he tried to cut his seatbelt, reach into the glove compartment, and smash the window. In the final second, he appeared to make a fatal mistake by dropping his screwdriver, which flew out the window. But when Alex examined the footage frame by frame, he was astonished to see the window move faster than the man’s actions. It suddenly lowered just before the screwdriver hit, then quickly closed, completely catching the man off guard!
[Blackwater_Emperor]: Wow, an AI just killed someone! The question is, what’s the connection between these two events? And hey, are you selling this video? I’ll pay good money.
[Bell]: Stop joking! A car’s chip couldn’t possibly handle a strong AI. Is someone remotely controlling this vehicle?
Alex excitedly chimed in, “Look, aren’t these two situations fundamentally the same? The car’s entire logical core resides within its onboard computer. It receives radar data and navigation information, but all analysis and decision-making happen locally. In a way, it’s a physically isolated system.”
[Bell]: Not strictly isolated. An outsider could send false navigation data to trick the car into making bad decisions, or even fabricate radar signals.
[Cobra]: Could someone also remotely control the windows to raise and lower at such high speeds? That wasn’t clearly a normal window operation. The motor’s programming must have been rewritten.
[Avalon]: Exactly. That’s why I can’t understand how anyone could have infiltrated the car and seized control. The onboard computer has no network ports. It’s theoretically impossible. But when Alex brought up MI6 theory, I realized it might not be so far-fetched after all.
