The Backup's Secrets

Yoo Jae-won's contemplation over Jeon Myeong-heon's phone backup file stretched on. After a long period of deliberation, he finally transferred the file to his computer. He knew full well that this was illegal, yet he had decided to open it anyway. His past life had taught him the hard way what happens when you trust someone too easily and get stabbed in the back. The only people he could truly rely on were family—that lesson had been seared into him. Though his relationship with Jeon Myeong-heon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had grown unexpectedly close through a twist of fate, human affairs were unpredictable. Even if he ended up apologizing a hundred times later, his desire to look now was far stronger. He had no way of knowing whether the backup would contain something that would solidify his trust a hundredfold or deliver a debuff that would cut it in half. Still, he concluded that nothing inside could ultimately harm him.

“Well then, shall we begin?”

Once the file finished copying, Yoo Jae-won started working. The first step was checking whether a password was set.

“Hmm, 0000?”

He entered the four zeros that served as the default password for Tiffany Phones. If a user never set their own password, this was the factory default.

—Incorrect password.

Surprisingly, it was not 0000. He had assumed Jeon Myeong-heon would be unfamiliar with electronics and that the default would work. Apparently the man had actually set a custom password.

“This is going to take a while.”

Since 0000 had failed, he would have to brute-force every combination from 0001 to 9999. That did not mean he had to sit idle while all 9,999 attempts ran. He could launch multiple password crackers simultaneously and narrow the search range for each one, drastically cutting the time required. If this were an online attack, multiple instances would be useless, but since he was attacking a local file on his own machine, the method was highly effective.

Yoo Jae-won immediately put the trick into action.

“Still, this means I can’t do anything else for a bit.”

In typical fashion, he launched a full twenty random password crackers at ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠once. After assigning each a portion of the range and starting them, his computer began to lag so badly that other tasks became impossible. Even with four Intel Pentium CPUs installed on a server-grade board, the simultaneous attacks overwhelmed it. The efficiency of the brute-force method itself, however, remained undiminished.

A few minutes later, a clear chime rang out—the sound of a successful crack.

“0817?”

It looked like a date, but he could not guess its significance. It was not Jeon Myeong-heon’s birthday, and none of the people around him appeared to have any special connection to that day either.

With the password in hand, Yoo Jae-won extracted the backup and loaded it into the Tiffany Phone software emulator. When the loading finished, he finally opened the contents with a racing heart.

“Hmm.”

His reaction was one of mild confusion. The data contained far less than he had hoped. There was nothing substantial enough to meaningfully change his assessment of Jeon Myeong-heon. In an era when mobile communication, messaging apps, and social networks were still in their infancy, a phone simply did not hold much information. Even the 2G feature of sending text or images between compatible handsets was only in limited trial service, so almost no one in Jeon Myeong-heon’s circle used it. Most of the text messages were exchanges with Yoo Jae-won himself, and the handful of photos in the gallery were nothing important—mostly shots taken right after Yoo Jae-won had gifted him the phone: one selfie and several pictures of flowers and snow-covered gardens around the Prime Minister’s residence. Purely grandfatherly photographs. Not a single image hinted at anything private or compromising.

The only category with any real volume was the call log.

“He certainly makes good use of the calling function.”

Dozens of calls were recorded every single day. Most were to landline numbers, though a fair number began with 011—the TG Mobile prefix. Some conversations lasted less than a minute; others stretched beyond twenty or thirty. The problem was that the address book only contained entries for Yoo Jae-won and Jeon Myeong-heon’s immediate family. None of the government officials, Tongil National Party executives, or notable lawmakers Yoo Jae-won had expected to see were listed.

“Wait. There’s the phone directory.”

Yoo Jae-won quickly found the solution. The printed telephone directory published by Korea Telecom was a perfect snapshot of how lightly personal information was treated in the twentieth century. It listed every subscriber’s name and number in alphabetical order. He remembered how surprised he had been as a child when his mother’s name appeared in the directory the year after she installed a phone for her business at Daeho Electronics. If he looked up the numbers there, he could at least learn the owners’ names.

Once he had the names, he would be able to map out Jeon Myeong-heon’s personal network. Best of all, he did not have to do the work himself.

“This is exactly what the information team was created for.”

The Korean and American information teams operated separately. As a result, the Korean team had always enjoyed greater freedom and authority. Yoo Jae-won immediately extracted the call log from the backup and sent it to the Korean information team with strict instructions: identify the owners of each number as discreetly as possible, compile the results, and call him immediately—no matter the hour—if anything unusual appeared.

After receiving confirmation from An Jong-cheol, the Korean team leader, Yoo Jae-won closed all programs related to the backup and resumed the original synchronization and backup tasks.

“Maybe I shouldn’t have opened it after all.”

As the synchronization restarted, a twinge of guilt toward Jeon Myeong-heon surfaced. At least the phone itself contained nothing hypocritical. Still, the call log remained unchecked, so any judgment would be premature. Moreover, if a similar situation arose in the future, he knew he would make the same decision again.

Several days passed.

The news of ID Group’s latest moves appeared prominently in San Francisco newspapers. The fact that two ventures had already been chosen only days after the in-house venture support policy began had clearly caught people’s attention.

P Market was the name Yoo Jae-won had personally bestowed upon the future platform, along with the domain name itself. The original team had wanted to call it “Flea Market,” a name he found far too limited in scope. He had instead suggested “P Market,” short for Person-to-Person marketplace—an intentionally expandable name that anticipated its eventual growth into a massive online shopping destination.

ID Group’s activities in Silicon Valley remained a constant source of fascination. The in-house venture policy in particular drew sharp reactions from other venture firms in the valley. After all, between Yoo Jae-won’s personal investments and ID Investment’s angel funding, the group was already pouring substantial capital into the region. Now, with the launch of an internal venture program, rivals worried that powerful new competitors might soon emerge from within ID Group itself. Vincent Greenhill, president of ID Investment, had publicly stated that angel investment levels would not decrease, yet the valley’s wariness showed no signs of easing.

Regardless of external concerns, Yoo Jae-won remained focused on his own work. He established an operations team under the secretariat to manage the in-house venture policy and had already begun development of a new professional workstation to compete with Apple’s PowerMac.

“I vote for iWorks! It feels like it’ll make work smarter.”

“Is that so? No feeling of ‘I’m just a lowly worker’?”

The hardest part of designing a professional workstation was not the aesthetics or specifications—it was choosing a name that instantly clicked.

“Huh? Nothing like that.”

“Perfect! Then it’s decided—iWorks.”

At Tiffany’s positive reaction, Yoo Jae-won finalized the name. Other candidates such as iCOM and iPAC had been considered, all built around the “i” prefix with various acronyms. iCOM felt too plain, while iPAC seemed too derivative of the PowerMac. Looking toward the distant future, iWorks was the most fitting choice.

“So when can we actually see it?”

“Hmm, we should have a prototype by the end of this month.”

“The end of this month? That’s only a few weeks away. That fast?”

“Yeah. Getting the system running is the quick part.”

“Wow! Will you show it to me then?”

“Of course.”

Yoo Jae-won answered without hesitation. He already knew from experience that Tiffany could keep a secret. If her grandfather had been Frederick Taylor II, she would have told him long ago. Besides, her interest in computers was genuine, and her sharp instincts would provide valuable feedback on the prototype.

From a timeline perspective, there were no major obstacles. The case would come from Japan, the motherboard from Taiwan, memory and peripherals from Korea, and critical components such as the CPU, VGA, and hard drive from the United States. Assembly was all that remained. The design was already complete: a mini-tower chassis of matte, hairline-finished aluminum with a tempered-glass side panel that revealed the interior. Green LEDs would illuminate the CPU and VGA cooling fans as well as the case fans, with additional lighting on the power button and chassis base to create an overall mystical atmosphere. It was a shame that blue LEDs had not yet been developed, preventing RGB effects, but the combination of a premium full-aluminum case and subtle green lighting would still set iWorks far apart from the bulky workstations currently on the market.

While the Egg series had sparked a design revolution in the consumer PC space, workstations had remained untouched. Once iWorks launched as planned, Yoo Jae-won was confident the workstation industry would undergo a dramatic shift.

“The only remaining question is what to use for the monitor.”

The sole imperfection was the display. From a design standpoint, an LCD monitor was the obvious choice. ID Display’s factory in Daejeon would begin production in late autumn, churning out tens of thousands of LCD panels per month. In partnership with Japan’s Sharp, they had developed the highest-spec LCD panels currently available, with significant improvements in color reproduction and response time. However, the fundamental limitations of TN technology meant wide viewing angles and color uniformity still lagged behind CRT monitors. Workstations were tools for professionals conducting research and creating content, where accurate color was essential.

“Nothing beats Trinitron when it comes to CRT monitors.”

The problem was that nearly all high-quality Trinitron displays were Japanese-made. Relations between Japan and Korea had deteriorated rapidly during President Kim’s administration, and Yoo Jae-won himself had played a significant role in that decline. His proposal to erect statues commemorating victims of the Japanese colonial period had particularly angered Japan. True to his usual decisive style, he had already purchased small plots of land from owners in Seoul and along roadsides and was currently running design competitions for the various statues. Passionate artists were throwing themselves into the project. Even though the statues were not yet installed, Japan’s political circles—especially the far right—were reacting with extreme hostility. Several Japanese companies cooperating with ID Group, including Sony and SoftBank, were receiving cold stares. The same applied to the subsidiaries under Shin-Nihon Investment Bank, ID Group’s Japanese ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠arm.

In short, Korea-Japan relations were worsening by the day. Using a Japanese monitor as the bundled display for iWorks could generate considerable backlash later. It would be better to find a suitable American alternative, or, failing that, quietly source one through an OEM arrangement.

Ding!

While he was still pondering the monitor issue, an alert sounded on his computer. It was not an email or message notification.

“What’s this?”

Yoo Jae-won set his documents aside and looked at the screen. A small alert window had appeared in the bottom right corner, indicating a new friend request on ID Talk. The request had come through his personal email address rather than his company account. It had been a long time since he had received a friend request, which made it even stranger. Almost everyone he knew was already registered, and he had not recently met anyone new.

“Whoa!”

When he checked the sender’s name, he was shocked enough to exclaim aloud. It was someone he had never expected.

Yoo Jae-won moved to accept, then hesitated. He first checked his profile, shared photo albums, and files to make sure nothing inappropriate for Frederick’s eyes was visible. Fortunately, there was little to worry about.

“Welcome to the internet world.”

Unable to think of a better opening message for Tiffany’s grandfather, he sent what he considered the safest greeting.

—Greetings, Chairman Yoo Jae-won. This is Alfred, the butler. At Miss Tiffany’s suggestion, Master Frederick recently created an email account and, while doing so, also joined ID Talk. Any messages for Master Frederick can be relayed through me. If you have anything to say to him, please send it via ID Talk at any time. I will deliver it as quickly as possible.

To his immense relief, the request had come from Alfred the butler, not Frederick Taylor II himself. Even so, it was surprising how comfortable Alfred seemed with computers despite his advanced age. The long, fluent message had arrived within seconds of Yoo Jae-won’s greeting, indicating impressive typing speed.

The brief exchange ended shortly afterward. Both parties had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠clear business to attend to, and neither was inclined to chat at length.

Time passed, and Yoo Jae-won was beginning to feel a hint of anxiety. Only a few days remained until the end of April—the deadline he had confidently promised Tiffany—yet the iWorks prototype was still incomplete. According to the original schedule, all components should have arrived by now and assembly should have been underway. Instead, he had run into an unexpected obstacle: one critical part was missing.

The video card.

The graphics card market was undergoing a massive upheaval as it transitioned from 2D to 3D acceleration. The most rapidly growing players were Nvidia and 3DFX. While established manufacturers struggled to adapt, these two newcomers, offering far more powerful 3D performance, were expanding at an astonishing rate through fierce competition.

When Yoo Jae-won had decided to launch iWorks, Nvidia’s Riva TNT had been the fastest card available. Then, just a week earlier, 3DFX had released its new Voodoo card. Naturally, he had contacted 3DFX as well—iWorks was meant to boast the highest specifications of its generation.

“What’s going on?”

The card that was supposed to arrive today had not shown up. When he called 3DFX, they claimed they were short on stock and had pushed his order back.

“That’s complete nonsense.”

The card had not even been officially announced yet, so talk of “stock” was absurd. At this stage, 3DFX should have been sending samples to video card manufacturers and major PC makers like ID Group to showcase its performance. Given NewEgg2’s sales volume, ID Group ranked among the top three PC vendors in North America and should have been a top priority. Moreover, ID Group was not merely an assembler—it developed its own operating systems. In Silicon Valley, rumors that ID Group was preparing a new PC had been circulating for some time, which was why component manufacturers were constantly arriving at ID Technology’s headquarters with quotes and samples. Being selected as a supplier meant explosive sales growth, so the behavior was understandable—except for 3DFX, a company less than two years old, showing such arrogance.

The mystery was solved a short while later when the first reviews appeared.