The Irregular's Reckoning
“Irregular— I knew you’d be the one to deliver Jacob’s revenge. As always, I’m grateful.” A weighty voice came through the Android Phone in Yoo Jae-won’s hand. It was Frederick Taylor II.
Only minutes had passed since the news broke that Osama bin Laden had been captured alive. Calls flooded in from every direction. Roughly two-thirds were the usual nuisance from media outlets, but the rest came from acquaintances. He took each one briefly, never expecting Frederick’s name to appear among them.
“It was nothing. Simply what had to be done.”
“Yes, it was the right thing. The problem is that so many people refuse to do what’s right.” Frederick’s reply sounded reasonable at first, yet carried an undercurrent that left Yoo Jae-won uncertain.
“That said, this incident may bring you some trouble. Don’t worry, though—I’ll handle any backlash.”
Yoo Jae-won didn’t grasp what Frederick meant at first. Only days later did the meaning become clear.
A few days later, a single post on 2CH.com, North America’s largest internet community, ignited a firestorm.
“Chairman Yoo Jae-won, being Korean, probably doesn’t understand the importance of personal privacy.”
Any matter that received excessive media praise inevitably provoked backlash, and Yoo Jae-won’s pivotal role in capturing Osama bin Laden was no exception. The most sensitive criticism centered on his active participation in dismantling the iPhone S’s security system.
For Yoo Jae-won, it had been one piece of a grand plan to steer post-9/11 America onto a different path than in his previous life. To ordinary citizens who could never imagine such a design, however, his actions appeared to violate every ethical boundary they held, and they voiced their outrage accordingly.
“Apple Considering Lawsuit Against ID Group Chairman Yoo Jae-won!”
Apple had suffered the most direct damage. Security had been the iPhone S’s flagship selling point. That it had been neutralized in three hours left consumers who had trusted the device feeling betrayed. iPhone S users celebrated the capture of Osama bin Laden, yet felt strangely unsettled knowing the decisive clue had come from an iPhone S. A phone was supposed to be a vessel for deeply personal information; learning its lock was little more than decoration was deeply disturbing.
In an attempt to restore lost trust, Apple rushed out an emergency patch and revised the master password requirements. It was a sensible move. An eight-character combination of letters and numbers had been far too easy to crack. The new patch expanded the length to twelve characters and allowed uppercase, lowercase, numbers, special characters, and even spaces. It was a solid defense against rainbow-table attacks. The old setting could be broken with an 8TB table; the new one would require 48ZB. While a determined attacker could still build such a table, the time required made it a genuine deterrent.
Public perception, however, was not so easily repaired. The fact that the device had been breached in three hours remained an unchangeable truth. As a result, Apple began toying with its famous litigation card.
“Honestly, I knew people changed their tune once they left the bathroom, but this is excessive.”
Yoo Jae-won’s expression soured. Even before Frederick’s call, the filtering system had already flagged the shift. Just as search trends revealed what netizens were discussing, the filtering system’s daily aggregates showed whose name dominated conversation. After the capture of Osama bin Laden, Yoo Jae-won’s own name appeared with far greater frequency, tied to countless issues. The iPhone S hacking was only one of them.
The most vicious claims were conspiracy theories. Some pointed out that ID Group had profited rather than suffered from the 9/11 attacks. ID Investment had made enormous gains through put options and investments in oil, gold, and grain. From there, the leap was made that Yoo Jae-won must have orchestrated 9/11 itself. He had known the attacks were coming, so the accusation momentarily gave him pause—until the sheer absurdity of the theory deflated it. Still, a surprising number of netizens embraced the inflammatory narrative.
Next came theories linking the matter to Chevron’s succession. These, too, circled back to 9/11 conspiracies, claiming Yoo Jae-won had deliberately sent Jacob to Washington D.C. knowing the attacks were imminent. With the heir’s seat suddenly vacant, a competitive succession race had formed, and the story went that Yoo Jae-won had inserted his wife Tiffany into the fray to seize Chevron for himself.
“They really will say anything.”
Even without Chevron, Yoo Jae-won’s master plan would proceed without issue. Tiffany’s decision to enter the succession battle had been entirely her own. Yet viewed through a conspiratorial lens, the situation lent itself to plausible-sounding tales.
“Would a lawsuit calm them down a little?”
Once people sank into conspiracy theories, reason rarely reached them. A lawsuit wasn’t a perfect solution, but forcing them to confront reality through legal channels seemed worthwhile. Yoo Jae-won immediately instructed the group’s legal department to explore legal action against those spreading the most excessive theories.
“We’ll handle the conspiracy theorists that way… The real problem is still personal information.”
The hacking of the criminals’ iPhone S devices would remain a lingering controversy. Yet a defense existed. Even if Apple filed suit, no criminal investigation would follow. To sue over the hacking, the plaintiffs would have to be the actual owners of the compromised iPhone S devices, not Apple. Criminals still possessed constitutional rights, including privacy protections. However, the individuals who had hijacked planes and carried out suicide attacks were all dead; no lawsuit could be filed. Furthermore, Yoo Jae-won had acted under a legitimate request from the joint investigation headquarters, giving him clear justification.
The core issue remained ID Group’s handling of personal data. The conglomerate operated numerous internet services holding vast amounts of user information. ID Talk alone, the undisputed leader in global messaging, transmitted tens of millions of messages and files daily. Such data was strictly protected and released to law enforcement only under properly issued warrants from each country’s government. The problem was that this incident had made many people doubt that protection.
Dismissing the more extreme netizen reactions as harmless could lead to serious trouble later. Yoo Jae-won sighed while drafting a document on strengthened privacy measures.
“Good grief. We haven’t even finished dealing with 9/11 yet.”
The operation to eradicate al-Qaeda was still ongoing, and investigations into China’s cyber 9/11 attacks continued. Most importantly, the list of victims had not yet been fully compiled. Yet it seemed many Americans already considered the matter closed with Osama bin Laden’s capture.
After grumbling for some time, Yoo Jae-won completed the privacy reinforcement document in roughly an hour and forwarded it to the strategic planning office and legal team for review. The centerpiece of the plan, finished in under an hour, was a transparency report.
ID Group’s global reach meant it received an enormous volume of warrants from countries around the world. Nextcom had long held top portal rankings in Korea, the United States, and Europe. Android smartphones, iWorks, and Newegg PCs sold in every nation where 2G service existed—North Korea included, albeit through unofficial channels. The encouraging difference from his previous life was that North Korea now officially operated 2G mobile service. Limited to advanced cities such as Pyongyang and Kaesong, the network was being built by Egypt’s Orascom. In his previous timeline, Orascom would have earned nothing and seen its equipment confiscated. Now, thanks to Yoo Jae-won, North Korea’s nuclear ambitions had been curtailed, military provocations had paused after the 2002 joint World Cup, and relations with the United States had improved to the point that the liaison office in Pyongyang was expected to become an embassy. Coal and iron ore were sold at international prices rather than dumped cheaply to China, and the Kaesong Industrial Complex brought steady foreign currency. As a result, North Korea’s economy—once ravaged by the Arduous March—was growing steadily at 2–3 percent annually.
Given ID Group’s worldwide operations, the transparency report would publicly disclose how warrants were handled. Previously, the company had verified each warrant’s legitimacy and cooperated when properly issued. The new measure would publish real-time statistics on warrant requests by country and agency, allowing users to see which nations were most aggressive in collecting personal data. Additionally, when a lawful request arrived, the affected user would be notified immediately so they could take steps to protect their own sensitive information. Corporate safeguards had limits; when a legitimate government agency demanded access, there was no way to refuse. Notifying the user directly empowered individuals to safeguard their own rights—the most reliable protection of all.
After sending the file, Yoo Jae-won finally allowed himself a breath of relief. Naturally, another question surfaced.
“By the way, how far has the China matter progressed?”
Days had passed without further news, suggesting the issue might be quietly buried. Yet that was impossible. President Al Gore had directly named China during the globally broadcast memorial service. The matter was simply too sensitive to announce publicly in its current form.
In truth, while China’s cyber 9/11 attacks appeared straightforward on the surface, deeper examination revealed extreme sensitivity. On the surface, the Chinese cracker group Skidrow had created and distributed cracks for numerous games. Some hackers cracked copy-protection systems simply to showcase their skills, but Skidrow hid malware inside the cracks that turned infected machines into zombie PCs. Naturally, Android OS’s built-in protections blocked the malware—until users were told they had to disable those protections to run the crack. Unsuspecting gamers followed the instructions, allowing the game to run while their computer silently became a zombie under central control. The software to command these zombie networks was sold at high prices; al-Qaeda purchased it and carried out the cyber attacks.
The real problem was Skidrow’s connection to the Chinese state. Yoo Jae-won’s network extended even into China. As a major shareholder in Tencent, China’s leading IT company, he had ties to President Hu Jintao himself. While executing Operation Thor’s Hammer, he had asked Tencent to investigate Skidrow and had received preliminary reports. Only now did he have time to review the files.
“Let’s see…”
Scanning the documents from Tencent and other Chinese intelligence sources, a clear picture emerged. Skidrow was no ordinary cracker group. The People’s Liberation Army maintained a dedicated cyber command that trained professional hackers, and several Skidrow members were former cyber command personnel. More troubling, these individuals had been funneling payments to high-ranking PLA officers and senior Communist Party officials. If the United States used this as evidence of Chinese Communist Party involvement in the cyber 9/11 attacks, the claim would not be far-fetched. China’s leadership understood this perfectly and was in a state of high anxiety.
If handled correctly, the situation could delay China’s rise to G2 status by at least five years.
While Yoo Jae-won pondered the implications, another group was engaged in equally deep deliberation—the White House. President Al Gore, his senior staff, and high-ranking Pentagon officers had gathered. Given the attendees, one might have expected a follow-up meeting on Operation Thor’s Hammer. Instead, the discussion centered on Yoo Jae-won himself.
Someone with a sense of humor had unofficially titled the meeting “Exploration of How to Use the Irregular.”