yournovel Chapter 168 Information Security Report
Chapter 168 Information Security Report
The air conditioner's outdoor unit was buzzing outside the window.
Ling Yun spread the printed draft of the report on the coffee table, the paper covering the entire glass surface. Ni Guangnan sat in the chair opposite him, wearing reading glasses and holding a red and blue pen.
"On the third page," Ni Guangnan circled a paragraph in blue pen, "'Chip design must achieve autonomy from the architecture layer.' This statement needs to be changed."
Ling Yun raised his head.
"Too radical?" he asked.
"It's not a matter of being radical or not." Ni Guangnan took off his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "It's about feasibility. We haven't even fully mastered the 0.5-micron process yet. If we talk about independent architecture, the higher-ups will think we're just making empty promises."
The room was silent for a few seconds.
"So how do you think it should be written?"
Ni Guangnan put his glasses back on and began to write in the blank space. His characters were small, but the strokes were heavy, and the pen nib pressed down on the paper.
"It will be done in three steps," he said as he wrote. "The first step is to achieve complete independent design of mid-to-low-end chips within three years—not independent architecture, but deep customization and optimization based on the existing architecture."
Ling Yun walked back to the coffee table and bent down to look at the words.
"The second step is to spend five years establishing a complete chip design toolchain, including EDA software, simulation platforms, and testing environments. This step does not aim for complete domestic production, but rather to achieve control over key components."
The red pen stroked across the paper.
"The third step, ten years later, is to begin exploring independent architectures. By then, the process technology should have reached 0.18 micrometers, with a certain level of technological accumulation and market support."
Ling Yun stared at the words for a long time. Then he straightened up and took out his laptop from his backpack. It was an IBM ThinkPad, its black casing showing signs of wear.
He turned on his computer and opened a document.
"My part and yours need to be aligned," he said. "Hardware autonomy is fundamental, but hardware alone is not enough. If backdoors are left in the operating system, communication protocols, and encryption algorithms, even the most self-reliant hardware is transparent."
Ni Guangnan looked at him.
"Those surveillance methods you described in your report..." the old man paused, "...are there any evidence to support them?"
Lingyun's finger stopped on the touchpad.
"I've studied their technical documentation," Ling Yun said calmly. "Vulnerabilities in the TCP/IP protocol stack, reserved interfaces in operating systems, mathematical traps in encryption algorithms. These aren't guesses; they're things that are technically feasible."
He clicked on a chart.
"This is what I found in the US Patent and Trademark Office database. In 1994, the NSA applied for a patent called 'Method for embedding a recoverable key in encrypted communication.' Patent number 5432849. The abstract of this patent is very cryptic, but if you understand cryptography, you can figure out what it's talking about."
Ni Guangnan took the computer and turned the screen towards himself. He squinted and stared at it for a long time.
The only sounds in the room were the air conditioner and the occasional tapping of a keyboard.
"Your English is very good," Ni Guangnan said finally.
"The effort I put in during my university years."
The old man pushed the computer back.
"This part can be included. But don't use the word 'surveillance,' use 'security risks that may result from technological dependence.' The report is for the leadership, so it needs to be objective and supported by data."
Ling Yun nodded. He began editing the document, his fingers moving rapidly across the keyboard.
Ni Guangnan stood up and walked to the window. He put his hands behind his back and looked at the flow of bicycles on the street below. In Nanjing in 1997, the streets were full of Santanas and Jettas, with only a few imported cars occasionally passing by.
"When I started working in 1963," he suddenly said, "China's first electronic computer had just been successfully developed not long ago. Back then, it still used vacuum tubes, and even a room-sized computer had less computing power than a calculator today."
Ling Yun didn't look up, but his typing speed slowed down.
"Later came transistors, and then small-scale integrated circuits. We caught up step by step, and it was a very difficult process." Ni Guangnan turned around. "In the 1980s, I felt like we were almost catching up. In the 1990s, we found that the gap had widened again."
He walked back to the coffee table and picked up the report.
"What judgment is behind your ten- to fifteen-year plan?"
Ling Yun finally stopped typing. He closed his laptop and looked at Ni Guangnan.
"Based on a possibility," Ling Yun said, "if we don't start planning now, ten years from now we will find that there is no link in the entire industry chain that we can completely control, from chips to operating systems, from databases to application software. If we want to achieve self-sufficiency then, the cost will be ten times higher than it is now, and it will take twenty years longer."
"Why ten years from now?"
"Because of the internet." Ling Yun reopened his computer and pulled up another chart. "Currently, there are less than one million internet users in China. Ten years from now, that number will be one hundred million, or even more. When the entire society is operating on the internet, the security of the infrastructure will no longer be a technical issue, but a national security issue."
He turned the screen toward Ni Guangnan.
"This is my second part: communication network security. Currently, 80% of the backbone network equipment is from Cisco and Lucent. None of us have seen the source code of the firmware in these devices. How are the routing protocols implemented? Are there any interfaces left for traffic monitoring? We don't know."
Ni Guangnan sat down and put his glasses back on.
"What's the solution?"
"It will be divided into three phases." Ling Yun pulled up a table: "In the short term, within three years, deploy domestically produced encrypted gateways and traffic auditing systems based on existing equipment. In the medium term, within five years, promote the research and development and pilot deployment of domestically produced routing and switching equipment. In the long term, within ten years, achieve a complete replacement of core backbone network equipment."
"Where does the money come from?"
"That's why national-level planning is needed," Ling Yun said. "If each department and each province makes its own purchases, it will always be the most cost-effective to buy finished products from abroad. But if there is a unified strategy that gathers the procurement needs for the next ten years and forms a market scale, it can drive the entire industrial chain."
Ni Guangnan picked up a red pen and began to write in the blank space at the edge of the report. He wrote slowly, carefully considering each word.
"We need to include cost estimates," he said. "We can't just say how much money is needed; we need to clearly explain what benefits that investment will generate: job creation, technology accumulation, and industrial stimulus. Leaders need to consider these things."
"It's already underway." Ling Yun opened another file. "This is a model I asked a professor from the Economics Department of Shandong University to make. According to our plan, the first phase of investment will be 5 billion yuan, which can drive an increase of 20 billion yuan in the output value of related industries and create 30,000 to 50,000 high-end technical jobs."
Is the data reliable?
"A conservative estimate."
Ni Guangnan glanced at him.
The young man sat upright in a standard hotel room chair. The sunlight streaming through the window illuminated his profile, revealing the bluish stubble on his chin. He had been sleeping only four or five hours a night for the past three days.
"How old are you this year?" Ni Guangnan suddenly asked.
"Twenty-five."
The old man nodded without saying a word. He picked up the report and turned to the chapter on the operating system.
This part was completed independently by Ling Yun. There is a rare certainty between the lines, not the kind of certainty found in theoretical deduction, but rather as if he were stating a fact that has already occurred.
"Your assessment of Microsoft is very pessimistic," Ni Guangnan said.
"It's not pessimism, it's reality." Ling Yun walked to the small refrigerator, took out two bottles of water, and handed one to Ni Guangnan. "The codebase of Windows 95 has exceeded 15 million lines. No one can fully audit such a massive system, not even Microsoft's own engineers. This means that if there's anything that shouldn't be there, we'll never find it."
He unscrewed the bottle cap and took a big gulp.
"And they won't give us the source code. Never."
"So you want to build an open-source system?"
"Open source is just a means to an end," Ling Yun said. "The real goal is controllability. The source code is in our hands; we can understand and modify every line of code. That's the foundation of security."
Ni Guangnan turned to the last chapter of the report. There was a timeline there, from 1998 to 2012, fifteen years, divided into three stages to achieve independent control of the entire industry chain from hardware to software.
Each stage has specific goals, key technologies, and risk assessments.
It was written in great detail, so much so that it didn't seem like something a 25-year-old could write.
"How did you determine these technical approaches?" Ni Guangnan pointed to several places in the table.
Ling Yun remained silent for a few seconds.
"I've studied a lot of materials," he said, "domestic and international papers, patents, and technical reports. I've also consulted many experts. That's the judgment I came up with."
"Is it possible that we're being too optimistic?"
"It's possible," Ling Yun admitted. "But if we don't even have an optimistic plan, we'll always just be following in others' footsteps."
Ni Guangnan put down the report. He took off his glasses, took out a velvet cloth from his pocket, and slowly wiped the lenses.
"When is the report due?" he asked.
"Tomorrow morning." Ling Yun glanced at his watch. "My uncle said the leader has time to listen to a report in the afternoon."
"You're reporting this yourself?"
"Let's go together," Lingyun said. "You can talk about the hardware, and I'll talk about the software and network."
Ni Guangnan put his glasses back on. He stared at Ling Yun for a long time, until the sky outside the window completely darkened and the lights in the room automatically turned on.
"Okay," the old man said finally.
They began the final proofreading. Ling Yun read aloud while Ni Guangnan checked the paper copy. Any areas requiring revision were marked with a red pen, and Ling Yun updated the changes on the computer in real time.
At 8 p.m., the report was finalized.
Ling Yun clicked "print." The printer in the hotel's business center started working, spitting out pages of still-warm paper.
Ni Guangnan stood beside the printer, taking each page and arranging them in order. His movements were slow and meticulous, as if he were organizing something precious.
It was 9:30 p.m. when the last page was printed.
Neither of them had eaten dinner, but neither of them felt hungry.
Ling Yun bound the report into three copies: one original and two duplicates. He used a black hardcover cover, with only two words printed on the title page: Report.
The following line of smaller print: Suggestions on the Independent and Controllable Development Path of my country's Information Technology Industry.
There was no signature or date.
"Will this work?" he asked Ni Guangnan.
The old man touched the cover and nodded.
"Content is more important than form."
They packed their things, turned off the computer, and turned off the lights in the room.
Ni Guangnan stood at the door, looked at the report in his hand, and then at the lights on the Yangtze River Bridge in the distance.
"If this report is adopted," he said, "China will be different in ten years."
Ling Yun didn't reply. He hailed a taxi and opened the back door for Ni Guangnan to get in first.
The car drove into the night streets. The light from the streetlights shone through the car windows, casting streaks across their faces.
The report was placed on the middle seat, its black cover almost invisible in the dim light.
But it's there.
A 25-year-old and a 64-year-old, carrying this 30,000-word report, drove into the night of Beijing in 1997.
Meanwhile, in another part of the city, another dialogue about China's computer industry had just ended amidst the clinking of glasses.
History never makes appointments, but it always allows different choices to occur at the same time.