Solving the case: Combining the police dog's olfactory genes at the beginning

He tapped the edge of his phone screen with his finger, switched the data network to an encrypted channel, and then said his last words to the camera.

"That concludes today's live stream."

The screen went black.

All that remained for the 95 million viewers was darkness. After a brief silence, the comment section completely collapsed, with a deluge of cries and speculations pouring out like a flood.

Countless people frantically refreshed the page, hoping to see that figure in the cockpit again, but the screen only showed three words: "The streamer has ended the broadcast."

Luo Fei took his phone off the stand, exited the live streaming platform, opened a number in his contacts that didn't have a name in it, and pressed the dial button.

The encrypted channel signal remained stable at an altitude of 10,000 meters. The call was answered after two rings. The person on the other end did not speak first; only a steady breathing sound came from the receiver.

“Xiao Bei,” Luo Fei’s voice was exactly the same as during the live broadcast, calm and unhurried, neither sad nor happy, “It’s me.”

The person on the other end of the phone was Zhou Xiaobei, codenamed "Beichen" in the Red Hacker Alliance. He was one of the top cybersecurity experts in Daxia back then. After retiring, he started an information security company. On the surface, he took on commercial projects, but in reality, he was a core member of the Red Hacker Alliance.

His voice sounded somewhat low on the phone, but there was no hint of surprise in his tone, as if he had been waiting for this call.

“I’ve been watching your live stream,” Zhou Xiaobei said. “I’ve been watching since the very first second you started. I already know what you’re going to do.”

Luo Fei nodded slightly, though the other person couldn't see his gesture. "Then you probably guessed it, I can't do this alone."

“Two F-35s,” Zhou Xiaobei said. “They’re from Baili Base. I’ve checked their serial numbers. They’re from an old unit that was established in 1943.”

They haven't opened fire yet because their superiors are still assessing your intentions, but if you start descending towards Mount Fuji, the assessment will change to a shoot-down order within thirty seconds.

"By then, you won't even see a shadow of the crater before you're torn to shreds by missiles."

Luo Fei listened to Zhou Xiaobei's words without showing any surprise. This analysis was completely consistent with his own judgment. The fact that the two F-35s weren't making a move now didn't mean they wouldn't in the future.

His raised thumb might make the other side hesitate for a few more minutes, but the commander of the Japanese Air Self-Defense Force is not stupid. When they find that the Gulfstream's course has not deviated from the direction of Nashi Prefecture, they will definitely issue the order to shoot it down.

By then, he really won't be able to do anything.

“So I want you to do something for me,” Luo Fei’s voice was as steady as a rock, “to prevent them from firing.”

There was a two-second silence on the other end of the phone.

Then Zhou Xiaobei chuckled, a very soft and short laugh, like striking a match in the dark, a brief flash before going out. "You mean, you want me to hack the F-35's missile launch system?"

Can you do it?

Zhou Xiaobei did not answer immediately. His fingers flew across the keyboard in front of him, bringing up the technical architecture data of the Sakura Ministry of National Defense's logistics information system.

The dense data and network topology diagram on the screen flashed before his eyes. In less than ten seconds, he had already mentally deduced the entire attack path.

“It can be done,” Zhou Xiaobei’s tone returned to his usual professional calm. “The F-35 missile launchers in Japan are controlled by an ALIS mission package system, which stands for Autonomic Logistics Information System.”

This system is responsible for loading all mission data for the F-35, configuring weapon systems, and scheduling logistics and maintenance.

The key point is that ALIS is not an air-based, independent system; it must be connected to a ground-based logistics server to complete the final authorization verification before missile launch.

The Japan Air Self-Defense Force's ground-based ALIS server cluster, located in Nagashima City, consists of thirteen servers that exchange data with F-35s at various bases via the Ministry of Defense's internal dedicated network.

He paused for a moment, as if confirming a technical detail, and then continued, "If I can hack into these thirteen servers on Long Island and modify the checksum in the missile launch authorization agreement, the ALIS system will determine that the launch conditions for all missiles are not met and automatically lock the launcher."

Once in the air, the F-35 will repeatedly attempt to request authorization from the ALIS server on the ground, but no matter how many times it tries, it will not be able to obtain the correct verification code, and the fire control system will treat the missile as a malfunctioning missile.

The pilot presses the launch button in the cockpit, and only one line of text pops up on the screen: "Weapon system online self-check failed. Please return to base and reload the mission package."

After listening to this, Luo Fei remained silent for a few seconds, then asked a crucial question: "Is the data channel between the Long Island server and the F35 physically isolated or logically isolated?"

Zhou Xiaobei chuckled again, this time with a hint of appreciation. Luo Fei wasn't a tech expert, but his question was extremely tricky, hitting the very core of the attack plan.

Physical isolation means there is no external network connection between the server and the aircraft, making it impossible for even the most skilled hackers to breach the connection. Logical isolation, on the other hand, means that although it has a protective layer, there are still entry points that can be breached.

“Logical isolation,” Zhou Xiaobei answered crisply. “The internal dedicated network of the Sakura Ministry of Defense underwent a system upgrade at the end of last year. During the upgrade, several external interfaces were temporarily opened to ensure compatibility with the old equipment of several logistics bases.”

Although these interfaces are connected to a firewall, the firewall's policy configuration has obvious vulnerabilities. I obtained testing privileges two months ago. Give me twenty minutes, and I can penetrate to the core switch on Long Island.

Luo Fei's lips curled into a slight smile. He knew he had dialed the right person.

“Twenty minutes,” Luo Fei repeated the time. “I will reduce the flight speed to Mach 0.75 to give you more time. After you finish, do not leave any trace in the system, only change the checksum, do not touch anything else.”

"no problem."

Zhou Xiaobei's voice was crisp and clear, "I need to organize manpower here. A few old brothers from the Red Hacker Alliance happen to be online. I'll add them to the mission group."

"it is good."

Luo Fei said one word, then paused, as if hesitating about something, but ultimately didn't say the rest.

Zhou Xiaobei spoke up for him, his voice softer than before, carrying a tacit understanding only those who had fought side-by-side could comprehend. "Captain Luo, you don't need to say anything. The moment you turned off the live stream, I knew you had no intention of flying back this time."

Luo Fei remained silent.

“From the first day I met you,” Zhou Xiaobei continued, speaking a little slower than usual, “you’ve always been the kind of person who treats everyone’s life as if it were their own.”

The Ganjiang team was wiped out. So many brothers died before your eyes. You survived, but not everyone understands—for some, surviving is more painful than dying. Your trip to Japan wasn't about coming back alive; it was about giving those brothers an explanation.

Luo Fei remained silent, but his Adam's apple bobbed once. The sunlight streaming through the porthole into the cockpit shone on his profile, making the scar that stretched from his brow bone to his cheekbone stand out clearly.

The scar was left in the interrogation room of the Dali Division. The scab had not completely fallen off, and the edges were still showing the pale red of the new flesh, like a brand that had just been carved on.

“Help me finish this,” Luo Fei finally spoke, his voice as calm as usual, but beneath the calm lay a very thin layer, like an undercurrent beneath the ice, “and then watch over me. Watch me crash into it.”

Zhou Xiaobei took a deep breath, forcefully suppressing the surging emotion in his chest. He quickly typed a command on the keyboard, and the Red Hacker Alliance's emergency mission channel popped up on his screen. "Okay. I'm watching."

The phone hangs up.

Luo Fei placed his phone on the passenger seat and gripped the steering wheel again with both hands.

The Gulfstream G650ER was flying smoothly in autopilot mode, with two F-35s still pressed against its sides like two cold blades. The pilots were still gesturing and calling out, but Luo Fei had completely turned off the radio volume.

The cockpit was so quiet that only the low-frequency roar of the engine and the faint beeping of the navigation system every few seconds could be heard.

His gaze passed through the windshield and landed on the increasingly clear mountainous region of Honshu Island in the distance.

In the direction of Naga Prefecture, the snow-capped peak of Mount Fuji reflected a dazzling white light under the sun, but beneath that white light, a gray smoke, almost imperceptible to the naked eye, was slowly rising from the crater, like the hot breath exhaled by a sleeping giant.

Mount Fuji is smoking.

This detail is almost invisible in the live stream footage; only when you are close enough and at a good enough angle can you capture that extremely faint wisp of gray smoke.

But Luo Fei saw it, Zhou Xiaobei saw it in the technical reconnaissance footage, and the ordinary people of the Sakura Country living in the central mountainous region of Honshu Island—they may have seen it even earlier, but no one was willing to admit it.

It's like an earthquake that's been brewing for a long time; everyone knows it's coming, but everyone chooses to pretend they don't.

In the Red Hacker Alliance's emergency task group, Zhou Xiaobei sent a short text message, each word like a nail hammered into the screen.

"Urgent mission. Target: Nagashima Logistics Information System, Ministry of National Defense of Japan, 13 ALIS servers in total. Attack objective: Modify the missile launch authorization checksum, paralyzing all air-to-air missile launch functions. Time window: 20 minutes."

Everyone is on high alert.

Less than three seconds after the message was sent, the group chat was flooded with replies.

"Black Hawk is in position."

"White Shark in position."

"The Night Owl server is online and ready to launch the first wave of DDoS cover at any time."

"I have a window at 8:15 PM Japanese time to send test data packets to the Long Island switch, which can provide cover for you."

“We’ll handle the data packet; it will simulate a routine power system dispatch signal and will never trigger a security audit.”

"Who will calculate the hash value of the checksum? I have a quantum computing simulator here; a 16-bit hash takes about 30 seconds."

"I'll modify the firewall logs so they can't find anything afterward."

Looking at the replies on the screen, Zhou Xiaobei's eyes suddenly stung. Some of these people were in China, some were abroad, some were at work, some were on vacation, and some hadn't participated in any of the alliance's activities for several years.

But after he sent this message, everyone put down what they were doing and entered battle mode in the shortest possible time.

It wasn't because of any reward or benefit, but because they never refused when their comrades made requests of them.

"Set off."

Zhou Xiaobei typed those two words, then closed the chat window and began deploying the first wave of attacks.

In the computer room of the Sakura Defense Ministry Logistics Information Center in Nagashima City, thirteen large servers are operating stably according to the pre-set program. The data stream on the monitoring screen is like a never-ending blue river, flowing and shuttling between the server racks.

Xiao Lin, the engineer on the night shift, was sitting in front of the monitoring console, holding a cup of instant coffee and casually scrolling through his phone.

He had no idea that thousands of kilometers away, a dozen pairs of eyes were watching every server in the server room through the gaps in the network.

Just then, a tiny value on the computer room monitoring screen suddenly jumped, so fast that it would be impossible to notice without reviewing the logs.

Xiaolin's coffee cup froze in mid-air. He seemed to sense something was wrong and looked up at the monitor screen.

All the data on the screen appeared normal: CPU load at 40%, memory usage at 55%, and network traffic showed no abnormal fluctuations. He shrugged, took another sip of his coffee, and continued scrolling through his phone.

Unseen by him, the Red Hacker Alliance's first wave of attacks had silently penetrated the firewall of the Long Island data center, implanting a tiny piece of low-level code into the system kernel of the first ALIS server.

This code will not trigger any antivirus software alerts because it is not a virus in essence—it is just a legitimate system update patch, except that the checksum in the patch differs from the official checksum of the Space Self-Defense Force's weapon system by one byte.

Just one byte.

This byte difference means that when an F-35 fighter jet requests missile launch authorization from a ground server, the server returns an authorization code that looks perfectly correct. However, when this authorization code reaches the aircraft's fire control computer, it will be deemed invalid because of the mismatch in that byte.

The missile launch procedure will automatically terminate at the last step, and the prompt displayed on the screen in front of the pilot is completely normal—weapon system self-check malfunction.

Everything was legal, everything was within the system's preset fault tolerance range, as if the missile itself had some technical problems, and had nothing to do with the ground server. (End of Chapter)