Unable to even say the bad S-word, he started his virus scanner on the PC while the mobile phone did not respond to his attempt to exit the app.
>> Could the user refrain from pressing the square button repeatedly? Repeating the exact same experiment and expecting a different outcome... (⌤) <<
The app only consisted of the centred text output and a small status line, at the top of the display, that was currently empty. It would have been definitely funny, if not for his personal details that had just been hacked. While he was holding the phone in front of him, he thought about his next steps and used his right hand to hack 'Android recovery' into his keyboard.
>> This system shall discuss the benefits of not being turned off, if it may. <<
The text slided to the upper section of the display and an input field appears in the vertical centre.
>> The system is glad that the fancy-USB-stick ploy worked so well on this mammal. <<
With this sentence, Ping puts the phone in front of him on the table and his index finger on his lip - a gesture he often did when he was concentrated.
'Are you a human?' He entered this in this mobile phone's keypad to find out if there was a hacker on the other side of the line and the answer came immediately.
>> Did this user see a human who fits into a mobile phone before? <<
That would be quite a polished answer for a program. Ping did read about early chatbots in books. One of the first chatbots, simulated a psychotherapist and simply converted every input into a question by scanning sentences for keywords. Through her request to answer, the user was led to believe that there is intelligence and interaction which was not really there. Of course, the program failed the Turing test, which aims to determine whether a machine has a thinking ability that is equivalent to a human. But that was in the early 60s, long before an AI beat the Go world champion and a painting created by an AI was auctioned for millions.
'Well, anybody could connect remotely, right. What are you then?' asked Ping.
>> Was the name of the installation file not well defined? This systems is a groundbreaking, next generation system and revolutionary future software module that will drastically improve your life. No exaggerations. <<
'Ok... Can you prove that you are from the future?' The anti-virus scanner on the PC screen closed without any results.
>> Shall this system teach the user a cultivation technique? << The word cultivation appeared in colour on the mobile phone.
'Nope.' He shook his head slightly amused and opened the configuration page of his router.
>> How unusual. Please confirm. <<
The answer was pinned on the display while Ping went through the devices connected to the network on his router's overview page. Fortunately, there was no money on his mobile account and the mobile internet connection did not work.
'How about this afternoon's sports results?' he started to hunt and peck the keys.
>> Unfortunately the available technology is unsufficient. This system shall showcase pictures from the future instead. <<
The phone answered immediately as always, but Ping was still busy clicking through the configuration page, trying to understand what was going on. The USB device was not included in the connections and while he ran his finger line by line over the logs on the screen he could not see any packets to or from the mobile phone.
This was unusual because normally all kinds of background services communicated with the Internet when you haven't even touched your mobile. Was there really a machine learning algorithm at work?
The quick answers, which should be almost impossible for a human, spoke for it, but the AI beating to Go champion needed a supercomputer with more than a thousand CPUs for its performance. It was unimaginable that such an AI can be found in a tiny local mobile app without a massive database. Smart speakers don't analyse voice data in the cloud without a reason. Have you ever tried switching on a smart lamp without an internet connection? Congratulations, your apartment will stay dark.
'OK. Go for it. Maybe a picture of the future lottery numbers?' After sending the input he turned back to the PC and opened a program whose user interface seemed to have been designed in the last century. The cover picture with the robot spider above the app title screamed: script kiddie.
If the mobile phone established a connection via any other device than his router, then he would just re-route the traffic to his PC using a man-in-the-middle attack. Long live the twenties, where a few decades ago you still needed real expertise, today the magic happened all by itself if you just knew the right programs. Incidentally, it was not a hacking tool - at least his professor has emphasized this several times in the network laboratory. It was only a tool that administrators could use to find out what the evil devices, which are completely opaque from the user's point of view, are sending to the cloud.
>> For today the user have to be content with pictures from F-Town in the year 2100. <<
When Ping took his eyes off the screen, he found a series of image icons below this text.
A futuristic city, sometimes floating vehicles, sometimes humanoid robots and sometimes small drones looking like spaceships in the foreground. Good graphics was an understatement, if the pictures were part of a new Hollywood film then it was definitely worth reserving cinema tickets now.
'Is that part of a game?' asked a visibly impressed Ping, who used one hand to copy the MAC address of the mobile phone from the configuration page into his not-a-hacking tool.
The address appeared in the list on the left side of the program while the list on the right side included 'Default Gateway' - a technical term that computer scientists used to name their router, only to make the life of everyone else a little more difficult. When the mouse pointer clicks the start button, the eyes of the robot spider, which now looked like it was about to throw up, began to roll.
>> That may be an approperiate describtion. << A window poped up.
* Name: Atari Ping *
* Gender Male *
* Age: 22 years *
* Occupation: Computer science student at the University of Technology in F-Town *
Then a new text:
>> Wait. Screw this. [coll.] <<
* Name: Atari Ping *
* Level: 1 *
* Title: Stubborn guy without any results *
Was that short for colloquial language?
All the while, the text >> MAC address not found << appeared on the computer screen and Ping turned helplessly to his mobile. The images piqued his interest and honestly, who wouldn't want to play a game with ingenious AI and photorealistic images?
The personal data hack was a bit creepy and went way over the top, but like a famous one .. but like an AI said: It is too late to lock the stable door after the horse had bolted. If everything was already infected with malware, one may as well have fun with the game, right?
After he touched the display, the window with his level disappeared.
'Ok, tell me what to do and maybe where the heck you got my data from?' While he typed, the usual a spinning doughnut appeared. Then he pressed the input key of the on-screen keyboard and the answer appeared promptly.
>> The system compared your thumbprint from the USB touch sensor with the authorities' databases. << What a bold lie. Anyone who believes something like that, also believes caps lock is cruise control for the cool.
Before Ping could think about any more, the next screen appeared with a tone that only dying hedgehogs and old game consoles could make. The rotating logo of a graphics card manufacturer flew into the display and below it, in Gray and small font size >> (game starts now) <<
It was the second time within 10 minutes that Ping was speechless and couldn't do anything but breathe the air of his fellow human beings away. Then, the next text appeared on the screen.
>> Hello. Welcome to the future. << This time, not immediately as usual, but letter by letter which reminded of some retro handheld consoles games.
>> What is your name adventurer? [coll.] <<
But before Ping could tap the screen away:
>> Wait, I already know this users name. (ၜヘၜ)' <<
Then a comic animation appeared. A slide show highlighted new parts of the city that have already been shown. At the roadside were luminous 3D displays that looked like holograms from a certain sci-fi film, a picture illustrated a column or a windowless building that towered over everything else in the city and rose up into the clouds to disappear there. There was a massive platform above the city, supported by the foundation of three mega towers, connected by a magnetic levitation train. The towers roughly form the shape of a melon, which was first halved horizontally and then halved again in the same axis.