Chapter 962 Do You Regret It?

It takes a genius to remember the address of this website in one second: [ ] Fastest update! No ads!

Soon, Xinlang Marketing Director contacted the founder of winzip: Philip Katz through Lisa Online.

I wouldn’t know it without contacting him, but after contacting him I found out that Philip Katz was actually a hacker.

A well-known hacker in the United States. However, what they do is different from traditional hackers.

Traditional hackers show off their skills by overcoming the US military's defense systems.

But this hacker is not like that.

He was originally a programmer and a self-taught hacker. His usual hobby was to dig out various vulnerabilities, but he did not use it to make money. It's purely a personal hobby.

This is just like ordinary people who like to play "Honor of Kings" after get off work, watch "Rebirth of the Demon Life", or go traveling.

This is purely a personal preference. Philip Katz's hobby is digging for holes.

And he discovered the most outrageous thing. That is data compression technology, all in the hands of big companies, such as IBM.

You know, hard drive space is very small nowadays, which forces users to spend a high price to buy a hard drive with larger space.

Often, those large companies have very mature data compression technologies that can achieve ultra-high compression ratios.

Philip Katz was very angry about this kind of thing.

Especially in the DOS era, that is, in 1988 AD, the Internet had just begun to take shape, and the most popular one was to use a telephone line to dial up to log in to a service platform built by others at home - an electronic bulletin board for exchanging information. (BBS) system.

This system is somewhat similar to today's forums and news groups. Because webmasters forward letters to each other, it has become a huge information network (Huiduo Network).

In the era before Qin Feng introduced cable modem technology to China, there were dozens of such BBSs in China. Qiu Bojun, the author of the famous word processing software WPS, and Zhu Chongjun, the author of CCED, were both very famous individuals at that time. Webmaster. This method can not only transmit text information, but also allow users to upload files to the site's computers for other users to download. Due to the pitifully slow phone line access speeds, transferring large files through the BBS was a real pain.

Therefore, using file compression technology to reduce the size of files and compress multiple files into one package has become a skill that BBS users must master. On the American BBS at that time, a compression technology called ARC was more popular. Since it was a compression technology developed by a commercial company, you need to pay to use this software to work.

Many people don't have that much money. Therefore, the only option is to transfer slowly.

At that time, Philip Katz was a young boy who was addicted to BBS. Because he often hung out on BBS, he was very dissatisfied with the charges of ARC. He developed a program called PKARC. This program was fully compatible with ARC and could compress Unzip ARC files. As a result, a large number of ARC users naturally turned to Philip Katz's free software.

The production company of ARC took Philip Katz to court in anger, and the court naturally ruled that Philip Katz was prohibited from continuing to develop and disseminate PKARC. This verdict did not dampen Philip Katz's fighting spirit, but rather aroused his determination to fight ARC to the end. In the virtual world, freedom and equality are always the permanent pursuit of real programmers. He gave up the development of PKARC and vowed to write a better compression software than ARC to defeat ARC. This lawsuit led to the emergence of a programming genius, and also created a document standard in the Internet era. A few weeks later, the ZIP format that later dominated the entire BBS world and even the world made its first loud cry in the hands of Philip Katz!

This was the birth of the zip format later.

Naturally, with the birth of the zip format, the ARC company quickly disappeared. After all, there is only one paid software, and a company with such a single charging model will naturally not be able to operate for a long time.

However, Philip Katz also suffered retaliation and was fired from his software company. The reason is unknown. However, some people in the industry speculated that it was probably ARC.

After all, Philip Katz was the first person in the world to defeat a company with a piece of software.

This kind of deprivation of people's wealth is like killing one's parents, and it is natural for people to take revenge.

After losing his job, Philip Katz also tried to find a job. But unfortunately, no company was willing to hire him. Therefore, he makes a living by doing odd jobs and writing a little code for others.

This kind of pressure in life, as well as the huge pressure brought by the constant updates of winzip, made him suffer from alcoholism!

Once you become addicted to alcohol, your income becomes even more difficult.

This is also the reason why Philip Katz sold 35% of his shares so easily when Jiang Yong contacted him. As for the cost, it's very little.

Jiang Yong only spent tens of thousands of dollars to obtain 35% of the equity.

After all, this itself is a free software, and Philip Katz did not receive a penny of benefits before this. At the same time, he also got into huge trouble, causing him to live in poverty.

Tens of thousands of dollars is already a lot of money to him.

As for whether he regrets it, for Philip Katz, this question is too cruel.

He created winzip with passion and a spirit of sharing the Internet without seeking fame or fortune. However, it caused trouble and made him impoverished, which he did not expect.

To ask him if he regrets it would be too cruel a question.

"Mr. Wang, I did contact the owner, but the problem is that he is dead!" the marketing director said.

"What? Dead?" Wang Zhidong was stunned, "How did you die?"

"Died at home, with a wine bottle in his hand when he died. The news coming from over there seems to be that he died of alcohol overdose!" said the technical director.

Wang Zhidong frowned. Wait, now that he's dead, don't we no longer have to pay him?

"It depends on the other party's will. If there is no will, then it depends on whether there are family members. So, Mr. Wang, we need to send someone to the United States immediately to contact his family." The legal consultant said, "With the authorization of the family, we may even Be anti-customer!”

"Yes! Hurry, leave for the United States!" Wang Zhidong stood up immediately and went to the United States!

At this moment, Qin Feng also learned the news.

"Dead? Why did he die suddenly!" Qin Feng was surprised.

"It's alcoholism! But I don't know the details yet. I'm going to the United States to attend his funeral!" Jiang Yong said.

"Well, I'll go with you! Such a person deserves respect!" Qin Feng nodded.

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