53. Duon Forty One
The next day, Sunday morning.
I headed to the Yunseong Soft office alone.
This is because Incheol now goes to church every Sunday.
Incheol was recently baptized, and his baptismal name is Michael.
In fact, the reason Incheol started going to church is because of the author, but it seems that he had his own reasons for even being baptized.
As soon as I knocked on the door of Yunseong Soft’s office, Yun Seok-yi, who looked bubbly, opened the door.
This is actually an office, and it was also used as Yoon-seok-hyung’s living room.
“Brother, I’m sorry. Did I come too early?”
“no no. What time is it, early? I wasn’t sleeping, I was just lying down and resting.”
I went into the office, turned on the computer, and started working.
It was the work that In-cheol left yesterday.
Four months ago, Yunseong Soft officially launched a program called V-Stop.
It was named V-Stop for short, Virus Stop, and as expected, it is a program that fights viruses and malicious codes.
V-Stop is currently installed on over 12,000 computers in 40 universities including Korea University, and it plays a role in searching for new virus information as well as removing existing computer viruses.
There are several codes that specify viruses and malicious codes, the most representative example… .
There are code that accesses the boot sector of a hard drive or the kernel area of memory, code that automatically changes executable files such as COM or EXE, and code that sends specific information over the network.
When such a code is found, V-Stop sends the searched code information to Yunseong Soft’s server, and it is Incheol’s job to check the code data sent to the server in this way.
I opened the folder Incheol worked in until yesterday, and started to check the files stored there.
I was able to increase work efficiency thanks to the filtering program Incheol made, but the code information involved in the filtering is a simple task that I have to check myself in the end.
While checking the strings in the file one by one, I found a program code with a slightly unusual record.
It is clear that it is a type of malicious code that steals computer information, but the type of information stolen was strange.
It was not personal information or an encrypted keyboard input string, but a code that sent a document containing a rather meaningless string over the network.
It is probably a malicious code targeting a specific person, but one more strange thing was the time at which the code information entered the Yunseong Soft server.
The file was created at 16:23 on September 1.
However, the time the file was received on the server was 06:23 on September 2.
It’s been delayed by 14 hours, and it’s one of them.
Either the Internet was cut off for 14 hours after the file was created, or the file was created in a place with a 14 hour time difference from Korea.
However, considering that the delay is exactly 14 hours, this is most likely a jet lag.
It’s summer, daylight saving time in the central United States is exactly 14 hours away from Seoul.
For reference, the Korean version of V-Stop is only available.
I smiled and said to Yunseok-hyung.
“Hyung, did you even send it to Major V-Stop’s sister?”
“… .”
I looked at Yoon Seok-hyung, and he looked like he was concentrating on his work with his eyes fixed on the monitor.
After a while, he turned his head to me and said.
“sorry! What did you just say?”
“I thought I sent a V-Stop to my major sister.”
“Oh, right! How did you know that?”
“New malicious code information has arrived from my sister’s computer.”
“really? But how did you know it was the Major’s computer? I wouldn’t even get user information… .”
“The difference between the time the code information file was created and the time it entered the server is exactly the same as the time difference between Texas and Korea. There’s only one person in Texas who can use the V-Stop program.”
“haha–! I heard it and it is But what kind of malicious code was on the Major-senpai’s computer?”
“I do not know. I’m looking through the code right now… This is not to steal personal information, nor is it a code that leads to other sites.”
“okay?”
“Yeah, I think it’s just sending certain file information somewhere… It doesn’t look like malware, and it’s a bit strange.”
“Isn’t that a program created by the university there? The US is strict about using pirated programs. So when a school or company installs a licensed program on employees’ computers, an algorithm that checks the employee’s name and company number must be installed.”
I nodded my head at Yoon Seok-hyung’s explanation.
“It really could be.”
“By the way, it’s lunch time, let’s go out and eat. I’ll buy you something delicious.”
“yes! like.”
Arriving at the restaurant, my brother ordered kimchi stew, and I ordered beef bulgogi rice bowl.
“Do you still have taste?”
“haha! Yes.”
I poured water into a cup and handed it to my brother and continued.
“Hyung, it looks like you were editing images in the office earlier, did you use a scanner?”
In 1997, high-definition image scanners were just beginning to spread.
At my question, my brother smiled and said.
“That’s right, I used something from a senior company I knew, and the quality was really good.”
“By the way, looking at hyung’s work, it seems like there are a lot of photos of children, what kind of photos are they all about?”
“ah… it? I asked my acquaintances to get some pictures of them when they were young.”
Perhaps he noticed my curious expression, Yunseok-hyung smiled and continued.
“I’m working on a program that predicts how children’s faces will change as they become adults.”
My brother’s explanation made me even more curious.
“Why are you making a face prediction program?”
In response to my question, Yoon Seok-yi hyung said with a bitter smile.
“It’s just, there’s something about it.”
Because of his darkened expression, I didn’t ask any more.
However, judging from his brother who was absorbed in the work all morning, I could guess that this work was very important to him.
Maybe I can be of any help?
Suddenly, I remembered what happened at Youngmi’s house last week.
Looking at Youngmi’s childhood photos hanging on the wall, I saw how Youngmi’s face has changed over the past nine years.
By the way, when I entered middle school, most of the children of our grade southwest elementary school were assigned to the southwest middle school.
In other words, I have face information of over 600 children in my head.
6 years of elementary school and 3 years of middle school, for a total of 9 years, the faces of these children changing are still intact.
We returned to the office after lunch, and around 2pm, I was able to finish all of Incheol’s work.
I said to Yunseok hyung.
“Hyung, I have finished organizing all the data submitted to the server.”
“Five! thank you.”
“I don’t have anything to do right now, can you tell me about the image work you’re doing?”
“this? A face prediction program?”
“yes.”
“haha–! This is not a program to be commercialized, it is just a hobby.”
I put my hands together and said with a pleading expression.
“brother—! please tell me I also want to learn image programming.”
“haha! So, would you like to come over with a chair? I don’t have anything special yet… I don’t know if there’s anything I can learn, but I’ll explain it first.”
Yoon-seok-hyung was right in saying that there was nothing special about it.
It was a recently started work, and there wasn’t even an algorithm for retouching facial images.
By arranging the images collected so far by time, it was just a simple summary of the facial features.
However, through this program, I could clearly see what Yoon Seok-yi hyung was trying to do.
And the appearance of Yoon Seok-yi hyung giving an explanation… Obviously this isn’t just a hobby.
The next day, Monday.
After returning home from self-study at night, I opened the refrigerator first.
I was so exhausted that I was about to collapse.
Mother said as she took out her lunch box and put it in the sink.
“Jeong-ho, are you hungry?”
“yes. I’m just going to eat something light before I go to bed.”
My mother laughed at my words.
“Then don’t do that, go and wash up. Mom will make you a new meal. My son, are you trying to grow taller these days? The amount I eat has increased significantly.”
I smiled and nodded my head when my mother said that she would cook me a new meal, but in fact, the amount I ate didn’t increase just to get taller.
Today at school, I sat down and did something all day.
It was to find the images of the children in my head, sort the images in chronological order, and then quickly flip them over again to organize the face-changing patterns, which consumed a lot of energy.
Besides the two lunch boxes that my mother packed, I went to the canteen only 4 times at school.
This means that you ate food at every break.
When four days passed and Friday came, the task of checking the facial images of a total of 629 children was completed.
From the age of 8, the first year of elementary school, to the age of 16, the third year of middle school, we identified a common pattern of changing human faces, and meticulously organized these patterns along with face drawings on three sheets of paper.
Saturday.
Yunseong Soft Office.
“The most important thing is how children’s body shapes change.”
At my words, Yunseok-hyung asked.
“You say your face depends on your body type?”
“Yes, first of all, it can be divided into cases of gaining weight, cases of losing weight, and cases of maintaining the original body shape.”
Yoon Seok-yi hyung nodded at my words, and I continued explaining.
“If the body shape is maintained, the bridge of the nose comes back little by little, and it starts after age 15. And it was around the age of 14 that the jaw line became sharper as the breasts fell out of the cheeks.”
“What if I lose weight?”
“In that case, the biggest characteristic is that the eyes get a little bigger, and the area around the cheekbones seems to stand out. Breast loss starts a little earlier, but I think it depends on how much weight you lose.”
Yoon Seok-yi hyung nodded at my words and said.
“How about your eyes? Looking at the photos I have, it seems that the eyes have hardly changed… .”
“Right. The eyes never change. It is true that when you lose weight, your impression gets stronger as your eyes grow bigger, but your eyes don’t change.”
Yoon Seok-yi hyung nodded at my words, and I continued.
“And I found one interesting thing, because in the case of boys, their hair sometimes turns into curly.”
At my words, Yoon-seok-hyung pointed to his head and said.
“like me?”
“yes. haha!”
“I also had straight hair when I was young, but it has changed to curly since middle school.”
I nodded and said.
“Anyway, when I change my hair to curly like hyung, the forehead tends to get a little narrower and the lips tend to get thicker. And compared to other kids, I don’t think my chin grows much. When I was young, I kept my round face.”
Yoon Seok-yi hyung nodded, and I handed him three pieces of organized paper and said:
“And the important things are roughly summarized here.”
The older brother looked at the paper and opened his mouth with a surprised expression.
“Wow—! What is all this!”
My brother raised his head and looked at me and continued talking.
“Jungho, this… How did you find them all?”
“I just organized it while looking at the school album.”
Yoon Seok-yi hyung looked at the paper I brought again and said.
“Hmm… But how do we make this with a computer algorithm?”
“Right. I thought programming the image would be very complicated.”
In a moment, In-cheol, who was working at the desk across from him, stretched out and said.
“OMG! done.”
In-cheol got up from his seat and came to Yoon-seok’s desk, glanced at the papers I had organized and said,
“Boss, you’ve been preparing for this for a long time, right? Missing child search program!”
ah… ! Was this a missing child program?
At In-cheol’s words, Yun-seok-yi hyung smiled without saying a word, and In-seok held out his hand to Yun-seok-hyung and said,
“Show me that too.”
In-cheol, who was carefully examining the paper handed to him by Yoon-seok’s brother, opened his mouth with a confused expression.
“You don’t think this will be too difficult? Boss, shall I program this once?”