TALLINN, ESTONIA—With the private data of national governments and entire global industries at his fingertips, sources confirmed this morning that yet another day had begun with the whole world helplessly at the mercy of 19-year-old Estonian computer hacker Jüri Pevkur.
According to reports, as trillions of dollars in financial transactions, thousands of classified military documents, and countless terabytes of personal data are electronically transmitted throughout the course of the day, they will once again be susceptible to viewing and manipulation by the Tallinn University undergraduate, who is presently lying in bed browsing online dating profiles on his iPhone.
“I’m happy to announce we’ve finalized a deal to invest £330 million in several startups with significant growth potential,” London-based hedge fund manager Charles Amos said during a morning meeting, apparently unaware that, should Pevkur abandon his plans to spend the afternoon playing Call Of Duty: Advanced Warfare on his Xbox One, the Eastern European coder could easily infiltrate the firm’s private servers and reroute pending monetary transfers to any account of his choosing, just as he can with literally billions of other digital payments taking place across the globe. “The funds will be wired by the close of business today.”
“Our strategy will be to inject large sums of capital to build their market value over the next 18 months,” continued Amos, as his company’s massive investment—and indeed, the entire global economy—hinged on the whims of a college freshman who has the capability to quickly build a malware program that alters just a few decimal places in a bank’s database, thereby crashing financial markets in a manner that is completely untraceable by authorities. “We expect to see double-digit returns on this equity by Q4 of 2016.”
The young man currently sitting in a darkened bedroom eating a microwavable French bread pizza for breakfast and listening to electronic dance music is, by simple virtue of his computing prowess, considered to be one of the most powerful individuals on earth.
Early reports indicate the world’s populace is simply going about its day as usual, at all times an estimated 45 minutes away from being brought to its knees by a teenager who belongs to such online forums as 4chan and Dark0de, goes by the username king_mog, and uses the character Vegeta from the Japanese anime series Dragon Ball Z as his avatar. The well-versed programmer, who reportedly drank two Red Bulls this morning after staying up until 2 a.m. watching torrented episodes of Top Gear, could, if the mood strikes him, effortlessly bring any nation’s communication systems, electrical grids, or air traffic control systems under his command.
Although he is now reportedly watching YouTube soccer highlights in his underwear and will later leave for his 11:30 a.m. calculus class, sources said Pevkur could at any moment decide to use his knowledge of rootkits and data decryption to wirelessly break into the cell phones of high-ranking government officials, business executives, international celebrities, or whomever he chooses, really. Earlier this morning, he is said to have hacked into a classified U.S. military server for no reason other than being bored, nearly accessing sensitive information that if revealed could conceivably precipitate an international war, and stopping only when he remembered he had to pick up some laundry he left in a dryer downstairs the night before.
The young man currently sitting in a darkened bedroom eating a microwavable French bread pizza for breakfast and listening to electronic dance music is, by simple virtue of his computing prowess, considered to be one of the most powerful individuals on earth.
“Oh, I like that one—I think I’ll get it,” 62-year-old receptionist Angela Hoffman of St. Cloud, MN said while browsing online retailer Amazon.com, seemingly oblivious to the fact that, like virtually every other person on the planet, her home address, phone number, passwords, emails, text messages, photographs, credit card information, medical records, and savings accounts are all accessible to a 2014 high school graduate some 4,300 miles away. “That’s a really good deal. And there’s free shipping.”
“Maybe I should get two,” added Hoffman, whose entire life could come crumbling down at any time with just a few keystrokes from Pevkur, provided he and his three roommates remember to chip in enough money to pay their internet bill.
At press time, Pevkur was finishing several lines of source code on his laptop before starting a homework assignment due tomorrow, totally unaware his computer had just been infiltrated by a 13-year-old student from South Korea.