Soon, the marketing director of Xinlang contacted Philip Katz, the founder of winzip, through Lisa online.


    I don''t know. I didn''t know until I contacted him. It turned out that Philip Katz was actually a hacker.


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


    Traditional hackers show off their technology by conquering the U.S. defense system.


    The hacker is not.


    He was originally a programmer, but also a self-taught hacker. His usual hobby is to dig all kinds of loopholes, but he doesn''t make a profit. A purely personal interest.


    It''s just like that ordinary people like to play the glory of the king, read novels such as the life of reborn demons, or travel after work.


    This is purely a personal hobby. Philip Katz''s hobby is to dig holes.


    And he found one of the most angry things. That is data compression technology, all in the hands of large companies, such as IBM.


    You know, today''s hard disk space is very small, which forces users to spend a high price to buy a hard disk with a larger space.


    Often, those large companies have very mature data compression technology, which can achieve ultra-high compression ratio.


    Philip Katz was angry about this.


    In particular, in the DOS era, that is, in 1988, the Internet had just begun to take shape, and the most popular was an electronic bulletin board (BBS) system for exchanging information, which used telephone line dialing to log in to the service platform built by others at home.


    This system is somewhat similar to the current forum and newsgroup. Due to the mutual transfer of messages between webmasters, it has also become a huge information network (Huiduo network).


    In the Internet era when Qin Feng did not introduce cable modem technology into China, there were dozens of such BBS in China. Qiu Bojun, the author of the famous word processing software WPS, and Zhu chongjun, the author of CCed, were very famous personal webmasters. This method can not only transfer text information, but also upload files to the computer of the site for other users to download. Due to the poor access speed of the telephone line, transmitting large files through BBS is really a painful thing.


    Therefore, using file compression technology to reduce the volume of files and compress multiple files into one packet has become a skill that BBS users must master. At that time, a popular compression technology on American BBS was called arc. Because it was a compression technology developed by a commercial company, you need to pay for using this software.


    Many people don''t have that much money. Therefore, you can only choose to transmit slowly.


    At that time, Philip Katz was a young man addicted to BBS. Because he often wandered on BBS, he was very dissatisfied with the charge of arc. He developed a program called pkarc, which is fully compatible with arc and can compress and decompress arc files. As a result, a large number of arc users naturally turn to Philip Katz''s free software.


    Arc''s production company angrily took Philip Katz to court, and the court naturally ruled that Philip Katz prohibited the continued development and dissemination of pkarc. This judgment did not destroy Philip Katz''s fighting spirit, but 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 not only created the birth of a programming genius, but also created a file standard later in the Internet era. A few weeks later, the ZIP format that later ruled the whole BBS world and even the Internet world made the first loud cry in Philip Katz''s hands!


    This is the birth of ZIP format later. Naturally, with the birth of ZIP format, arc company soon disappeared. After all, there is only one charging software, so a company with such a single charging mode can not operate for a long time.


    However, Philip Katz was also retaliated. He was fired from his software company. As for the reason, it is unknown. However, some people in the industry speculate that arc may have done it.


    After all, Philip Katz is the first person in the world to rely on a software to defeat a company.


    This kind of cutting off people''s financial resources is like killing their parents. In fact, it is natural for others to retaliate.


    Philip Katz, who lost his job, also tried to find a job. But unfortunately, no company is willing to hire him. Therefore, he makes a living by doing odd jobs and helping people write some code.


    This kind of pressure in life, as well as the great pressure brought by the continuous update of winzip, makes it suffer from alcoholism!


    Once drunk, the income will be even more embarrassed.


    This is also the reason why Philip Katz sold his 35% stake so easily when Jiang Yong contacted Philip Katz. As for the cost, very little.


    Jiang Yong only spent tens of thousands of dollars to acquire a 35% stake.


    After all, this itself is a free software. Philip Katz didn''t get a penny before. At the same time, he also got into great trouble, leading to his poor life.


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


    As for whether to regret, this question is too cruel for Philip Katz.


    He created winzip without seeking fame and wealth by virtue of his blood and the spirit of sharing with the Internet, but he didn''t expect to get into trouble and make himself poor.


    It would be cruel to ask him whether he regretted it or not.


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


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


    "He died at home with a wine bottle in his hand. The news over there seems to be that he died of excessive drinking! " The technical director said.


    Wang Zhidong frowned. Wait, he''s dead. Don''t we have to pay?


    "It depends on the will of the other party. If there is no will, it depends on whether there is a family. Therefore, Mr. Wang, we need to send someone to the United States immediately to contact his family. " The legal adviser said, "if we are authorized by our family, we may even turn away from the guest!"


    "Yes! Come on, set out for America! " Wang Zhidong immediately got up and went to the United States!


    At the moment, Qin Feng also learned the news.


    "Dead? How could he suddenly die! " Qin Feng was surprised.


    "Say it''s alcoholism! But the details are not known. I''m going to America to attend his funeral! " Jiang Yong said.


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