Orders below the delivery fee in 10 yuan are not accepted, and those in remote areas are not accepted, and flowers and cakes are easily damaged. Everything is customized in a few seconds, as long as an order that meets the conditions jumps out of the hall, it will be instantly collected.
What has done the above work is a batch of plug-in artifacts: Death, Raytheon and Warcraft … Ordinary consumers rarely hear of these grandiose software, but they are open secrets among take-away riders, which can help riders grab a "good order" that saves time and effort.
"Warcraft" interface (source/interviewee)
Zhejiang Xinchang Public Security Bureau recently smashed a number of plug-in black ash industries, including the "Death" plug-in. According to the news of the police on September 29, "Death" illegally made a profit of more than 170,000 yuan within six months, and the producer Lu Mou has been arrested.
Along with "Death", it is a mature industrial chain: gold owner, development, cracking, encryption, operation and maintenance, platform, drainage, agency, certificate making, and nine-tier division of labor by criminal gangs. The police arrested 39 suspects in 13 provinces across the country, and the total amount involved in the case is estimated to be more than 30 million yuan.
A person close to the case revealed to 21 reporters that the criminal gang that was smashed this time not only developed "Death", but also involved plug-ins of various apps such as freight and express delivery. The main suspect, Lu Mou, was sentenced to three years and two months in prison for providing intrusion and illegal control of computer information system programs and tools, and some distributors were also sentenced. The case is still under investigation.
Following this clue, 21 reporters found that the plug-ins of Meituan, Hungry, SF, Dada, Didi and other platforms can be seen everywhere at present. The sales entrance is hidden in the e-commerce and social media comment area, and finally leads to the WeChat private domain to complete the transaction. It can be said that similar plug-ins are emerging in various new formats.
Although the platform has repeatedly issued a warning of "life-long restriction on taking orders", the situation that there are not enough porridge has not changed, and the plug-in of grabbing orders is still repeatedly prohibited. In the eyes of the industry, this kind of excessive competition will make good orders monopolized and ordinary orders neglected. In the long run, it will inevitably affect consumers and the entire market ecology.
"Novices are still picking the list, and the veteran has already taken off."
"(Plug-ins) have been flooded for two years." Lin Yi, a rider who has worked for nearly five years, told 21 reporters.
Lin Yi first saw the plug-in artifact circulating in the industry in 2022. At that time, he was shocked and released a sharing video. This video is still commented this year: "It is in use and very stable." Dozens of people posted at the bottom: "Big Brother asks for one."
The so-called takeaway plug-in is similar to the game plug-in. Regardless of "Death", "Warcraft" or "Raytheon", the basic function is to let the rider customize the items, delivery price, pick-up distance, delivery distance and so on. As long as there is an order that meets the target in the ticket grabbing hall, the plug-in will help the rider automatically grab it, which is essentially for the order with higher unit price and easier distribution.
Li Yang works part-time as a delivery boy for two years. For crowdsourcing riders like him, the delivery fee for each order is usually 4 ~ 6 yuan. From 5: 30 pm to 11: 00 pm, Li Yang earned about 50 yuan, but after the opening, his delivery fee for one night can double to more than 200 yuan.
When chatting with reporters that day, Li Yang sent a screenshot: the delivery fee of this order was as high as 26.7 yuan, and the time was 19: 45 on October 9, which proved that it was a high-priced bill that the plug-in had just grabbed for him.
The price of plug-ins is not low. Most of them use the card renewal system, and the average price is from 200 yuan to 300 yuan every month. For example, the "Warcraft" that Li Yang has used for more than half a year is a well-known plug-in software in the current circle. The monthly card fee is 298 yuan, which is almost the income of full-time crowdsourcing riders in one day.
The reporter also joined an agent named porridge through idle fish. Porridge porridge sells "physical peripherals" different from the software. The equipment plus the first month card fee is 258 yuan, and the next month renewal fee is 238 yuan.
After adding WeChat, porridge explained that external software is less risky than built-in software, plug and play, and fool-like operation. "You can use it when you plug it into your mobile phone. You can set any order you want to run for more than how much money." In the interface of idle fish products, porridge sells: "Novices are still picking lists, and veterans have taken off."
The reporter expressed doubts and hesitation. It is obviously not the first time that porridge has encountered this situation. He quickly gave a plan to pay 58 yuan’s deposit first and then "make up the balance" after receiving the equipment. Li Yang also told reporters that there are still Tianka in 20 yuan and Zhou Ka at 128 yuan to choose from. "To be honest, you can try it for two days first, and then buy a monthly card if you think it is easy to use."
Temptation is close at hand. Porridge porridge sent its own express interface, and the latest orders were sent to Jinan, Haikou and Xining … He advised: "If it can’t be used, no one will buy it, right?" "Think about it, you can go back to your book after running for half a day."
However, not all riders need plug-ins to "run back to their homes" and "grab their jobs". Crowdsourcing riders are a high-risk area in riders’ rivers and lakes.
Special delivery and crowdsourcing are two working modes of riders: special delivery riders have their own sites, and the system automatically distributes orders without worrying about grabbing orders; Crowdsourcing riders are free and part-time. They need to grab orders in independent "Meituan Crowdsourcing" APP and "Hummingbird Crowdsourcing" APP (which belongs to Hungry) according to their own time and route, and finally get piecework wages according to the number of orders and delivery fees. The quality and quantity of grabbing tickets directly affect the income of crowdsourcing riders.
In this case, almost every crowdsourcing rider needs a set of his own "cheats" for grabbing tickets: refresh with his left hand, grab tickets with his right hand, and don’t grab tickets in crowded places … and opening plug-ins is undoubtedly the fastest cheats.
Cheating industry through train
Just when the reporter asked Li Yang to recommend the purchase method of "Warcraft", he replied: "I will take time to get it for you when you think about it. You buy the card, and I will guide you to install the software." Li Yang, frankly speaking, can get a commission from 2 yuan by selling a card for one day.
From production to distribution, plug-ins have spread out a long chain. According to Xinchang police news, the arrested external criminal gangs have nine levels: gold owner, development, cracking, encryption, operation and maintenance, platform, drainage, agency and certificate making. The plug-in of "Death" alone generated illegal income of 176,000 yuan in the five months from June to November last year.
How does this plug-in industrial chain work?
According to multiple sources, the most upstream is the technical team. Lu Mou, the developer of "Death" software, spent a month cracking the "Meituan Crowdsourcing" APP, and the tools seized were a mobile phone and a computer. Then, Lumou sold plug-ins and cards to Guo and Qin through WeChat, and developed into a primary dealer; Agents at all levels spread in the downstream, forming a network.
Through the introduction of porridge, we can roughly understand the development mode of agency. Porridge porridge claimed to be a first-hand agent for three years. The reporter said that he also wanted to sell plug-ins to make money. He quickly agreed and introduced online and offline sales methods.
Porridge porridge is recommended for newcomers to do online sales first. The start-up cost is very low, and they only need to pay the agency fee around 600 yuan. The job content is to help find customers and be responsible for after-sales installation. "I’ll tell you how to install it, and you don’t have to stock up in advance. If you need it, just come to me and I’ll deliver it directly to the address."
As an agent, you can increase the price at will and make a profit by earning the difference. Pricing is generally 150% of the original price, and at most some peers sell it to 200%. "It depends on how you sell it yourself."
It is not difficult to imagine that this low-input, high-return model not only attracts professional agents, but also attracts riders like Li Yang to sell part-time. With "grabbing orders" and "artifacts" as the key words, you can find many goods with 1 yuan prices on the e-commerce platform, or hide them in the comment area of social media. Agents will ask for private contact, and eventually lead them to WeChat to complete private domain transactions.
As for how to find the source of goods and how to do offline sales in the later period, porridge vaguely said: "I can’t tell you too well at present, just follow my footsteps." According to information from Xinchang police, salespeople will post business cards and advertisements offline for selling and even forge documents. The reporter also saw in the circle of friends that there was a one-stop cheating service to help take-away riders make fake "health certificates".
External below-the-line List (Source/Xinchang Police)
Deng Lin, a lawyer of Sichuan Yangjihua Law Firm, told 21 reporters that the plug-in function is relatively simple, the traffic is not large, and there are not many developers, so it can be called profitable, so it is easy to operate industrially.
Deng Lin worked as a technology developer in a technology company. He explained that the underlying algorithms of large platforms such as Meituan and Hungry are generally not updated at will. If the cracked software is updated, as long as the core logic is mastered, the plug-in and the original software can be updated together. It can be said that after the plug-in software is cracked for the first time, there is basically no need to worry about other expenses.
The possible costs mainly come from servers and development and operation: in terms of servers, many black-and-gray enterprises entrust servers to overseas cloud service providers, and the cost can be as low as several hundred yuan a year; The workload of operation and maintenance is also small, usually maintaining user information and calculating the expiration time of the card secret.
Chen Yexuan, a network security expert, also said that it is not difficult to develop plug-in software, but it does not require a large-scale technical team, and it is usually done by a small group of one or several people. Mainly through the distribution, let the downstream solve the sales and after-sales problems.
Once industrialization is realized, the situation is that although distributors seem to be everywhere on the Internet, law enforcement departments need to investigate and trace the source to effectively crack down on plug-in industries. Chen Yexuan pointed out that it is difficult to completely shut down plug-ins only by cracking down on downstream sellers, and it is difficult to make a comeback by replacing sales channels and products.
one’s religious attainments are always challenged by greater evil influence; the greater one’s achievements/accomplishments, the greater the obstacles; justice will eventually prevail over evil
How the plug-in software such as "Death" and "Warcraft" grab the order requires more detailed judicial expertise. However, Deng Lin analyzed that it is nothing more than reading and modifying the order framework of software such as "Crowdsourcing by Meituan" and "Crowdsourcing by Hummingbirds"-the code of platform-based APP is generally strictly encrypted, and the data can be obtained only by cracking the encryption algorithm plug-in, which is a typical illegal data acquisition behavior.
From a legal point of view, China’s criminal law has already restricted such behavior. Article 285 of the Criminal Law stipulates that anyone who, in violation of state regulations, invades computer information systems in state affairs, national defense construction and cutting-edge science and technology shall be sentenced to fixed-term imprisonment of not more than three years or criminal detention.
People close to the case revealed that three producers and distributors of "Death" have been sentenced. Xinchang County Court sentenced Lu to three years and two months’ imprisonment and fined 180,000 yuan for the crime of providing intrusion and illegal control of computer information system programs and tools.
Deng Lin mentioned that in reality, with the improvement of the technical cognition level of public security inspection law, the intensity of cracking down on the crime of invading computer information system is obviously increasing. There are more than 2,200 "plug-ins" of criminal judgment found by reporters in China Judgment Document Network.
"The legal interest protected by this crime is the security of computer information systems. Before making plug-ins, almost all of them were organized crimes, and often there was a clear division of labor, such as technicians, salespeople, game studios and other roles. The most accident-prone link is the use of plug-in game studios, because they have a greater destructive impact on the game environment and are easily sued by operators. " Deng Lin said.
Therefore, in Deng Lin’s view, the plug-in in the takeaway industry is "not a new problem", but only changes the application scenario of the game. However, he also admitted that with the upgrade of the overall plug-in technology, the problem is becoming more and more complicated.
In addition to software plug-ins, such as Death, 21 reporters found that two types of plug-ins are also popular in the market: key wizard and plug-in plug-ins. The former simulates human’s manual operation, and the interviewees all point out that this is the earliest plug-in, which often does not invade the software process, and the cheating advantage that users can get is not great.
The tricky plug-in technology is the latter. The agent of porridge is the plug-in plug-in. He said that the built-in software like Death is risky and he "doesn’t touch the software". On the other hand, plug-in plug-in, "without changing the software package, the platform can’t monitor it", so "this one has been sold for several years and is the largest physical (plug-in) now".
Devices and interfaces of plug-in peripherals (source/interviewee)
"It does have a benefit, that is, it is more resistant to platform detection. Because the plug-in plug-in is embedded in the mobile phone, based on the interactive communication at the bottom of the mobile phone system, the elements on the mobile phone interface are controlled, thus completing the automatic operation. " Deng Lin analyzed in a more popular language. In fact, the plug-in is still modifying and reading data, but this process is completed on a separate device, which is equivalent to connecting a computer, so it is more difficult for the platform to detect changes at the system level.
The challenges caused involve all aspects of governance. On the one hand, the plug-in technology is becoming more and more professional and concealed, and it is difficult for public security organs to investigate and prove, so it is necessary to make more professional technical appraisal of the plug-in program; In addition, how to convict after being arrested is also controversial. Deng Lin pointed out that the core criterion of Article 285 of the Criminal Law is whether there is a breakthrough in system security protection measures to obtain or tamper with the corresponding data. Not all "plug-in" technologies meet the criteria for conviction. For example, the plug-in of AI combined with key wizard upgraded in recent years, if strictly speaking, does not directly tamper with or invade data, but it does destroy the market ecology. What Deng Lin is worried about is that the legal provisions are lagging behind and may not be able to adapt to the increasingly complex plug-in forms and illegal scenes.
Excessive competition breeds "plug-in"
"However, criminal punishment is only a way. Open plug-ins generally face civil or administrative penalties. For example, the platform will introduce its own rules of violation." Deng Lin said.
From September to October, 2023, Meituan’s plug-in warning announcement showed that the system detected a total of 4,957 riders using plug-in or cheating software, all of which permanently restricted order registration. In April this year, the US Mission once again issued a warning that "one plug-in will limit orders for life", and the platform will be monitored around the clock for 7*24 hours. Once the rider is monitored for plug-in, the whole platform will be banned for life and no complaints will be allowed.
Below the red line, plug-in is already a high-risk path. Under the list of plug-in titles recently published by WeChat official account, the US Mission, many riders commented on the establishment of a reward mechanism for reporting. When 21 reporters interviewed riders, most riders who were willing to talk about plug-ins were careful in wording, emphasizing that they had only seen friends use them for fear of getting into trouble and ruining their careers.
However, there are still many riders who will choose to take risks, behind which is the status quo of the industry.
Li Yang said that he was "entangled for a long time" before using the plug-in, but for his part-time job, the order with an average delivery fee of 4.5 yuan was "not enough for the fare". Li Yang is not the only rider in a similar situation. According to the financial report of Meituan, from 2020 to 2022, the number of riders in Meituan was 4.7 million, 5.27 million and 6.24 million respectively, and this number soared to 7.45 million last year. Hungry? The rider’s rights report shows that there were more than 4 million active riders last year, that is, at least nearly 12 million riders competed on the road in China.
Many riders feel that there are too many people and too few orders. The front page of the ticket-grabbing hall is often a white screen, jumping out of new orders, and seconds are empty before you see it clearly. "I feel that there are plug-ins everywhere, and we can’t even drink soup." There are complaints from crowdsourcing riders.
The pressure of excessive competition does not only appear in the take-away industry. In March 2023, the survey data of the ninth national survey of the workforce of the All-China Federation of Trade Unions showed that there were 84 million workers with new employment forms in China, including truck drivers, network car drivers, couriers and take-away distributors, accounting for 21% of the total number of employees. Agents like porridge also operate plug-ins of Lala, Shunfeng City and Dada Platform, and promote "providing 24-hour online service and answering questions."
Advertising of plug-in agents (source/interviewee)
"Plug-ins are repeatedly banned, mainly because they are profit-driven and have universal needs, and the platform itself cannot meet such needs." Chen Yexuan told reporters that the high-speed rail ticketing was also full of scalper plug-ins, but when 12306 officially cooperated with Ctrip and Feizhu third-party compliance software to directly provide functions such as booking tickets, the plug-ins gradually lost their living space. In his view, governance should start from the demand side.
Chen Yexuan reminded that the unfair competition brought by plug-ins has concentrated the advantages on a few people, which undoubtedly harms the interests of others who abide by the rules. However, this kind of unfair competition exists for a long time, which easily leads to that only good orders get good service, good orders are monopolized, and general orders are discriminated against by services, and the negative impact will eventually be transmitted to the whole market. (Li Yang, Lin Yi, porridge is a pseudonym)
