8 Deal with Facebook and Future plans
After a few days, it was finally time for the meeting with the group from Facebook, and having provided with all the expenses, Aron and Felix didn't fret about anything and were now in the venue that was planned for the meeting to take place.
The atmosphere in the meeting room was tense as the group of eight sat in their respective positions, with each side almost mirroring the other.
On one side of the long conference table sat Aron, accompanied by his friend and lawyer Felix with a laptop in front of him displaying a folder labelled as "Sensitive Information" on the screen, and a USB flash drive inserted in the computer.
On the opposite side sat six individuals, including Roxana, the head of security at Facebook, along with five other people, three among which were lawyers and the other two were from the security department of the Facebook site.
Aron fidgeted in his seat, his eyes darting nervously from the screen to the faces of the people sitting across from him, as both sides prepared to engage in a high-stakes discussion and negotiation.
The still atmosphere in the silent room was broken by the sound of shuffling papers and clearing throats as the meeting began while Aron braced himself for what was to come.
Taking a deep breath, Aron steadied himself while preparing to share his findings with the group. This was going to be a long day.
'This is going to take a while,' Aron sighed, focusing on presenting them with an example and after the agreement of the payment was done, he would give them the rest.
"Here are a few new examples of your system's vulnerabilities," he said, projecting his screen onto the wall using the provided projector.
"Mr Aron, we have already tested the ones you sent to us last time, so there is no need to explain to us more. Just tell us how many vulnerabilities you have found," Roxana interjected just when Aron was about to start displaying a few more examples.
'That works even better for me, as it reduces my stress trying to explain things in front of so many big people,' Aron immediately agreed to answer her question.
"Currently, I have identified more than 1700 vulnerabilities in your system," Aron answered plainly, however, the number made all the six people on the opposite side of the table look at them with shock.
"Oh my god!" Roxana muttered under her breath after hearing Aron's answer.
She had expected that the number might range between ten or more since he had already sent three of them as samples, but with what she heard just now, it meant that the number was way more than what she would have ever thought of even in her wildest imaginations. However, Aron couldn't care about that and continued with his explanation.
"In that total number, there are about 50 critical-level, 150 high-level, 500 medium-level, and over 1000 low-level vulnerabilities," he addressed his findings calmly.
When the Facebook security team heard that the total number of critical and high-level vulnerabilities had already crossed the number of over 200, they had already realized that they would need to almost overhaul their entire system to address these weaknesses and it would for sure take a very long time but that was not all as it would also require a large amount of money.
From a simple fast calculation, Roxana determined that they would need to invest almost 250 million, moreover, it would also take months to finish this task since most of these vulnerabilities were new and they would have to invent the solutions by themselves.
Just when Roxana was about to fall into despair, a light of hope was offered to them by Aron, as he said, "I also have their solution, however, I can only provide them to you if my compensation is doubled and those fees will be negotiated with my lawyer here," while pointing at Felix.
A sense of relief washed over Roxana after she heard those words from Aron, she had already considered hiring him into his team but she also understood why would someone want to work for someone when he could earn more by simply working alone.
What followed next was the negotiation part, which was between Felix and the three Facebook lawyers. And every lawyer would want to get the best deal for his client, as their payment depends on how much they win or how much they were able to save for their clients.
This back and forth conversation continued for two days until they finally agreed on the price. Though they couldn't come to an agreement when it came to some of the NDA clauses. Ultimately, they managed to come to terms and signed an agreement.
It was agreed that Aron's payment will be $ 69 million after deducting all the taxes and lawyer fees. Although his friend initially denied an offer of being paid $ 10 million stating that he didn't do much, however, after a small discussion with Aron, he ended up agreeing to take $ 5 million as a fee.
Although this amount might seem low when compared to what Aron had earned, it was important to know that usually, the amount the lawyers would get from such types of deals was only about $ 1 million. Moreover, it also had to be noted that this was Felix's second official case since his graduation, making him the highest-paid rookie lawyer in America, or so it seemed.
….
Upon returning back to his home, Aron asked his parents if he wanted to have a talk with them.
In the living room.
"You remember when I said that I have a meeting with Facebook?" Aron began sitting in front of them.
"Yes, so how did it go? Did you get the job?" asked his mother, Rose, who was filled with enthusiasm.
"No, I wasn't there for a job meeting. I was there because I found some weaknesses in their app and went to meet them to talk about payment issues," Aron explained at a simpler level so that his parents could understand.
"So did they agree to pay you?" asked his father, Michael, skeptical that they would willingly want to compensate his son.
"Yes, they agreed to pay me. We have already signed a contract and they will forward the payment invoice by tomorrow," Aron stopped to take a breath and continued.
"So, now that the money is enough, I wanted to ask you if you want to move to a new house," Aron asked, waiting for the answer from his parents.
His mother was filled with joy, hearing his question, but asked instead, "Don't you need that money for yourself? Why would you want to buy a house immediately?"
"Mom, you don't have to worry about the money not being enough, they have paid me enough to buy a house and much more," Aron reassured.
"Then perhaps you should use that money to start a business or something. You will need a source of income after this money runs out," however, his mother continued being against it, while his father nodded in agreement with her.
"Mom, they have paid me more than $ 5 million, so you don't have to worry about money shortage for a period of time," Aron countered, deciding to downplay the amount given to him or else they would think he was being scammed, lest they take him for a fool.
"What?! What did you do for them to pay you that much? Are you sure it's not a scam," asked his father with a look of worry, afraid that his son was being conned.
"No Dad, you don't have to worry about it being a scam, I went there with a lawyer and we signed a contract, so even if they want to, they can't scam me, because I can sue them," Aron tried to explain.
"Well, if there was a lawyer with you then it's okay. But since it is your money, it's up to you on how you spend it and remember not to spend it recklessly like those lottery winners, understood?" his father advised with a serious expression.
Although he felt proud of his son, Michael didn't want to show it, lest it gets over his son's head.
"Yes, I understand and will be careful, you don't have to worry about that. Then, I have decided to go ahead with buying a house," Aron affirmed.
"Your money, your choice, but just be careful, as your father said," Rose added, showing pride in her son's achievement.
The three then continued to have a talk about how his visit went and many other small topics until it was time for dinner and they all went to eat.
….
Two days later:
Aron was currently staring at his phone screen which displayed his current bank account statement.
$69,000,027.
This is the first time ever that the money in his bank account had exceeded the thousand-dollar mark.
Now that he had already received the money, Aron needed to plan on how to use it wisely in order for it to help him propel himself into greatness.
He decided not to pay off the school debt immediately, fearing that it might tip the professor that something good might have happened to him and since he wasn't aware of how powerful the professors' connections were, Aron decided to wait for the second meeting about payment negotiation plans in order to do so.
So, his first plan current plan was
1. Buy a good house and car for his family.
2. Transfer his younger brother to a good school.
3. Upgrade his computer into a personal server computer.
4. Meet Sarah.
5. Make his father quit his job and do what he wants, now that they were financially secure.
6. Start a business that could fully utilize the program (BugZapper) to its full potential and earn significant money for him to invest in his future business endeavors.
Although he had more than five things he needed to do right now, Aron was happy to do them because of the positive changes that had happened to him just after 3 days after he was unreasonably expelled from his university and just two days before his graduation, leaving him with a quarter-million-dollar of student debt out of nowhere, so compared to that his current life was pretty good in his eyes.
Of course, this didn't mean that he wasn't angry at what had happened to him. The reason he postponed his investigation for revenge planning was that he needed to be in a stable position so that he could plan it peacefully and meticulously.
