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One fear often voiced about Huawei, the Chinese telecoms equipment maker, is that it is a secret agent of the Chinese government. If it were allowed into the US, could it not embed hidden code into its devices that would enable the Chinese intelligence services to monitor everything passing along its networks? Now substitute the word Verizon for Huawei. Thanks to Edward Snowden, the US intelligence contractor gone rogue, we know that Verizon did something quite similar.
关于中国电信设备制造商华为(Huawei)，有一种担忧时常被人提及——人们担心它是中国政府的秘密情报机构。如果华为被允许进入美国，它难道不会在其设备中嵌入隐藏代码，从而使得中国情报机构能够监视该设备所在网络中通过的所有信息？现在，让我们把以上语句中的华为替换成Verizon。叛变的美国情报机构合同工爱德华•斯诺登(Edward Snowden)让我们得以了解到，Verizon曾做过非常类似的事。
According to an order from a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) court, leaked by Mr Snowden, Verizon was required to hand over information about all calls made by its 120m customers. If that’s true, should Verizon be banned from operating in China, or any other country for that matter?
根据斯诺登的曝料，《外国情报监视法》(Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act，简称Fisa)法庭曾命令Verizon提交其1.2亿用户的所有通话信息。如果这是真的，那么Verizon是不是应该为此被禁止在中国或任何其他国家运营？
The question is posed half-facetiously. But only half. If Verizon – and most other US telecoms and internet carriers – routinely pass data to the government, does that not come awfully close to people’s suspicions about Huawei? One could argue that the National Security Agency, which monitors the traffic, is only looking for terrorist threats, not snooping on other countries’ governments Then again, how could we possibly know that?
这个问题一半是玩笑，但还有一半是认真的。如果Verizon（以及美国其他大多数电信和互联网服务商）定期向政府提供数据，那么这种行为与人们怀疑华为会做的事情岂不是没多少区别？有人可能会辩称，监视通讯活动的美国国家安全局(NSA)只是在寻找恐怖主义威胁，并没有窥探其他国家的政府。那么再问一句：我们怎么知道事实是否真的如此？
Mr Snowden’s revelations are hardly that surprising. Yet imagining that such things go on and having them spelt out in black and white are quite different things. The US-Sino debate about cyber espionage will never be quite the same again.
斯诺登披露的消息实际上没那么让人吃惊。但是想象这类事情正在发生，和明明白白地知道这类事情确实在发生完全是两码事。美中围绕网络间谍争论的形势已被改写，再也不会回到从前。
First, we should be clear about what we have learnt. So far as we know, Verizon did not allow the NSA to listen in on all calls unfiltered. Instead, it handed over so-called “metadata”. To access conversations, the Fisa court had to issue a specific order. The same restrictions appear to hold for the Prism programme, which the NSA uses to monitor the communications of subscribers of nine internet companies, including Google, Facebook and Skype.
首先，我们应该弄清楚我们到底了解到什么。到目前为止，据我们所知，Verizon不允许NSA毫无过滤地监听所有通话。相反，它提交的是所谓的“元数据”。要获取通话内容，Fisa法庭必须发出专门指令。棱镜(Prism)项目似乎也受到同样的限制，该项目被美国国家安全局用来监控包括谷歌(Google)、Facebook和Skype在内的9家互联网公司的用户通讯。
These fine distinctions may not count for much. After initial silence from Beijing, recent days have been dominated by the sound of Chinese authorities clambering on to their high horse. Hua Chunying, foreign ministry spokeswoman, described China as “one of the major victims of cyber attacks” and urged the international community to draft regulations on cyber security. Wasn’t that precisely what President Barack Obama was supposed to have asked Xi Jinping, his Chinese counterpart, when they met away from prying eyes and ears (yeah, right!) in the Sunnylands estate this month?
这些细微的差别可能没有什么意义。中国政府最近几天打破了最初的沉默，开始高调发表一些官方言论。中国外交部女发言人华春莹称，中国是“最主要的黑客攻击受害国之一”，并催促国际社会就网络安全制定相关法规。这不正是美国总统巴拉克•奥巴马(Barack Obama)本月与中国国家主席习近平摆脱了各种监视和监听（没错，真是如此！）、在“阳光之乡”(Sunnylands)庄园面对面交流时原本打算向后者提出的吗？
Naturally, we should not take China’s professed outrage too seriously. It was almost comical to read the People’s Liberation Army Daily describe Prism as “frightening” and accuse the US of being an “habitual” eavesdropper. So brazen are China’s intelligence services, they don’t even bother to hide the fact that they monitor citizens’ internet activity. If they don’t like what they see they simply take it down. Still, if China can’t claim the cyber equivalent of the moral high ground, nor very easily can the US.
当然，我们不应把中国公开表达的愤慨太当回事。看到《解放军报》(People’s Liberation Army Daily)称棱镜计划很“可怕”，并指责美国是窃听“惯犯”，这让人感觉近乎可笑。中国的情报机构甚至不会费心去掩饰自己监视民众互联网活动的事实。如果他们不喜欢看到的东西，就会干脆将其删除。不过，就算中国无法在网络问题上占领道德制高点，美国要占领这一制高点也不太容易。
From now on, in particular, it will be harder for Washington to make the distinction between state and commercial espionage. The US position has been that, while state-on-state spying is inevitable, business and economic espionage crosses a line. Washington will still try to make that case. Indeed, there is no evidence that the NSA has sought to steal Chinese commercial secrets.
特别是从现在开始，美国政府将更难把国家间谍活动和商业间谍活动区别开来。美国一直坚持这样的立场：国家与国家之间的间谍活动是不可避免的，而商业间谍和经济间谍活动则是越界行为。美国政府仍将试图坚持这一立场。事实上，目前没有证据表明NSA曾试图窃取中国的商业机密。
On the other hand, a 60-page report by Mandiant, a US computer security firm, found that Unit 61398 of the PLA was directly responsible for attacks on US corporations.
另一方面，美国计算机安全公司曼蒂恩特(Mandiant)发布的一份60页的报告指出，中国解放军(PLA)的“61398部门”(Unit 61398)对针对美国企业的网络攻击负有直接责任。
Even so, the lines look more blurred than they did before. It will be more difficult for Washington to portray China Inc as some unholy alliance between state and a phoney private sector. America’s most powerful technology companies, it turns out, are routinely obliged to act as if they were a branch of the government. Beyond China, governments of countries such as India have long pressed North American technology companies to share data that might impinge on national security, often to be told that this was technically or ethically impossible. Now they know that’s not true. Moreover, foreign governments have learnt that their own citizens’ data are considered fair game when it passes over the networks of US companies.
即便如此，如今两者的界线也比过去更加模糊了。美国政府以后将更难把中国公司描述为某种国家与虚伪私有部门的邪恶同盟。事实证明，美国一些最强大的科技公司经常要被迫听命于政府，仿佛它们是政府的下属机构。在中国之外，印度等国政府长期以来一直敦促北美科技公司分享有可能损害自己国家安全的数据，而得到的答案往往是：这在技术上、或在伦理道德上是不可能的。如今，他们了解到这根本不是实话。另外，外国政府还由此了解到，自己本国公民的数据在被传送至美国公司的网络上之后，也会被视为“美味的猎物”。
“Our legitimacy and standing will be seriously compromised,” says Adam Segal, a cyber expert at the Council on Foreign Relations, of US preaching. “It is true that the Chinese are still doing it and we need to stand firm. But the politics is much more complicated now.”
在谈到美国的说教时，美国外交关系委员会(Council on Foreign Relations)一位网络专家表示：“我们的合法性和立场将遭到严重伤害。没错，中国仍在这么做，我们也必须保持强硬立场。但现在这其中的利害关系变得复杂多了。”
Huang Chengqing, who heads China’s network emergency response body, said Beijing had “mountains of data” on US cyber attacks. An article in Foreign Policy magazine this month detailed the work of the Office of Tailored Access Operations, a secretive unit of the NSA, in penetrating Chinese systems. When Mr Obama told Mr Xi that Chinese spying had to stop, it would have been interesting to hear how the Chinese president responded. We may never know. Or perhaps the NSA can tell us.
中国国家计算机网络应急技术处理协调中心主任黄澄清表示，关于美国的网络攻击，中国政府拥有“大量数据”。《外交政策》(Foreign Policy)杂志本月发表的一篇文章，详细描述了美国国家安全局的一个秘密部门——获取特定情报行动办公室(TAO)——刺探中国网络系统的细节。在奥巴马告诉习近平中国必须停止间谍活动时，中国国家主席是如何回应的？如果能听听他的回答可能会很有意思。我们或许将永远不得而知。抑或，美国国家安全局可以告诉我们。
