硅谷企業應該走下雲端 Silicon Valley should step out of the cloud
The other day the Financial Times reported that Apple wants to disable its own access to the iCloud, thus making it impossible for the company to comply with legal warrants for customer data. You could reframe this goal: America’s most valuable company is looking for technical fixes that will allow it to defy the elected politicians, law enforcement bodies and judges responsible for the nation’s security. If Apple does not like a law, it will invent some computer coding to circumvent it.
近日英國《金融時報》報道，蘋果(Apple)打算禁用其自身對iCloud的訪問，這將使該公司無法遵從要求獲取用戶數據的法庭令。你可以重新描述一下這個目標：美國最有價值的公司正在尋求作出技術調整，使其能夠違抗對國家安全負有責任的民選政治人士、執法部門和法官。如果蘋果不喜歡某項法律，它將發明一些計算機代碼來繞過它。
Tim Cook would probably not put it quite like that. Yet the Apple chief executive has elevated his fight with the Federal Bureau of Investigation over access to an iPhone belonging to one of the shooters in the San Bernardino terrorist outrage into a struggle between liberty and tyranny, privacy and intrusion.
蒂姆•庫克(Tim Cook)很可能不會這麼說，然而這位蘋果首席執行官已將他與美國聯邦調查局(FBI)就解鎖聖貝納迪諾(San Bernardino)恐怖暴行中一名槍手的iPhone的爭執，上升爲自由和暴政、隱私和侵犯之爭。
Mr Cook says that to accede to the FBI’s request that Apple write a piece of code to permit access to data on the phone would be to create “the software equivalent of cancer”. Hundreds of millions of customers would be put at risk. “This is not about one phone,” he told ABC News, “this is about the future.”
庫克表示，聽從FBI的要求編寫一段代碼以訪問那部手機上的數據，就像是編寫“等同於癌症的軟件”。數億用戶將被置於危險之中。“這關乎的不是一部手機，”他告訴美國廣播公司(ABC News)，“這關乎未來。”
A victory for the FBI would threaten “everyone’s civil liberties”. This is vaulting language from the chief executive of a company that, when all is said and done, is in the business of making luxury-end digital gadgets. Apple is innovative. Its products look nice. But civilisation would survive the absence of iPads and iPhones.
FBI的勝利將威脅“每個人的公民自由”。這是這家公司首席執行官的誇大之詞，而它說到底不過是一家生產高端數碼產品的公司。蘋果很有創新性。它的產品看起來很棒。但就算沒有iPad和iPhone，文明也會存續下去。
The FBI says that the San Bernardino case is sui generis. It is not asking Apple to hand over any coding and the company can destroy the code once the handset is accessed. Mr Cook’s motives, it suggests, are not entirely altruistic. In the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks, Apple has seen privacy and encryption as powerful marketing tools. Unfashionable as it may be post-Snowden, I tend to agree with the FBI that the natural tension between privacy and national security “should not be resolved by corporations that sell stuff”.
FBI表示，聖貝納迪諾案是個特例。FBI不會要求蘋果交出任何代碼，該公司可以在解鎖那部手機後立即銷燬代碼。FBI認爲，庫克的動機並非完全出於利他主義。在愛德華•斯諾登(Edward Snowden)泄密事件後，蘋果將隱私和加密視爲強有力的營銷工具。雖然在後斯諾登時代這麼說可能有點不夠時髦，但我傾向於認同FBI的說法：隱私和國家安全之間的天然緊張關係“不應該由一家賣東西的公司來解決”。
Apple sets itself apart from the tech pack — Mr Cook often accuses the rest of harvesting and selling personal data — but on this issue the company has won the backing of most of Silicon Valley. Apple and Google have also been joined by Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft in lining up on the other side of the Atlantic against a planned British law to codify the state’s access to data.
蘋果將自身超脫於科技行業之外——庫克經常指責其他科技公司獲取和販賣個人信息——但在這次的問題上，蘋果贏得了大多數硅谷企業的支持。在大西洋的另一邊，Facebook、Twitter和微軟(Microsoft)加入了蘋果和谷歌(Google)的行列，反對英國計劃出臺的一項將政府對數據的訪問權寫入法律的法案。
As in the San Bernardino case, the companies say the UK government is seeking “back doors” into their technology that would undermine security for customers. They argue that the British law would set a precedent for authoritarian states. I am not sure that President Vladimir Putin has ever waited for Britain to take the lead before brushing aside personal freedoms and data privacy in the name of the Russian state.
就像在聖貝納迪諾案中一樣，這些公司表示，英國政府在尋求侵入它們的技術的“後門”，這會削弱用戶安全。它們認爲英國的這項法律將爲威權國家樹立先例。但我很懷疑，弗拉基米爾•普京(Vladimir Putin)以俄羅斯國家之名把個人自由和數據隱私拋到一邊之前，曾等過英國來帶頭。
It is perfectly proper and legitimate, of course, for Mr Cook to challenge the FBI in the US courts and there is nothing to say that technology companies should not lobby, like any business, against laws they do not like. He is right, also, that there is a vital debate to be had about the proper balance between personal privacy and collective security.
當然，庫克在美國法庭上挑戰FBI是完全正當合法的，科技公司像其他任何公司一樣爲反對它們不喜歡的法律而遊說，這種行爲也無可非議。庫克聲稱應該就個人隱私和集體安全間的合理平衡進行一場關鍵辯論，這也是正確的。
In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the pendulum probably swung too far in the direction of law enforcement and intelligence agencies. At the very least there was insufficient transparency about the extent to which governments had adapted to the digital age by accessing — then, incidentally, with the willing co-operation of Apple and others — personal communications and data. Tighter oversight was necessary.
在“9/11”恐怖襲擊以後，平衡很可能朝着執法和情報機構的方向移動得太遠了。至少關於政府已在多大程度上通過訪問個人通信和信息——順便一提當時是在蘋果和其他公司願意合作的情況下——來適應數字時代，透明度還不夠。更嚴格的監管必不可少。
Mr Snowden’s revelations risk shifting the balance too far in the opposite direction. Civil libertarians might say otherwise but the storage of metadata does not amount to digital mass surveillance. What matters are the conditions under which such data can be searched — the safeguards, legal authority and reporting responsibilities that militate against misuse of personal information while allowing the state to protect its citizens.
斯諾登的泄密可能又使平衡朝着相反的方向移動得太遠。推崇公民自由的人士或者會說並非如此，但存儲元數據並不等同於數字化大規模監控。重要的是在什麼情況下這些數據可以被搜索——設置什麼樣的保護措施、法律授權和彙報職責來阻止個人信息被濫用，同時使國家能夠保護其公民。
My guess is that there is no perfect balance and even if there was, it would probably be overtaken soon enough by newer technology. Intelligence agencies will always want too much access, while civil libertarians, and nowadays the tech companies, will stand at the other extreme. The best that politicians can do is update the frameworks and ensure that the courts have effective oversight.
我猜想，不存在完美的平衡，就算真的有，也很有可能在短時間內被更新的科技壓倒。情報機構總是希望擁有過多的訪問權限，而公民自由人士和當今的科技公司則站在另一個極端。政治人士所能做的最好的事情就是更新法律框架，確保法庭能進行有效的監管。
Mr Cook seems to think Apple can stand above such a democratic process. If it loses the argument, it will find a way around the law. Apple is not alone. To listen to Google, Facebook and the rest is to hear corporations that have come to believe their own propaganda: as custodians of the digital future, theirs is a higher calling that should grant them immunity from the meddling of courts or the judgments of elected politicians.
庫克似乎認爲蘋果能夠立於這個民主過程之上。如果蘋果在論戰中失敗，它將找到繞過法律的辦法。蘋果並不是唯一這樣認爲的公司。聽聽谷歌、Facebook和其他公司的說辭，你會感到這些公司已經開始相信自身的宣傳：作爲數字化未來的守護者，它們擁有更爲高尚的使命，這應該允許它們不受法庭干預、不受民選政治人士的評判。
The inflated sense of self-worth is not confined to the realm of privacy. It explains the indignation with which the companies greet demands that they pay a fair share of corporate tax. For Mr Cook it is the US government’s fault that Apple shelters tens of billions of dollars in offshore tax havens. Google seems genuinely shocked when British politicians take umbrage at the way it shuffles off to low-tax Ireland billions of dollars in profits made on its UK sales.
這種膨脹的自我價值感不僅限於隱私領域。這解釋了這些企業在有關部門要求它們繳納合理份額的企業稅時的憤憤不平。對庫克而言，蘋果將數百億美元藏在海外避稅港是美國政府的錯。在英國政治人士憤慨於谷歌將其在英國銷售所得的數十億美元利潤轉移到稅率較低的愛爾蘭時，谷歌似乎真的很震驚。
For all Mr Cook’s messianism, the tech giants are in business to make money. They have a valid point of view — just like everyone else. But, no, Silicon Valley does not inhabit a higher plane, and Apple’s profits should not trump democratic choices about security.
儘管庫克擺出了救世主的姿態，但這些科技巨頭做這行是爲了賺錢。它們的觀點很合理——就像其他任何人一樣。但是，不，硅谷並不佔據更高的層面，蘋果的利潤也不應該凌駕於有關安全的民主選擇之上。
