经济学人下载:网络安全,幽灵般的敌人

Although some security experts think hacking activity has hit a new high, others say such claims are overblown. They point out that laws in some states in America now require firms to reveal if their defences have been breached, which means more hacking cases are coming to light that would previously have been buried. High-profile attacks, such as the ones on the Senate website, also get plenty of media coverage, fuelling talk of an epidemic.

尽管一些安全专家认为黑客的行为创了历史新高，其他人则认为这种观点有些言过其实了。他们指出，现在美国一些州的法律要求公司透露是否他们的网络防御被黑客突破过，这意味着以前许多不为人知的黑客袭击将公之于众。一些高调的攻击，比如针对参议院网站的袭击，得到了媒体铺天盖地的报道，成了公众流行的话题。

The vast majority of the hacking that does take place is still perpetrated by different sets of private hackers rather than by cyber spooks. Take “hacktivists”, members of such groups as Anonymous and Lulz Security, the outfit that has claimed responsibility for attacking the Senate’s and the CIA’s sites. (To “lulz” means to laugh at someone’s misfortune in jargon.) Loosely organised and motivated by causes rather than money, these online rebels shot to prominence last year. They targeted firms such as MasterCard that shunned WikiLeaks after the transparency group began releasing secret diplomatic cables. And they thrive on the oxygen of publicity, boasting of their exploits on Twitter and other social-media services. Anonymous even announced its intention to target the Fed by posting a video on YouTube. This listed all kinds of recriminations against the central bank, including plenty of bizarre ones such as “crimes against humanity”, scrolled down against a backdrop of eerie face masks that have become Anonymous’s calling card (see picture above).

大量的黑客入侵都仍是不同群的个体黑客所为，而不是网络幽灵干的。黑客分子是“佚名”和“鲁兹安全”这样组织的成员，他们已经宣称对参议院和中情局网站的入侵事件表示负责（“鲁兹”在行话中表示嘲笑某人的不幸）。他们机构松散，动机和金钱无关，这些网上反叛者的行为去年可谓登峰造极。他们瞄准了万事达卡这样的公司，因为在维基泄密这个以透明为宗旨的组织开始披露外交秘闻的时候，万事达卡和它划清了界限。他们在公众的关注下逐渐壮大，在微博和其他社会性媒体上鼓吹其功绩。“佚名”组织甚至在YouTube视频网站上传了视频，公开宣布其入侵美联储系统的意图。片中在怪诞的人脸面具的背景之下，逐一陈述了中央银行诸多罪责，其中许多很奇怪，比如“反人性罪”之类的，这些都逐渐勾勒出这个叫做“佚名”的黑客组织的个性轮廓。

Hacktivists’ assaults on state targets have prompted governments to try rounding them up. On June 10th Spanish police arrested three men that they claim are core members of Anonymous, which responded by causing a police website to crash. Then on June 13th police in Turkey rounded up another 32 alleged hackers from the group, which had recently attacked a couple of official websites, protesting plans to increase policing of web traffic.

黑客分子针对政府的攻击行为使政府越发地想把他们一网打尽。在6月10日，西班牙警方逮捕了三名嫌犯，据其称是”佚名”组织的核心成员。“佚名”曾声称对某警方网站的瘫痪负责。在6月13日，土耳其警方逮捕了32名的某黑客组织的成员，他们最近入侵了一系列官方网站，以抗议对日渐增加的网络监管的计划。

Dmitri Alperovitch of McAfee, a web-security company, reckons that these and future raids will ensure that hacktivism declines as a source of online attacks within six to 12 months. But other experts warn that by trumpeting the arrest of Anonymous members, instead of simply labelling them as common-or-garden hackers, governments are boosting the outfit’s standing. In the eyes of potential recruits such as young “script kiddies”, who first turn to hacking chiefly as a test of their programming skills, Anonymous may now seem more attractive.

来自网络安全公司迈克菲的副总裁Dmitri Alperovitch认为，这些和未来的清剿行动会保障未来6到12个月的以黑客行动主义作为精神指导的网络攻击行为的下降。但是其他的专家警告说，政府这种吹嘘逮捕黑客组织成员的行为，与其说是简单地盖棺论调，给他们贴上不过如此的黑客标签，不如说是在变相承认其组织的地位。许多潜在的新人，比如年轻的“脚本小子”们，都因为入侵系统可以测试他们的编程能力而进入黑客行业，“佚名”组织对于他们来说现在似乎更有吸引力了。