经济学人下载:黑客之伤:白了少年头

The lower technological barriers to entry—no matter the motive—have led to what the FBI’s Mr Snow refers to as hacking’s “industrialisation”. Supporters of Anonymous and LulzSec have stoked the fire, he says, thanks to the spread of new easy-to-use software called “hacking toolkits”. These automate attacks and can be configured to deface or crash a website, or even snatch goodies ranging from credit-card details to industrial designs. Some toolkits also offer “drive-by download”. This turns a website into a trap that hijacks visitors’ computers (or phones), even if they have not clicked on anything.

技术门槛低并且不看动机导致了现在如联邦调查局的斯诺先生所说的黑客工业化的情况。他说，由于一个一个简单实用的名为黑客工具包的软件的传播，“匿名”和LulzSec 的支持者们也能跟着煽风点火。这些自动程序可以攻击或者能被设置能破坏或者使网站瘫痪，甚至顺带着攫取一些甜头，从信用卡细节资料到工业设计。一些工具包也提供偷渡下载，这就将网站变成了一个陷阱，只要访客的计算机（或者手机）点击到了网站的任何东西，那就被黑了。

The hacktivists may do most damage by providing cover for more sinister efforts. A report this week by McAfee, a computer-security company, reveals the results of a five-year probe called Operation Shady RAT, examining attacks that use “Remote Access Tools” to inveigle access to computer networks. It does not name the perpetrator (some fingers are pointed at China) but lists 72 victims, from sporting authorities to the governments of America, Canada, India, South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam, plus defence contractors and many other firms. Dmitri Alperovitch of McAfee describes the intrusions as “the biggest transfer of wealth in terms of intellectual property in history”. Kenneth Geers of NATO’s cyberwar centre in Estonia says the hacking boom makes it easier for cyber-spies to pass off their work as the handiwork of a misguided rebellious teenager. Not so funny after all.

黑客活动因为为一些更为恶性的行为提供屏蔽而造成了更多伤害。计算机安全公司迈克菲这周发布的报告发布了一个名叫“Shady RAT”为其五年的调查结果，有哪些攻击是使用“远程访问工具”来诱击计算机网络的。它并没有指出作案者的姓名（一些的指向在中国），但是列举出了72个受害者，包括体育当局，美国，加拿大，引渡，南韩，台湾和越南的政府还有国防承包商其他的许多公司。迈克菲副总裁狄米崔．阿帕罗维奇把这些入侵描述成“历史上最大的知识产权的财富交易”。爱沙尼亚的北约网站肯尼斯．吉尔斯指出，黑客蓬勃发展让网络间谍有机可乘，视工作为误入歧途的叛逆青少年的手工小制作。但是没那么有趣罢了。