斯諾登呼籲科技企業增強加密技術

U.S. fugitive and former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden urged technology companies to adopt better methods of encryption to protect users from government surveillance, in remarks made through a video feed at a technology conference.

美國國家安全局(National Security Agency, 簡稱：國安局)前承包商僱員、目前正被美國政府通緝的愛德華•斯諾登(Edward Snowden)近日在奧斯汀的西南偏南(South by Southwest)大會上通過視頻發表講話，呼籲科技企業採取更有效的加密技術以保護用戶隱私免受政府監控的侵犯。

Mr. Snowden, who has been charged by U.S. prosecutors under the Espionage Act, said technology companies can act more quickly to protect users' privacy than the U.S. government, which will move slowly, if at all, to change intelligence-gathering practices.

斯諾登稱，美國政府若有意改變情報收集方式，其過程將十分緩慢，科技企業可以先於美國政府採取行動，確保用戶隱私安全。此前美國檢方已根據《反間諜法》(Espionage Act)對斯諾登提起訴訟。

'There is a policy response that needs to occur but there is also a technical response that needs to occur,' Mr. Snowden told the South by Southwest Interactive conference, taking place in Austin.

斯諾登說，美國政府不僅需要政策上的響應，而且還需要技術上的響應。

The public comments are among Mr. Snowden's first since last June, when he leaked to some media outlets classified documents on the NSA's programs to monitor phone calls, email and other communications.

這是自去年6月監聽事件曝光以來斯諾登首次公開發表言論。去年6月，斯諾登向幾家媒體披露了國安局監聽項目的絕密資料，該項目的監聽內容包括電話、電子郵件等通訊活動。

Mr. Snowden spoke from Moscow, where he has been granted temporary asylum, with an image of the U.S. Constitution in the background. Both the audience and the interviewers in Austin--two officials of the American Civil Liberties Union--appeared sympathetic to Mr. Snowden.

斯諾登的此次視頻講話以美國憲法圖片爲背景，而他本人身處俄羅斯，並已被俄政府授予臨時庇護權。會上觀衆及主持人――美國公民自由聯盟(American Civil Liberties Union)的兩位官員都對斯諾登表示出同情。

He wasn't asked about the ethics of his disclosures or whether he believed he committed treason.

他沒有被問到其揭祕行爲是否符合道義，也沒有被問到他是否認爲自己觸犯了叛國罪。

People sent in questions through Twitter, and the interviewers posed some of them to Mr. Snowden. Most of the questions related to the issue of surveillance, though one asked if he would do it again. 'Absolutely, yes,' he replied.

大會上，網友通過推特(Twitter)向他提問，主持人挑出了一些問題請他回答。其中大多數都與政府監管問題有關，但當被問到如果時光倒流，他是否還會這麼做時，斯諾登回答道，絕對會的。

'I took an oath to support and defend the Constitution and I saw that the Constitution was being violated on a massive scale,' he said.

斯諾登稱，他曾宣誓支持並捍衛憲法，但他看到的卻是憲法遭到大規模侵犯。

Stewart Baker, former general counsel for the NSA, said the interview of Mr. Snowden 'couldn't have been more sympathetic.' Mr. Baker, now a partner at Steptoe & Johnson LLP, added: 'A neutral observer would have said, 'You say you're against mass surveillance. How do you feel about mass surveillance in Crimea?' '

美國國家安全局前總顧問貝克(Stewart Baker)表示，採訪斯諾登的人們對他過於同情了；中立的觀察人士可能會問他：你說你反對大規模監控活動，那麼你對克里米亞的大規模監控活動怎麼看？貝克目前是Steptoe & Johnson LLP的合夥人。

Mr. Snowden's revelations about NSA surveillance prompted Google Inc. and other companies to strengthen their encryption technology, but he said the firms haven't done enough to protect the civil liberties of Internet users in the U.S. and abroad.

斯諾登揭露美國國家安全局的監控計劃後，谷歌(Google Inc.)和其他一些公司都加強了各自的保密技術。但斯諾登稱，在保護美國和其他國家互聯網用戶的公民自由方面，科技公司做的還不夠。

Google said last fall it would add or strengthen encryption of data passing among its data centers. It also now frequently changes the security keys used to unlock encrypted data, according to a person familiar with the company.

谷歌去年秋季曾表示，將增加或增強通過其數據中心數據的保密性。熟悉該公司情況的人士還透露，谷歌目前還經常更換解開加密數據所需的安全密鑰。

In December, Microsoft Corp. General Counsel Brad Smith said the software maker would encrypt customer information moving between its data centers by the end of this year.

微軟(Microsoft Corp.)總顧問史密斯(Brad Smith)去年12月份稱，微軟將在今年年底前對在公司數據中心之間傳送的客戶信息進行加密。

'We're committed to protecting our users' privacy and our team is hard at work to encrypt all of Yahoo's products,' a spokeswoman for Yahoo Inc. wrote in an email.

雅虎公司(Yahoo Inc.)發言人在一封電子郵件中稱，雅虎致力於保護用戶隱私，公司團隊正在努力工作對雅虎的所有產品進行加密。

A Facebook Inc. spokesman declined to comment.

Facebook Inc.發言人不予置評。

Encryption turns plain text in an email into a jumble of letters and numbers that are unreadable to prying eyes--whether hackers or a spying agency. In order to read the email, another user requires a 'key' to decrypt the message.

加密技術是將電子郵件的文字轉化爲一系列無序字符和數字，使得想要窺視內容的人無法閱讀，不管是黑客還是情報機構。其他用戶要想閱讀郵件內容，需要一把“鑰匙”對信息進行解密。

Mr. Snowden and Chris Soghoian, one of the ACLU interviewers, said Internet companies should adopt a system known as 'end-to-end encryption, ' which scrambles communication, such as an email, at each step from the sender's computer to the recipient's.

斯諾登和來美國公民自由聯盟的採訪者Chris Soghoian表示，互聯網公司應該採用一種名爲“端對端加密”的技術，這種技術允許通訊信息（比如一封電子郵件）在從源點到終點的傳輸過程中的每一步始終以密文形式存在。

Messrs. Snowden and Soghoian said that widespread use of encryption would make it less practical for the government to collect Internet traffic in bulk, since much of it would be unreadable. That would require government agencies to target surveillance more precisely, Mr. Soghoian said.

斯諾登和Soghoian稱，加密技術的廣泛使用將使得政府更加難以大批量收集網絡信息，因爲許多信息將變得無法閱讀。Soghoian稱，這將要求政府機構在監控時更加精確地定位目標。

'Encryption technology has the potential to raise the cost of surveillance to the point where it no longer becomes economically feasible to spy on everyone,' Mr. Soghoian said.

Soghoian稱，加密技術有可能將監控成本提高到某種程度，使得對每個人進行監控的做法從經濟上來說不再可行。

The NSA didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

美國國安局沒有立即回覆記者的置評請求。

Messrs. Snowden and Soghoian criticized the business model of Internet companies that rely on the collection of user data to serve advertisers. They urged companies to rely on subscriptions, like the text-messaging app WhatsApp, which Facebook recently said it would acquire for $19 billion.

一些互聯網公司採用的商業模式依賴於用收集來的用戶數據爲廣告商服務，斯諾登和Soghoian對這種模式進行了批評。他們敦促這些公司轉爲採用WhatsApp等公司依靠訂閱的模式。Facebook不久前宣佈將以190億美元收購WhatsApp。

Privacy and government surveillance have been a theme of this year's South by Southwest Interactive, a conference better known as a stage for the latest social networking and mobile apps. Appearing via Skype on Saturday, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange attacked the NSA and the power it holds in the Obama administration.

隱私和政府監控問題一直是今年西南偏南大會的一個主題，該大會此前更多被視爲展示最新社交網絡和移動應用的一個舞臺。維基解密(WikiLeaks)創始人阿桑奇(Julian Assange)上週六通過Skype對美國國安局以及奧巴馬政府賦予國安局的權利進行了抨擊。

Doug Kim, a user experience architect for Turner Broadcasting and attendee of South by Southwest, said the Snowden remarks gave him more insight into what businesses could do to help protect user privacy.

大會參與者、Turner Broadcasting用戶體驗設計師金(Doug Kim)稱，對於企業應該如何保護用戶隱私，斯諾登的講話讓他有了更深的理解。

'It really takes these big acts to make course changes, for these big companies to pivot,' Mr. Kim said.

金稱，確實需要這些大動作來扭轉形勢，大型科技企業需要做出轉變。