婚外情扯出網絡隱私安全 Spy caught red handed

No matter how careful you are, it’s impossible to cover all your tracks when having an affair–US general David Petraeus found out the hard way.

不管你有多小心，想要完全掩蓋掉婚外情行徑也是不可能的，美國上將大衛•彼得雷烏斯以身試法，教訓慘痛。

Petraeus, 60, was caught having an extramarital relationship with his 40-year-old biographer Paula Broadwell, who is also married. The scandal forced him to resign as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on Nov 9.

現年60歲的彼得雷烏斯被爆出出軌醜聞，對方是40歲的已婚傳記作家保拉•博德維。這樁醜聞迫使他不得不在11月9日辭去了美國中央情報局局長一職。

The affair was exposed after the FBI found intimate content in e-mails sent between the two. The scandal not only raised moral issues, but also threw online privacy and surveillance into the spotlight.

此前，聯邦調查局發現了二人之間親密曖昧的電子郵件，使得這段婚外情曝光。這樁醜聞不僅引發了道德問題，更是讓網絡隱私以及網絡監控成爲人們關注的焦點。

If a spymaster can’t prevent his personal e-mails from being snooped, what hope is there for the rest of us? Is online privacy just an illusion?

如果就連間諜頭頭都無法保證自己的私人電郵不被偷看，剩下我們這些普通人還指望什麼呢？難道網絡隱私壓根不存在？

In fact, Petraeus and Broadwell were very discreet when communicating by e-mail. Not only were they using pseudonyms, they were also using a method known in the intelligence community as the “dead drop”.

事實上，彼得雷烏斯和博德維之間的在互通電郵時十分謹慎小心。他們不僅使用化名，還採取了情報機構非常熟悉的手段，即“情報祕密傳遞點”。

According to Slate magazine, a dead drop is a tactic favored by terrorists trying to evade government surveillance of their communication networks.

美國《石板》雜誌稱，情報祕密傳遞點是恐怖分子在試圖擺脫政府對其通訊網絡的監控時，所採用的一種策略。

Before the Internet, dead drops, often used by spies, would involve hiding a written message or package in a secret location or letterbox that only fellow operatives would know about.

在互聯網出現之前，間諜通常採用這種方法，比如將信件或是包裹藏在一個只有自己人知道的祕密地點或信箱中。

According to an AP report, Petraeus and Broadwell used a high-tech version of this technique. Rather than sending messages by e-mail, they left them in a draft folder or in an electronic “dropbox”. The other person could then log on to the same account and read the draft e-mails there. This avoids creating an e-mail trail that is easier to trace.

美聯社的一份報告稱，彼得雷烏斯和博德維使用了高科技的情報祕密傳遞點。他們不通過電郵傳遞信息，而是將信息存放在草稿夾或祕密的電子郵箱裏。另一個人便可以登陸同一賬號並讀取草稿郵件。從而避免產生更易於追蹤的電子郵件發送記錄。

But Petraeus should probably have known better. Using the dead drop tactic is not exactly secure. The same method was used by the perpetrators of the Madrid train bombing in 2004, which killed 191 people.

但是彼得雷烏斯本該更精於此道。使用這種祕密傳遞點的方法並不完全保險。製造2004年“馬德里火車爆炸案”的兇犯曾用過相同手法，該事件致使191人喪生。

Over the years, law enforcement agencies have grown accustomed to terrorists using the dead drop, and technologies have been developed to counter it.

這些年來，執法機構已經對恐怖分子採用該方法習以爲常了，也研究出了應對手法。

The FBI also captured Broadwell’s IP address. With this, the identity of the person who sent an e-mail or visited a website can be tracked.

聯邦調查局還獲取了博德維的IP地址。通過該地址，發件人或訪問網站者的身份都可以被追蹤到。

Someone trying to remain anonymous can hide e-mails by routing them through different servers or using public computers that don’t keep activity logs. But often people make mistakes, leaving their e-mails traceable by investigators.

一些想要匿名的人可以使用不同的服務器，或是那些不記錄活動日誌的公用電腦來發送郵件。但是人們經常犯錯，使自己的郵件能夠被調查者追蹤到。

With cloud services and more storage capabilities, thousands of pages of e-mails that users think no longer exist may simply be stored out of sight but within easy reach of watchful authorities.

隨着雲服務的出現以及存儲容量的增加，用戶以爲不存在的成百上千封的電郵，只是被保存在你看不到的地方罷了，而警覺的政府部門則可以輕而易舉地獲得它們。

In Petraeus’ case, experts believe Google cooperated with authorities to access the e-mail accounts he and Broadwell used.

在彼得雷烏斯事件中，專家相信谷歌與政府部門合作，獲取了彼得雷烏斯與博德維的電郵賬戶。

Google acknowledges that it receives requests from government agencies around the world to “provide information about users of our services and products”, according to a policy statement it posted online.

從谷歌的一份網絡政策聲明中我們可以獲知，谷歌承認收到過全球許多政府機構關於“提供使用谷歌各種服務以及產品的用戶信息”的要求。

Of all the free webmail services, Google collects the most data from users of its Gmail service, including IP addresses, key words in e-mail text, information from search queries and webpage visits.

在所有免費電郵服務中，谷歌收集了最爲全面Gmail用戶數據信息，包括IP地址、電郵內容的關鍵字、搜索信息和網頁訪問記錄。

So what are the lessons to be drawn from the general’s downfall? First, never cheat. Second, e-mails offer only limited privacy. Once an e-mail is sent, or even just saved as a draft, things are out of your control.

所以，我們可以從這位彼得雷烏斯上將的垮臺中學到什麼呢？第一，永遠不要欺騙。第二，電郵只提供有限的隱私。一旦電郵發出去，哪怕即使是存到草稿箱，一切就由不得你了。