原文鏈接：
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internat-ideology-war
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所有內容不含有任何個人感情色彩，均為翻譯練習所用。


How the Internet giant could use its might in closed societies
在封閉的社會，網絡巨人如何發揮自己的威力
Late last year a series of sophisticated Internet attacks emanating from China burrowed deep into the computer systems of some two dozen U.S. corporations, among them Northrop Grumman, Dow Chemical and Yahoo.
去年年底，一系列來自中國的高端的網絡攻擊深入二十多個美國公司的計算機系統，他們包括：Northrop Grumman, Dow Chemical和Yahoo。
One fought back.
其中一家企業奮起反抗。
After revealing that the attacks targeted not only its core intellectual property but the e-mail accounts of Chinese human-rights activists, Google announced that it would stop censoring search results on Google.cn, its Chinese-language search engine.
在得知攻擊的目標不僅僅是知識產權，而且包括中國人權活動家的e-mail賬戶后，Google宣布他將停止過濾Google.cn（中文搜索引擎）的搜索結果。
threats by the Chinese authorities to shut down Google’s operations inside China.
中國官員威脅說要關閉Google的境內服務。
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The charges and retaliations seem reminiscent of so much cold war bluster, and indeed this encounter could be the first great clash of the 21st century’s two emergent superpowers—Google and China.
如此的針鋒相對和反擊就好像是許多咆哮著的冷戰重演，而且這個交鋒確實有可能是21世紀的兩個新興霸權——Google和中國的首次猛烈撞擊。
More than a battle over territory or market share, it is a conflict over ideology, one that pits a free and open Internet that empowers individuals at the expense of existing power structures against an Internet micromanaged by those powers.
這是思想意識之爭，不再是關于領土和市場份額的戰爭，其中的一方通過開放的互聯網來武裝個人沖擊存在著的權力結構，來對抗那些利用權力要把互聯網封閉起來的另一方。
“What we’re talking about here is a defense of the essence of the Internet,” says Jeff Jarvis, director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York and author of What Would Google Do? (HarperCollins, 2009).
“我們在這里討論的是保護互聯網的本質”Jeff Jarvis說——一位紐約城市大學的互動新聞主管和《Google要做什么》一書的作者。
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More than any other organization, Jarvis says, Google has both the means and the incentive to ensure that the Internet remains open.
Jarvis說，與任何一個組織相比，Google有更多的手段和動力保證互聯網的開放。
It is also one of the few organizations with a broad enough online presence to define the standard operating rules of the Internet, explains Rebecca MacKinnon, a researcher at the Center for Information Technology Policy at Princeton University.
Rebecca MacKinnon一位普林斯頓大學的信息技術政策中心的研究員解釋說：世界上有極少數的公司因為擁有足夠廣泛的網絡業務而擁有指定互聯網運營規則的權力。
Google is “the first mover in so many different sectors,” she says. “It can set the norms for how open one can be online.”
“Google是許多不同領域的先行者”，她說。他甚至可以指定網絡開放程度的標準。
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For anticensorship advocates, Google is also one of the few organizations with enough raw computing power to significantly aid the fight against authoritarian regimes.
作為反審查的擁護者，Google是為數不多的使用其所擁有的足夠的原始計算能力來對抗獨裁政權的公司之一。
“My hope, and (expectation, is that Google engineers who might have been a (bit halfhearted about implementing censorship mandates in Google.cn could be full throttle in coming up with ways for Google to be viewed despite any network interruptions between site and user,” says Jonathan Zittrain, a co-founder of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University.
“我期望原先在Google.cn無熱情實現過濾系統的 Google工程師們，在將來能夠全心全意幫助用戶穿越重重阻隔來訪問Google，" Jonathan Zittrain說。他是哈佛大學互聯網與社會Berkman中心的創始人之一。 
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Google could combat China’s censorship efforts by helping those within China breach the so-called Great Firewall.
Google可以通過幫助那些困在中國的網民翻過"防火長城"透口氣來對抗中國的審查。
As with buildings in the physical world, every location on the Internet has an address associated with it—an Internet protocol, or IP, address.
就和現實世界中的建筑物一樣，互聯網的每一個位置都有一個地址與之對應 ——那就是IP地址（IP:互聯網協議）
In addition to filtering certain keywords, the administrators of the Great Firewall maintain a huge list of blocked IP addresses.
除了過濾某些關鍵字，防火長城的管理員建立和維護了一個超大的封鎖IP列表。
Circumvention tools send a user to an unblocked address, then pipe in all outside information through that “proxy” IP address.
而翻墻工具能讓用戶連接到一個無約束的地址，然后把所有墻外的信息通過那個IP“代理”發回給用戶。
Yet at any time, this tunnel could collapse.
然而，這條通道隨時都可能崩潰。
“One of these IP addresses could last forever, or for months, or for minutes” before the authorities find it and block it, says Hal Roberts, an expert in circumvention tools at the Berkman Center.
這些IP地址中有的可以一直用，有的是幾個月，有的只有幾分鐘”，直到被當局發現而慘遭封殺，Hal Roberts說。一位Berkman中心的翻墻工具專家。
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Hence, any large-scale circumvention effort requires a huge number of addresses to cycle through, along with an enormous amount of bandwidth to support all the tunneling.
因此，任何大規模翻墻的努力，都需要投入大量的地址和龐大的帶寬去支持這些翻墻通道
“If we could magically convince all Chinese people to use [these services],” Roberts says, “then someone would have to pay for the entire outgoing bandwidth of China.”
"如果我們能夠奇跡般地說服所有中國人去使用[這些服務]"Roberts說，"那得有人為中國所有這些出口帶寬買單。"
That might strain Google’s resources, but not by much.
那樣將會占用Google不少資源，但不會過多。
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Still, there are good reasons for Google not to start this kind of proxy war.
然而，Google有很好的理由不去啟動這樣的代理戰爭。
Promoting a free and open Internet is one thing; actively undermining the laws of a sovereign nation is another.
促進互聯網的自由開放是一回事，主動違反一個主權國家的法律又是另一回事。
Moreover, these same circumvention tools also work as anonymity tools—anyone can use proxy servers to hide their true identity.
此外，這些翻墻工具同時也可以用作匿名工具——任何人都可以用代理服務器來隱藏自己的真實身份。
“This makes them very useful for all kinds of bad activities,” Roberts says.
"這樣會使他們方便地從事非法活動"，Roberts說。
“They could be used to hack Google’s servers or for attacks against Google services using click fraud and spam.
"它們可以用來攻擊Google 的服務器，或者結合點擊欺詐和垃圾郵件的方式破壞Google服務。
So there’s a strong question from Google’s point of view whether it is in their best interest to promote them.”
因此對于Google來說，有著很大的質疑：這樣做是否符合Google的最佳利益。"
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No matter what course the standoff takes in the months and years to come, it has brought into focus this battle for control over how unrestricted the Internet should be.
無論對峙會延續幾個月或是幾年，起碼大家都開始注意到，這是一場關于控制權的爭斗：互聯網到底會開放或者限制到什么程度？
Right now users depend on companies such as Google to defend the Internet from forces—governmental and otherwise—that would exert more top-down control over it.That may not be enough.
如今，用戶依賴類似Google這樣的公司，很可能并不足以捍衛互聯網。因為來自政府或其他機構對于互聯網的自上而下的控制同樣也會越來越緊。
“Google—along with a whole range of Internet companies and communications companies—has created this layer on which we depend,”MacKinnon observes.
“Google，連同整個互聯網和通信行業的公司，構成了我們依賴的保護層，” MacKinnon指出。
Yet there is no set of rules, no Internet Bill of Rights, that would codify the rights of citizens online.
然而，目前并沒有一套基本規則，也沒有互聯網權利法案來保障網民的權利。
“These companies are saying, ‘We’re good people, trust us,’” MacKinnon says.
“這些公司呼喊著:'我們是好人，相信我們，'”MacKinnon說。
“As with a benevolent dictatorship,it works really well when the current leader is a great guy.
作為一個仁慈而偉大的獨裁者，現在是把一切都治理得井井有條了，也挺好。
But then he dies, and his evil son takes over. And then everybody’s screwed.”
但是當他死掉了，接著他的混蛋兒子上臺了，到時大家不免要一起跟著倒大霉。
【完】