原文链接：
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=internat-ideology-war
本人郑重声明：
所有内容不含有任何个人感情色彩，均为翻译练习所用。


How the Internet giant could use its might in closed societies
在封闭的社会，网络巨人如何发挥自己的威力
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，一系列来自中国的高端的网络攻击深入二十多个美国公司的计算机系统，他们包括：Northrop Grumman, Dow Chemical和Yahoo。
One fought back.
其中一家企业奋起反抗。
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.
在得知攻击的目标不仅仅是知识产权，而且包括中国人权活动家的e-mail账户后，Google宣布他将停止过滤Google.cn（中文搜索引擎）的搜索结果。
threats by the Chinese authorities to shut down Google’s operations inside China.
中国官员威胁说要关闭Google的境内服务。
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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.
如此的针锋相对和反击就好像是许多咆哮着的冷战重演，而且这个交锋确实有可能是21世纪的两个新兴霸权——Google和中国的首次猛烈撞击。
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.
这是思想意识之争，不再是关于领土和市场份额的战争，其中的一方通过开放的互联网来武装个人冲击存在着的权力结构，来对抗那些利用权力要把互联网封闭起来的另一方。
“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).
“我们在这里讨论的是保护互联网的本质”Jeff Jarvis说——一位纽约城市大学的互动新闻主管和《Google要做什么》一书的作者。
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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说，与任何一个组织相比，Google有更多的手段和动力保证互联网的开放。
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一位普林斯顿大学的信息技术政策中心的研究员解释说：世界上有极少数的公司因为拥有足够广泛的网络业务而拥有指定互联网运营规则的权力。
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是许多不同领域的先行者”，她说。他甚至可以指定网络开放程度的标准。
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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.
作为反审查的拥护者，Google是为数不多的使用其所拥有的足够的原始计算能力来对抗独裁政权的公司之一。
“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无热情实现过滤系统的 Google工程师们，在将来能够全心全意帮助用户穿越重重阻隔来访问Google，" Jonathan Zittrain说。他是哈佛大学互联网与社会Berkman中心的创始人之一。 
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Google could combat China’s censorship efforts by helping those within China breach the so-called Great Firewall.
Google可以通过帮助那些困在中国的网民翻过"防火长城"透口气来对抗中国的审查。
As with buildings in the physical world, every location on the Internet has an address associated with it—an Internet protocol, or IP, address.
就和现实世界中的建筑物一样，互联网的每一个位置都有一个地址与之对应 ——那就是IP地址（IP:互联网协议）
In addition to filtering certain keywords, the administrators of the Great Firewall maintain a huge list of blocked IP addresses.
除了过滤某些关键字，防火长城的管理员建立和维护了一个超大的封锁IP列表。
Circumvention tools send a user to an unblocked address, then pipe in all outside information through that “proxy” IP address.
而翻墙工具能让用户连接到一个无约束的地址，然后把所有墙外的信息通过那个IP“代理”发回给用户。
Yet at any time, this tunnel could collapse.
然而，这条通道随时都可能崩溃。
“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.
这些IP地址中有的可以一直用，有的是几个月，有的只有几分钟”，直到被当局发现而惨遭封杀，Hal Roberts说。一位Berkman中心的翻墙工具专家。
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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，任何大规模翻墙的努力，都需要投入大量的地址和庞大的带宽去支持这些翻墙通道
“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.”
"如果我们能够奇迹般地说服所有中国人去使用[这些服务]"Roberts说，"那得有人为中国所有这些出口带宽买单。"
That might strain Google’s resources, but not by much.
那样将会占用Google不少资源，但不会过多。
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Still, there are good reasons for Google not to start this kind of proxy war.
然而，Google有很好的理由不去启动这样的代理战争。
Promoting a free and open Internet is one thing; actively undermining the laws of a sovereign nation is another.
促进互联网的自由开放是一回事，主动违反一个主权国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，这些翻墙工具同时也可以用作匿名工具——任何人都可以用代理服务器来隐藏自己的真实身份。
“This makes them very useful for all kinds of bad activities,” Roberts says.
"这样会使他们方便地从事非法活动"，Roberts说。
“They could be used to hack Google’s servers or for attacks against Google services using click fraud and spam.
"它们可以用来攻击Google 的服务器，或者结合点击欺诈和垃圾邮件的方式破坏Google服务。
So there’s a strong question from Google’s point of view whether it is in their best interest to promote them.”
因此对于Google来说，有着很大的质疑：这样做是否符合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.
无论对峙会延续几个月或是几年，起码大家都开始注意到，这是一场关于控制权的争斗：互联网到底会开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，用户依赖类似Google这样的公司，很可能并不足以捍卫互联网。因为来自政府或其他机构对于互联网的自上而下的控制同样也会越来越紧。
“Google—along with a whole range of Internet companies and communications companies—has created this layer on which we depend,”MacKinnon observes.
“Google，连同整个互联网和通信行业的公司，构成了我们依赖的保护层，” 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，目前并没有一套基本规则，也没有互联网权利法案来保障网民的权利。
“These companies are saying, ‘We’re good people, trust us,’” MacKinnon says.
“这些公司呼喊着:'我们是好人，相信我们，'”MacKinnon说。
“As with a benevolent dictatorship,it works really well when the current leader is a great guy.
作为一个仁慈而伟大的独裁者，现在是把一切都治理得井井有条了，也挺好。
But then he dies, and his evil son takes over. And then everybody’s screwed.”
但是当他死掉了，接着他的混蛋儿子上台了，到时大家不免要一起跟着倒大霉。
【完】