科技巨头与美国政府的信息争夺战_奥门新浦京网999

WASHINGTON — In an investigation involving guns and drugs, the Justice Department obtained a court order this summer demanding that Apple turn over, in real time, text messages between suspects using iPhones.华盛顿——今年夏天，在一起牵涉到枪支和毒品的调查中，美国司法部取得了法院命令，拒绝苹果(Apple)动态递交用于iPhone的嫌疑人之间的短信。Apple’s response: Its iMessage system was encrypted and the company could not comply.苹果的对此是：iMessage系统是加密的，所以公司无法递交。Government officials had warned for months that this type of standoff was inevitable as technology companies like Apple and Google embraced tougher encryption. The case, coming after several others in which similar requests were rebuffed, prompted some senior Justice Department and F.B.I. officials to advocate taking Apple to court, several current and former law enforcement officials said.在此之前的多个月里，政府官员就大大收到警告：随着苹果、谷歌(Google)等科技公司开始使用更为严苛的加密方案，这种僵局是不可避免的。

一些现任和前任执法人员回应，在此案再次发生之前，还有其他几次类似于的拒绝也遭拒绝接受，造成司法部和联邦调查局(FBI)的一些高级官员主张把苹果公司告上法庭。While that prospect has been shelved for now, the Justice Department is engaged in a court dispute with another tech company, Microsoft. The case, which goes before a federal appeals court in New York on Wednesday and is being closely watched by industry officials and civil liberties advocates, began when the company refused to comply with a warrant in December 2013 for emails from a drug trafficking suspect. Microsoft said federal officials would have to get an order from an Irish court, because the emails were stored on servers in Dublin.虽然此事被继续不了了之到一旁，司法部却正在与另一家科技公司微软公司(Microsoft)对簿公堂。

坐落于纽约的一家联邦裁决法院本周三将审理该案，行业人士和公民自由权益提倡者正在紧密注目。该案的起因是2013年12月，法院班车一份搜查令，拒绝微软公司获取一名毒贩嫌疑人的电子邮件，但微软公司拒绝接受遵从，回应联邦官员必需取得爱尔兰法院的命令，因为那些邮件储存在都柏林的服务器里。The conflicts with Apple and Microsoft reflect heightened corporate resistance, in the post-Edward J. Snowden era, by American technology companies intent on demonstrating that they are trying to protect customer information.政府与苹果和微软公司之间的这些冲突，反应了企业在“后爱德华·J·斯诺登(Edward J. Snowden)时代”产生的阻力有所增大，因为美国科技公司想指出，自己在希望维护用户的信息。

“It’s become all wrapped up in Snowden and privacy issues,” said George J. Terwilliger III, a lawyer who represents technology companies and as a Justice Department official two decades ago faced the challenge of how to wiretap phone networks that were becoming more digital.“这些事都演进为环绕着斯诺登和隐私问题，”代表科技公司的律师乔治·J·兹威利格三世(George J. Terwilliger III)说道。他二十年前在司法部供职，当时电话网络于是以显得日益数字化，因此他曾面对如何监听的挑战。

President Obama has charged White House Homeland Security and cybersecurity officials, along with those at the Justice Department, the F.B.I. and the intelligence agencies, with proposing solutions — some legislative, some not — to the technology access issue. They are still hashing out their differences, according to law enforcement and administration officials.奥巴马总统让白宫的国土安全性和网络安全官员，连同司法部、联邦调查局及各情报机构的官员一起，明确提出一些方案——部分牵涉到法律，部分不牵涉到——来解决问题从科技公司取得信息的问题。根据执法人员官员和奥巴马政府内部人士的众说纷纭，目前他们还在希望避免彼此间的分歧。

Some Justice and F.B.I. officials have been frustrated that the White House has not moved more quickly or been more outspoken in the public relations fight that the tech companies appear to be winning, the law enforcement officials said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the private conversations.多名执法人员官员回应，司法部和联邦调查局的一些官员深感不悦，他们实在白宫行动太快，在公关大战中过于慷慨陈词，或许被科技公司占有了绝对优势。由于没取得私下辩论的许可，这些官员不愿明示。The White House, after months of study, has yet to articulate a public response to the argument that a victory in the Microsoft case would provide authoritarian governments, particularly the Chinese and Russians, with a way to get access into computer servers located in the United States.有人明确提出，如果微软公司这次胜诉，那么极权政府——特别是在是中国和俄罗斯——就可能会取得一条途径，从坐落于美国的计算机服务器上获得信息。白宫早已研究了数月之幸，但仍未公开发表阐述对这种观点的对此。

“Clearly, if the U.S. government wins, the door is open for other governments to reach into data centers in the U.S.,” Brad Smith, Microsoft’s general counsel, said in a recent interview. Companies and civil liberties groups have been sending in briefs of their own, largely opposing the government’s surveillance powers.“很似乎，如果美国政府获得胜利，大门就不会打开，其他国家的政府就可以从美国的数据中心获取数据了，”微软公司的总法律顾问布拉德·史密斯(Brad Smith)在近期的一次专访中说道。公司和公民自由的组织在弥漫自己的宣传资料，主要是回应赞成政府掌控监控的权力。

At issue are two types of encoding. The first is end-to-end encryption, which Apple uses in its iMessage system and FaceTime, the video conversation system. Companies like Open Whisper Systems, the maker of Signal, and WhatsApp have adopted such encryption for stand-alone apps, which are of particular concern to counterterrorism investigators.问题牵涉到两种类型的编码。一种是末端到末端加密，苹果公司在iMessage和视频聊天服务FaceTime中就用于了这种方式。Signal所属的Open Whisper Systems公司和WhatsApp在分开的应用于上也使用了这种加密方式，而此类应用于是缉毒调查人员特别是在注目的一个问题。With Apple, the encryption and decryption is done by the phones at either end of the conversation; Apple does not keep copies of the message unless one of the users loads it into iCloud, where it is not encrypted. (In the drug and gun investigation this summer, Apple eventually turned over some stored iCloud messages. While they were not the real-time texts the government most wanted, officials said they saw it as a sign of cooperation.)在苹果公司，加密和解密都是由其中一方的通话手机来展开的。

苹果没涉及讯息的备份，除非一方用户将其上传遍不加密的iCloud上。（在今夏那起毒品和枪支调查中，苹果最后还是接管了存储在iCloud上的部分讯息。尽管它们不是政府最想的动态短信，但官员回应，他们指出这是合作的标志。

）The second type of encoding involves sophisticated encryption software on Apple and Android phones, which makes it all but impossible for anyone except the user of the phone to open stored content — pictures, contacts, saved text messages and more — without an access code. The F.B.I. and local authorities oppose the technology, saying it put them at risk of “going dark” on communications between terrorists and about criminal activity on city streets. The American military is more divided on the issue, depending on the mission.第二种编码牵涉到苹果和Android手机上的简单的加密软件。有了它们，除手机用户外，任何人在没采访字节的情况下完全都不有可能关上存储内容，如照片、联系人、留存下来的短信等。

FBI和地方当局赞成这项技术，称之为它让自身面对对通讯信息一无所知的风险，而涉及通讯不会牵涉到恐怖分子，以及街头犯罪活动。美国军方在这个问题上则不存在一定的分歧，具体情况视任务而以定。Officials say a court fight with Apple is still an option, though they acknowledge it would be a long shot. Some object that a legal battle would make it harder for the companies to compromise, the law enforcement officials said. They added that Apple and other companies have privately expressed willingness to find common ground.官员称，与苹果对薄公堂仍然是自由选择之一，但他们否认，顺利的可能性较小。

执法人员官员称，一些人所持赞成意见，指出打官司不会造成科技企业更加无以让步。他们还回应，苹果等公司私下里回应不愿找寻共同点。Apple declined to comment on the case for this article. But company officials have argued publicly that the access the government wants could be exploited by hackers and endanger privacy.苹果拒绝接受为本文评论该案。

但公司领导层曾公开发表回应，政府期望取得的采访权限可能会被黑客利用，严重威胁隐私。“There’s another attack on our civil liberties that we see heating up every day — it’s the battle over encryption,” Tim Cook, the company’s chief executive, told a conference on electronic privacy this year. “We think this is incredibly dangerous.”“我们看见，又一场针对公民自由的反击每天都在加剧，它就是环绕加密进行的斗争，”苹果首席执行官蒂姆·库克(Tim Cook)在今年的一次有关电子隐私的会议上说道。

“我们指出这种情况极为危险性。”Echoing the arguments of industry experts, he added, “If you put a key under the mat for the cops, a burglar can find it, too.” If criminals or countries “know there’s a key hidden somewhere, they won’t stop until they find it,” he concluded.接下来，他反复了行业专家的观点，“如果为了给警员行方便而把钥匙放到门垫下，那么窃贼也能寻找。”如果罪犯或某些国家“告诉有一把钥匙藏在某个地方，那么他们不寻找钥匙是会得逞的，”他总结道。

The Microsoft case centers on whether the fact that data is stored around the world relieves American firms of turning it over. The government, which won in Federal District Court, has argued in its brief to the appeals court that where the data is stored is irrelevant because the company still has control of email records. The White House declined to comment because the case is in litigation.微软公司一案的核心是，数据存放在世界各地这个事实，否能减免美国公司接管数据的责任。在联邦地区法院胜诉的政府在给裁决法院的案情概要中称之为，数据存放在哪里无关紧要，因为微软公司仍然掌控着电子邮件记录。

因为案件正在诉讼过程中，白宫拒绝接受置评。“People want to know what law will be applied to their data,” Mr. Smith of Microsoft said. “French want their rights under French law, and Brazilians under Brazilian law. What is the U.S. government going to do when other governments reach into the U.S. data centers, without notifying the U.S. government?”“大家想要告诉他们的数据不会限于什么法律，”微软公司的史密斯说道。

“法国人期望用法国的法律维护自己的权利，巴西人期望用巴西的法律。假如其他国家的政府需要通报美国政府就能转入美国的数据中心，美国政府不会怎么做？”Chinese firms already have plans to build facilities on American soil that would store electronic communications, so the question may be more than hypothetical. In its brief, Microsoft argues that Congress will ultimately have to weigh in on the issue, since it is as much a political matter as a legal one: “Only Congress has the institutional competence and constitutional authority to balance law enforcement needs against our nation’s sovereignty, the privacy of its citizens and the competitiveness of its industry.”中国公司早已想在美国境内修筑设施，借以存放在电子通讯信息，所以这个问题并非凭空想象。在案情概要中，微软公司指出国会最后将被迫插手此事，因为这既是一个政治问题，也是一个法律问题：“只有国会享有适当的制度能力和宪法权力来均衡执法人员市场需求与国家主权、公民隐私和业界竞争力之间的关系。

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