一部影響美國網絡安全政策的電影
Movies rarely influence public policy, but Washington’s policies on cyberattacks, computer surveillance and the possibility of cyberwarfare were directly influenced by the 1983 box-office hit “WarGames.”
電影很少能夠影響到公共政策，但是華盛頓對於網絡攻擊、電腦監控和可能的網絡戰爭的政策，卻直接受到1983年票房大片《戰爭遊戲》(WarGames)的影響。
The film — starring Matthew Broderick as a tech-whiz teenager who unwittingly hacks into the computer of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) and nearly sets off World War III — opened nationwide that June 3. The next night, President Ronald Reagan watched it at Camp David. And that is where this strange story — culled from interviews with participants and Reagan Library documents — begins.
該片於當年6月3日在全國公映，片中馬修·布羅德里克(Matthew Broderick)飾演一個天才技術少年，無意中侵入了北美航空航天防禦指揮部(NORAD)的電腦，差點發起了第三次世界大戰。上映第二天，羅納德·里根(Ronald Reagan)總統就在戴維營看了這幅片子。於是本文講述的這個奇怪的故事（來自相關人士的訪談和里根圖書館的檔案）就從那裏開始了。
The following Wednesday, back in the White House, Reagan met with his national-security advisers and 16 members of Congress to discuss forthcoming nuclear arms talks with the Russians. But he still seemed focused on the movie.
接下來的星期三，回到白宮的里根與國家安全顧問們以及16名議員開會討論即將與俄國人開展的核武器談判。但他的心思似乎還在那部電影上。
At one point, he put down his index cards and asked if anyone else had seen it. No one had, so he described the plot in detail. Some of the lawmakers looked around the room with suppressed smiles or raised eyebrows. Three months earlier, Reagan had delivered his “Star Wars” speech, imploring scientists to build laser weapons that could shoot down Soviet missiles in outer space. The idea was widely dismissed as nutty. What was the old man up to now?
後來他推開面前的資料卡，問其他人看沒看過那部電影。其他人都說沒看過，於是他就把故事情節詳細講述了一遍。幾名議員不禁忍着笑，揚起眉毛環視四周。三個月之前，里根剛剛做了“星球大戰”講演，要求科學家們開發激光武器，從外太空擊落蘇聯的導彈。很多人都覺得這個想法簡直太瘋狂了。這個老傢伙現在又想幹什麼？
After finishing his synopsis, Reagan turned to Gen. John W. Vessey Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and asked: “Could something like this really happen?” Could someone break into our most sensitive computers? General Vessey said he would look into it.
講完劇情，里根轉向參謀長聯席會議主席小約翰·W·維西將軍(Gen. John W. Vessey Jr.)，問道：“這種事真的會發生嗎？”也就是說，真的會有人侵入我們最敏感的電腦中去嗎？維西將軍答應調查一下。
One week later, the general returned to the White House with his answer. “WarGames,” it turned out, wasn’t far-fetched. “Mr. president,” he said, “the problem is much worse than you think.”
一週後，維西將軍帶着答案回到白宮。調查結果表明《戰爭遊戲》並非不着邊際。“總統先生，”他說，“這個問題比你想的還要嚴重得多。”
Reagan’s question set off a series of interagency memos and studies that culminated, 15 months later, in his signing a classified national security decision directive, NSDD-145, titled “National Policy on Telecommunications and Automated Information Systems Security.”
里根的問題引出了一系列各部門協作的備忘錄與研究，15個月後，這些研究達到了頂峯，里根簽署了機密的國家安全決策指導方案NSDD-145，名爲《電子通信與自動化信息系統安全國家政策》。
The first laptop computers had barely hit the market; public Internet providers wouldn’t exist for another few years. Yet NSDD-145 warned that these new machines — which government agencies and high-tech industries had started buying at a rapid clip — were “highly susceptible to interception.” Hostile foreign powers were “extensively” hacking into them already; “terrorist groups and criminal elements” had the ability to do so, too.
當時，第一批筆記本電腦幾乎還沒上市；公共互聯網服務商還要過一兩年纔會出現。但是NSDD-145提出警告，這些新機器——當時政府部門和高科技產業已經開始大量採購了——“很有可能被侵入”。惡意的外國勢力已經“廣泛地”黑入了這些機器；“恐怖組織與犯罪分子”也有了這個能力。
General Vessey could answer the president’s question so promptly — and national-security aides could compose NSDD-145 in such detailed language — because, deep within the bureaucracy, a small group of scientists and spies had been concerned about this looming threat for more than a decade.
維西將軍之所以能夠如此迅速地回答總統的問題，國家安全部門的工作人員之所以能夠以這樣詳細的措辭起草NSDD-145，這都是因爲在官僚機構內部，有一小羣科學家與間諜，十幾年前便已經開始關注這個即將到來的威脅。
In the 1960s, the Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency undertook a program called the ARPAnet. The idea, a precursor to the Internet, was to let Pentagon labs and contractors share data and research on the same network.
20世紀60年代，國防部的高級研究計劃署(Defense Department’s Advanced Research Projects Agency )開展了一個名叫ARPAnet的項目。它是互聯網的先驅，目的是令國防部的實驗室與承包商分享數據資料，在同一個網絡內進行研究。
Just before the program’s rollout, in April 1967, an engineer named Willis Ware wrote a paper called “Security and Privacy in Computer Systems.” A computer pioneer dating back to the ’40s, Mr. Ware headed the computer science department at the RAND Corporation, the think tank in Santa Monica, Calif.
這個項目於1967年4月啓動，在此之前，一個名叫威利斯·威爾(Willis Ware)的工程師寫了一篇論文，名爲《電腦系統的安全與隱私》。早在40年代，威爾便已經是電腦領域內的先驅，他在加利福尼亞州聖塔莫尼卡的智庫——蘭德公司(RAND Corporation)領導着一個電腦科技部門。
In his paper, he lauded the goals of the ARPAnet but explained some risks of what he called “on-line” networks. As long as computers sat in isolated chambers, security wasn’t a problem. But once multiple users could gain access to data from unprotected locations, anyone with certain skills could hack into the network — and, once inside, roam at will, pilfering unclassified and secret files alike. Mr. Ware’s warnings went unheeded for decades, though he remained a frequent consultant. (He died in 2013, at the age of 93.)
在論文中，他讚美了ARPAnet的目標，但也解釋了他所謂的“在線”網絡系統中的一些危險。只要電腦是孤立的，安全就不成問題。但是一旦許多用戶都可以從未經保護的地址獲取信息，有些具備某些特殊能力的人就可以黑進網絡，一旦他們進入網絡隨意漫遊，就可以竊取公開或機密文件之類的東西。幾十年來，威爾的警告都沒有受到重視，儘管他仍然是一位經常受到資訊的顧問（他於2013年逝世，享年93歲）。
In 1980, Lawrence Lasker and Walter Parkes, former Yale classmates in their late 20s, were writing the screenplay for “WarGames.” (It would be nominated for an Oscar but would lose to Horton Foote’s “Tender Mercies.”) A hacker friend had told them about “demon-dialing,” in which a telephone modem searched for other modems by automatically dialing each phone number in an area code and letting it ring twice before proceeding to the next number. If a modem answered, it would squawk; the demon-dialing software would record the number, so the hacker could call back later. In their screenplay, this was how their hero broke into NORAD. But they wondered if this was plausible: Didn’t the military close off its computers to public telephone lines?
1980年，耶魯的同班同學、快30歲的勞倫斯·拉斯科(Lawrence Lasker )與沃爾克·帕克斯(Walter Parkes)寫了《戰爭遊戲》的劇本——它後來獲得了奧斯卡最佳劇本獎提名，但最終敗給霍頓·福特(Horton Foote)的《溫柔的憐憫》(Tender Mercies)。一個黑客朋友給他們講了“魔鬼撥號軟件”的事情，意思是，一個電話調制解調器會通過自動撥打一個地區內的其他電話號碼找出其他調制解調器。它會讓對方電話響兩聲，之後撥打另一個電話號碼。如果對方調制解調器應答了，就會發出粗糙的聲音；這個魔鬼撥號軟件就會記下這個號碼，黑客過一會兒再撥回去。在劇本里，主人公正是這樣闖入了NORAD。但是兩個編劇不知道這種事情是不是真能實現：軍方難道不應該把自己的電腦隔離在公共電話線路之外嗎？
Mr. Lasker lived in Santa Monica, a few blocks from RAND. Figuring someone there might be helpful, he called the public affairs office, which put him in touch with Mr. Ware, who invited the pair to his office.
拉斯科當時住在聖塔莫尼卡，距離蘭德只有幾個街區。他知道那個公司有人可能能夠幫助自己，於是就給該公司的公共事務辦公室打了電話，就這樣聯繫上了威爾，威爾請兩人去自己的辦公室見面。
They’d come to the right man. Not only had he long known about the vulnerability of computer networks, but he’d also helped design the software for the real NORAD computer. And Mr. Ware proved remarkably open, even friendly. Listening to the writers’ questions, he waved off their worries. Yes, he told them, the computer was supposed to be closed, but some officers wanted to work from home on weekends, so they’d leave a port open. Anyone could get in, if the right number was dialed.
他倆可真算找對了人。威爾不僅早就瞭解電腦系統有多麼容易受到攻擊，而且還參與設計了現實生活中NORAD的電腦軟件。威爾知無不言，非常友善。聽了兩個編劇的問題，他一口就打消了他倆的顧慮。沒錯，他告訴他們，軍方的電腦本應是關閉的，但有些軍官希望週末回家工作，所以他們就讓端口開着。任何人如果撥對了號碼都可以連接進來。
“The only computer that’s completely secure,” Mr. Ware told them with a mischievous smile, “is a computer that no one can use.”
“唯一徹底安全的電腦就是根本沒有人使用的電腦，”威爾帶着頑皮的微笑說。
Ware gave the writers the confidence to go ahead with their project. It’s fitting that the scenario of “WarGames” — which aroused Reagan’s curiosity and led to the first national policy on reducing the vulnerability of computers — owed a crucial debt to the man who’d first warned that they were vulnerable.
威爾給了兩個編劇信心繼續寫下去。《戰爭遊戲》中的情節引起了里根的好奇心，結果就是第一個強化電腦安全性的國家政策出臺，而這些情節很大程度要歸功於那個第一次提出警告，說電腦非常容易遭受攻擊的人，這是非常適宜的。
Meanwhile, Reagan’s directive hit a roadblock. It put the National Security Agency in charge of securing all of the nation’s computer servers and networks — government, business and personal. The agency had been established in 1952 to intercept foreign communications; it was expressly barred from spying on Americans. Representative Jack Brooks, a Texas Democrat and a fiery civil-liberties advocate, wasn’t about to let a classified presidential decree blur the distinction. He sponsored and got passed a law overriding that directive.
與此同時，里根的指令遇到了困難。它讓國家安全局(National Security Agency)負責國家電腦服務商與網絡的安全，其中包括政府網絡、商用網絡與個人網絡。國家安全局1952年創立時，是爲了攔截外國通訊；它特意被禁止偵查美國公民。得克薩斯州民主黨衆議員傑克·布魯克斯(Jack Brooks)是一位堅決的公民自由擁護者，他不願讓一紙祕密的總統命令模糊了其中的區別。他提起一項法律，推翻這條指令，最終獲得了通過。
The main author of Reagan’s NSDD-145 was Donald Latham, the Pentagon’s liaison to the National Security Agency — and a former N.S.A. analyst himself. General Vessey had assigned him to answer Reagan’s question on “WarGames” (Could something like this really happen?). Mr. Latham answered as he did (The situation is much worse than you think.) because he knew that the N.S.A. had long been hacking into the communications systems of the Soviet Union and China — and what we were doing to them, they could someday do to us.
里根的NSDD-145指令的起草者是國防部對國家安全局的聯絡員唐納德·萊瑟姆(Donald Latham)，他本人之前在國家安全局擔任聯絡員。維西將軍派遣他去回答里根關於《戰爭遊戲》的問題（“這種事真的會發生嗎？”）萊瑟姆照實回答了這個問題（“這個問題比你想的還要嚴重得多”），因爲他知道，國家安全局一直都在侵入蘇聯和中國的通訊系統——我們對他們做的事情，他們有一天也可以這樣對我們做。
Mr. Ware had been among the first to draw this conclusion. Mr. Latham knew about it early on because the two were longtime friends, Mr. Ware having served on the N.S.A.’s scientific advisory board. The N.S.A. was the most secretive branch of the American intelligence community. Reagan’s screening of “WarGames” brought Mr. Ware’s concerns into high policy-making circles for the first time. And it sparked the first public controversy over the tensions between security and privacy on the Internet, as well as the first public power struggle about the subject between the N.S.A. and Congress — a debate and a struggle that persist today.
威爾是最早得出這種結論的人之一。萊瑟姆也早就知道，因爲兩人是老朋友。威爾曾經在國家安全局的科學顧問委員會工作過。國家安全局當時是美國情報部門中最隱祕的一個分支。里根對《戰爭遊戲》的關注令威爾的憂慮得以第一次進入最高決策圈。引發了關於互聯網安全與隱私之間緊張關係的第一次公開討論，以及國家安全局與議會之間的第一次公開權力鬥爭——這樣的討論與鬥爭一直延續至今。
