13．Crypto  密码

Technology is a beauty. We eagerly adopt its pleasure, preferring to cope with the drawbacks on the morning after. Who can resist innovations like mobile phones and networked computers? They put anyone, anywhere, within earshot, and zip information— whether an expression of love, a medical chart or a plan for a product rollout— around the world in a heartbeat. Unfortunately, it’s all too easy for eavesdroppers to snap up those messages and conversations en route to their intended receiver. We think we’re whispering, but we’re broadcasting.

In this case, there’s an antidote: cryptography, the use of codes and ciphers to protect information. If you scramble information before it’s sent, eavesdroppers can’t hear what you say or read what you’re written. The good news is that, after decades of struggle against a government opposed to its widespread use, we’ve finally got access to crypto— software that does the scrambling, as well as other functions like “digital signatures” that will authenticate that we are who we say we are in cyberspace. You might not see the crypto, but it’s there, going into action every time your computer tells you it’s going into the secret “secure mode.” What should alarm you is that crypto still isn’t there — in the millions of medical records, credit-card databases. We can attribute that failure that failure to the government’s active opposition.

Nowadays, more and more of the activities once associated with that good old physical world will be performed at our keyboards, phone devices and palmtops and over digital televisions. Crypto lies at the center of this transition, and we’re going to ask a lot of it over the next few years. Will our e-mail and phone systems ever have strong encryption and digital signatures built in? Will feats of crypto really send “digital cash” to replace the paper money, and enable us to spend it in stores?

The issues in the crypto-battle, the first great war of the digital age, were more straightforward. As people cozied up to digital communications, and e-commerce became a force in the economy, the need for crypto’s near-magical power of encryption and authentication became red hot. But those at the helm of the government focused not on the benefits, but the dangers— the fear that terrorists or drug dealers would use this digital shield. Ultimately, the question boiled down to this: in an attempt to deny those dangerous few, were we all to be deprived of the tools of privacy?

科技是一位美女。急于它的青睐，宁愿迁就不久以后的倒退。谁能够抵制像移动电话和联网计算机的革新?它们使任何人在任何地方都能被听到。把压缩信息——是爱的表白、药方产品的公览计划——在瞬间传遍世界。不幸的是，窃听者很容易在途中拦截信息和对话。以为在窃窃私语，上在广播。

种情况下，有解决办法：密码学，用密码保护信息。你在信息发出去之前倒换频率，窃听者就听到你说或看到你写了。有好消息，在与反对密码学使用的作了几十年的抗争后，终于可以使用密码——倒换频率的软件，和能在电脑化空间中确认是所声称的人的功能，诸如“数码签名”。你看密码，但它是的。每次你的电脑告诉你它将秘密的“安全模式”中时，密码就起作用了。警告你在成百上千万的病历卡、信用卡数据库中还设置密码。做应归咎于的反对。

现在，越来越多曾经与那个古老的美好的现实世界相的活动将的键盘、电话设备、掌上电脑和数字化电视。密码种转变中中心地位。在今后的几年中对它的需求量将为。的电子邮件和电话系统将有很强的译码和数字签名功能吗?密码将真能发送“数字现金”代替纸币，使能在商店里使用它吗?

数字时代的次大战——密码战——中的问题更为直接。当人们尽力迎合数字交流，电子商务经济中的一支力量时，密码近乎魔术的译码和确认功能的需求迫切。那些受控制的人们不把目光利润上而是风险上——害怕恐怖主义者和贩毒者会使用数字盾牌。最后，问题简化为：难道防备那些危险的分子，都要被剥夺保护隐私的工具?

★1).Technology is like an art, which everybody including scientists loves.-N

★2).In the passage, drawbacks means the messages we send may be intercepted or overheard by non-intended receivers.-R

★3).With the widespread use of digital communications and e-commerce, encryption will become very urgent.-R

★4).We have finally got the crypto in our computer but not in medical records and credit-card databases.-R

★5).More and more activities performed in the physical world will be replaced by activities in the electronic world.-R

★6).The passage clearly concludes that we need a new organization to popularize encryption and authentication.-N

★7).Encryption can protect privacy, but can stop terrorism and drug dealing as well.-W