Lesson36 No Place to Hide
In an interview last month, Frank Church, chairman of the Senate committee that is investigating the CIA, issued an
oblique1 but impassioned warning, that the technology of
eavesdropping2 had become so highly developed that Americans might soon be left with "no place to hide". That day may have arrived. Newsweek has learned that the country's most secret intelligence operation, the national Security Agency, already possesses the computerized equipment to monitor nearly all overseas telephone calls and most domestic and international printed messages.
The agency's devices monitor thousands of telephone circuits, cable lines and the microwave transmissions that carry an increasing share of both spoken and written communications.
Computers are programmed to watch for "trigger" words or phrases indicating that a message might interest intelligence
analysts3. When the trigger is pulled, entire messages are tape-recorded or printed out.
That kind of eavesdropping is, however,
relatively4 simple compared with the breakthroughs that lie ahead in the field of snoopery. Already it is
technically5 feasible to "
bug6" an electric typewriter by picking up its feeble electronic
emissions7 from a remote location and then translating them into words. And some scientists believe that it may be possible in the future for remote electronic equipment to
intercept9 and "read" human brain waves.
Where such
capabilities10 exist, so too does the potential for abuse. It is the old story of technology rushing forward with some new wonder, before the men who supposedly control the machines have figured out how to prevent the machines from controlling them.
oblique 间接的, 不坦率的
eavesdropping 窃听
emission8 发射
intercept 中途阻止, 截取
无处藏身
在上个月的一次访问中，正在调查中央情报局的参议院委员会的主席弗兰克•丘奇发出了情绪激动，但又拐弯抹角的批评：窃听技术如此发达，美国人可能很快就会“无处藏身”。这一天可能已经到来了。《新闻周刊》了解到，美国最神秘的情报机构，中央情报局，已经拥有了可以监听几乎所有的海外电话通讯和监视大多数国内和国际印刷信息的计算机设备。
中央情报局的设备监视着成千上万条承担着越来越多的口头和书面通讯的电话线路、电缆线路和微波传输线路。电脑程序监视着那些触发词或短语，这些词或短语表明一条信息可能会引起情报分析员的注意。当一个触发词或短语出现的时候，整个信息就会被录下来或者打印出来。
然而，与窃探领域即将出现的突破相比，这种形式的窃听是比较简单的。在远处捕捉电动打字机发出的微弱电子信号然后再转换成文字，这样来“窃听”一台电动打字机的方法在技术上已经是可行的了。一些科学家相信，用远处的电子设备截获和“读取”人类的脑电波在将来也是可能的。
如果存在这种能力，也就有被滥用的可能。在本应是机器控制者的人类还没有来得及找到如何阻止机器控制人类之时，科技却突飞猛进，带来新的奇迹，这是一个老生常谈的问题了。
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