五千万条用户信息被窃用,Facebook再陷泄密门？

近日，Facebook陷入重大信任危机。媒体爆出一家政治数据分析公司窃取了该社交巨头五千万条用户信息，并利用这些数据在2016年的美国大选中为特朗普操控民意。对此Facebook否认信息泄露，但公众显然并不满意。Facebook是难辞其咎还是背锅蒙冤？请看本期Quriosity.

WASHINGTON -- American and British lawmakers demanded on Sunday that Facebook explain how a political data firm with links to President Trump's 2016 campaign was able to harvest private information from more than 50 million Facebook profiles without the social network's alerting users.

华盛顿——周日，美英议员要求Facebook做出解释，为何没有警告用户，就让一家与2016特朗普选举有关的政治数据公司取得了超过5000万条facebook的用户信息。

 The backlash forced Facebook to once again defend the way it protects user data.Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democratic member of the Senate Judiciary Committee,went so far as to press for Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook's chief executive, to appear before the panel to explain what the social network knew about the misuse of its data ''to target political advertising and manipulate voters.''

在一片抨击声中，Facebook不得不再次为自己保护用户信息的方式进行辩护。….说明Facebook对此次以“政治宣传和操纵选举”为目的的数据滥用了解有多深。

The calls for greater scrutiny followed reports on Saturday in The New York Times and The

Observer of London that Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm founded by Stephen K.Bannon and Robert Mercer, the wealthy Republican donor, had used the Facebook data to develop methods that it claimed could identify the personalities of individual American voters and influence their behavior.

在周六《纽约时报》和《观察家报》进行报道后，人们呼吁对由共和党赞助人史蒂芬班农和罗伯特莫瑟创立的剑桥数据公司的进一步调查，该政治数据公司曾使用Facebook提供的数据开发一种其声称可识别美国选民性格并影响其行为的方法。

The firm's so-called psychographic modeling underpinned its work for the Trump campaign in 2016, though many have questioned the effectiveness of its techniques. But Facebook did not inform users whose data had been harvested. The lack of disclosure could violate laws in Britain and in many American states.

尽管其有效性曾遭到许多质疑，这种名为“心理建模”的技术是这家公司支持特朗普2016年大选时采用的主要手段。

Cambridge analytica

剑桥数据分析公司

Damian Collins, a Conservative lawmaker in Britain who is leading a parliamentary inquiry into fake news and Russian meddling in the country's referendum to leave the European Union, said this weekend that he, too, would call on Mr. Zuckerberg or another top executive to testify.

英国保守党议员戴米安·科林斯于本周末称他也呼吁扎克伯格或另一位最高行政官出庭作证。该议员正在进行一项国会调查，研究虚假新闻与俄罗斯政府对英国脱欧的公民投票的干预情况。

The social network sent executives who handle policy matters to answer questions in February.

二月，Facebook已经派遣了处理政策事务的高管来回答相关问题。

''It is not acceptable that they have previously sent witnesses who seek to avoid answering difficult questions by claiming not to know the answers,'' Mr. Collins said in a statement.

科林斯声称：“他们先前就令目击证人统一口径，指使他们声称自己并不知道答案从而避免回答棘手问题，这让我们无法接受”。

 ''This also creates a false reassurance that Facebook's stated policies are always robust and effectively policed.''

“这样做也造成一种假象，让人觉得Facebook的规定政策一向正确并且得到了有效的监管。”

The fallout from the reports added to questions Facebook was already confronting over the use of its platform by those seeking to spread Russian propaganda and fake news.

Facebook早已面临关于其平台用途的问题，不法之徒利用它传播俄罗斯的政治宣传与假新闻，而由这些报告延伸出的影响进一步加剧了这方面的问题。

The social media giant has grappled with the criticism over the issue for much of the past year, and struggled to keep public opinion on its side.

过去一年来，这个社交媒体巨头已经在努力应对针对这个问题的外界批评，并且努力争取着公众舆论支持。

Over the weekend, Facebook was on the defensive. Top executives took to Twitter to argue that the company's protections had not been breached, and that Facebook was thus not at fault.

整个周末，Facebook一直处在防御状态。最高执行官在Twitter上表示公司的安全系统并没有被破坏，因此Facebook并没有做错什么。

''This was unequivocally not a data breach,'' tweeted Andrew Bosworth, a Facebook executive. ''No systems were infiltrated, no passwords or information were stolen or hacked.'

Facebook的执行官安德鲁·博斯伍斯发推文表示：“这次很明显并不是一次数据泄露，系统没有遭到入侵，密码和信息也没有被窃取或遭到了黑客攻击。”

The data was obtained in 2014, when Cambridge Analytica, through an outside researcher, paid users small sums to take a personality quiz and download an app, which would scrape some private information from their profiles and from those of their friends -- activity that Facebook permitted at the time. The approach was based on a technique pioneered at Cambridge University by data scientists who claimed it could reveal more about a person than even their parents or romantic partners knew.

2014年，剑桥分析公司(Cambridge Analytical)通过一个Facebook外部研究人员发布了一个有偿性格测试并让用户下载一个APP，他们以此从用户和他们好友的文件中窃取个人信息，Facebook 当时并未禁止这一行为。剑桥大学的数剑桥据科学家提供这一技术支持他们的行为，来获取用户很多的信息，有些信息甚至连他们的父母和恋人都不知道。这种做法基于一项剑桥大学领先研究的技术，相关数据科学家称，它能深度揭示一个人的特点，甚至比父母和恋人还更了解你。

The researcher hired by Cambridge Analytical, Alexandr Kogan, told Facebook and his app's users that he was collecting information for academic purposes, not for a political data firm owned by a wealthy conservative. Facebook did nothing to verify how the information was being used.

亚历山大•库甘(Alexandr Kogan)是剑桥分析公司(Cambridge Analytical)聘请的研究人员，他当时对Facebook及其app用户说，收集这些信息仅用于学术研究，而不是为一家共和党财阀所有的政治数据公司服务。Facebook当时并未核实这些信息的真实用途。

Mr. Bosworth argued on Twitter that a violation had been committed only by Cambridge Analytical and Mr. Kogan, whose app ''did not follow the data agreements.''

Facebook的执行官博斯伍思在推特上说，库甘(Kogan)的APP“没有遵守数据协议”，违规者只有剑桥分析公司和库甘。

Facebook's chief security officer, Alex Stamos, issued a similar defense in a series of tweets that have since been deleted.

Facebook的首席安全官亚历克斯·斯坦莫斯在一系列推文中也发布了类似的话来辩解，但随后便删除了。

''The recent Cambridge Analytical stories by the NY Times and The Guardian are important and powerful, but it is incorrect to call this a 'breach' under any reasonable definition of the term,'' Mr. Stamos tweeted.

斯坦莫斯（Stamos）在推特上写道:“《纽约时报》和《卫报》最近发表的剑桥分析公司的事很重要，也很有影响力，但不管如何都不该把这称为‘违约’’。”但无论如何称之为‘信息泄露’都是不正确的。

“剑桥分析”公司伦敦办事处面临搜查

CA faced with scrutiny

The explanation did little, however, to stem the tide of anger as independent researchers pointed out that many others could have similarly misused Facebook data.

然而，这一解释并没有阻止愤怒的浪潮。有独立研究人员指出，还有很多人可能曾采用类似手段滥用了Facebook的数据。

''Facebook's platform must protect us from predatory behavior,'' wrote a Twitter user named Evan Baily, ''or we can't and shouldn't trust the platform.''

推特用户埃文·贝利称：“Facebook平台有义务保护我们免受隐私泄漏的侵害，否则我们不能也不该继续信任这个平台。”

Columbia University, wrote that the lack oversight and transparency into what sort of data Facebook collected on its users meant that the company's platform could continue to be exploited.

哥伦比亚大学数字新闻研究中心主任乔纳森·奥尔布赖特称，Facebook对用户数据收集缺乏有效监督和透明机制，这意味着该平台今后仍存在被窃取数据信息的可能。

''Unethical people will always do bad things when we make it easy for them and there are few -- if any -- lasting repercussions,'' Mr. Albright said.

奥尔布赖特如是说：“如果我们给坏人可乘之机，且缺乏相应持续的管制，那么他们将会继续作恶。” 

Paul Grewal, a vice president and deputy general counsel at Facebook, said in a statement that the company was looking into whether the data in question still existed. ''That is where our focus lies as we remain committed to vigorously enforcing our policies to protect people's information,'' he said.

Facebook副总裁兼总法律顾问保罗·格雷瓦尔在声明中表示，该公司正在调查问题数据是否仍然处于泄露状态。他回应 “我们一直致力于落实保护个人信息的相关措施”。

This month, The Times viewed a set of raw data from the profiles Cambridge Analytica obtained. And a former employee of the data firm described having recently seen hundreds of gigabytes of unencrypted data files on Cambridge servers.

本月《泰晤士报》从剑桥分析属的数据库中查看了一组原始数据，这家公司的前雇员声称最近在该公司的网络服务器上看到了数百GB的未加密的数据文件。

There were also questions from technology experts and others about Facebook's reaction to the news reports by The Times and The Observer, especially its decision to suspend the account of Christopher Wylie, a data expert who oversaw Cambridge Analytica's data harvesting -- but also spoke out about it to the two news organizations.

此外，Facebook对此次《泰晤士报》《观察者报》相关报道的回应，特别是决定关闭CA数据收集相关监督人克里斯托·弗怀利的账户,并且把该决定公开于两家媒体这一做法，招致了许多技术专家以及其他人士的质疑。

On Friday, Facebook threatened to sue The Observer to stop it from publishing, the newspaper's outgoing editor, John Mulholland, said on Twitter.

《观察家报》即将卸任的编辑John Mulholland在Twitter上表示：周五，Facebook威胁《观察家报》，称如果该报执意发布这一新闻，则该公司将会发起诉讼。

Then, late Friday evening, Facebook posted a statement that expressed alarm at the data leak. The company promised to take action and announced that it was suspending the accounts of Cambridge Analytica, Mr. Kogan and Mr. Wylie.

接着，周五晚上，Facebook发布了一份声明，称该公司对于数据泄露这一问题十分重视。Facebook承诺将会采取行动，并宣布冻结剑桥分析数据负责人库甘和Wylie的账户。

By then, Facebook had learned that Mr. Wylie, who left Cambridge Analytica in 2014, was a named source for the news reports.

当时Facebook已经知道，2014年离开剑桥分析的Wylie是新闻报道中的实名消息源之一。

In a statement on Sunday, Mr. Wylie described himself as ''a curious and naïve 23-year-old,'' when he first went to work for Cambridge Analytica.

''I feel a sense of regret every day when I see where they have helped take our world,'' he added. ''I need to make amends, and that's why I'm coming forward.''

在周日的一份声明中，Wylie先生称当自己最初去剑桥分析工作时，只是一个“好奇而幼稚的23岁小伙子”。“当我看到他们把我们的世界变成什么样子的时候，我每天都感到后悔，”他补充道。 ''我需要做出弥补，这也就是为什么我要站出来揭露这一切。''

His lawyer, Tamsin Allen, said that last week Mr. Wylie offered to help Facebook recover the missing data.Now, though, Facebook said on Sunday, Mr. Wylie is refusing to cooperate with the company until the suspension is lifted.

他的律师Tamsin Allen说，上周Wylie已经提出帮助Facebook恢复丢失的数据。然而，Facebook却在周日称，在账户恢复前，Wylie拒绝与他们合作。