274 Security of Net
274 网络安全
In the villages of the English countryside there are still people who remember the good old days when no one bothered to lock their doors. There simply wasn’t any crime to worry about. Amazingly, these happy times appear still to be with us in the world’s biggest community. A new study by Dan Farmer, a gifted programmer, using an automated investigative program of his own called SATAN, shows that the owners of well over half of all World Wide Web sites have set up home without fitting locks to their doors.
在英国乡下的村庄里，还有人记得过去那些美好的日子，那时家家都夜不闭户，根本就不用担心会有人违法犯罪。让人惊奇的是，在世界上最大的社区里，我们似乎依然生活在这美好的日子里。一位很有才华的程序设计员丹·丹法默最近用自己设计的一款名叫SATAN的自动调整程序做了一项新的调查，发现世界范围内互联网上有超过一半的网址的主人建了一个家，却不给家门“上锁”。
SATAN can try out a variety of well-known hacking Farmer has made the program publicly available, amid much criticism. A person with evil intent could use it to hunt down sites that are easy to burgle.
SATAN可以对互联网上的网址用许多著名的黑客手段进行试探而无需闯入。法默使公众都可以得到这个程序，结果招来一片批评声。心怀不轨的人可以用这个程序搜索到那些容易闯入的网址。
But Farmer is very concerned about the need to alert the public to poor security and, so far, events have proved him right. SATAN has done more to alert people to the risks than cause new disorder.
而法默特别关注的是．需要警示公众网络并不安全，而且迄今看来，事实证明他是对的。SATAN大大提高了人们的风险意识，而没有引起新的混乱。
So is the Net becoming more secure? Far from it. In the early days, when you visited a Web site your browser simply looked at the content. Now the Web is full of tiny programs that automatically download when you look at a Web page, and run on your own machine. These programs could, if their authors wished, do all kinds of nasty things to your computer.
那么，网络是否正变得更加安全呢？远非如此。在网络时代的早期，你到一个网址浏览时，你仅仅是看到它的内容；而今，网络充满了各种小程序，当你浏览网页时，它就会被自动下载并在你的计算机上运行。如果这些程序的编写者愿意的话，这些程序可以在你的计算机上干尽坏事。
At the same time, the Net is increasingly populated with spiders, worms, agents and other types of automated beasts designed to penetrate the sites and seek out and classify information. All these make wonderful tools for antisocial people who want to invade weak sites and cause damage.
与此同时，网络上各种网络蜘蛛，蠕虫病毒，代理程序以及其他各种自动的恶性程序层出不穷，它们都被设计出来用于透过网址，搜索并归类整理信息。所有这些，都可以成为那些想要侵入安全性不高的网址搞破坏的反社会的人们很好的工具。
But let’s look on the bright side. Given the lack of locks, the Internet is surely the world’s biggest (almost) crime-free society. Maybe that is because hackers are fundamentally honest. Or that there currently isn’t much to steal. Or because vandalism isn’t much fun unless you have a peculiar dislike for someone.
但让我们也看看好的一面。考虑到网络上如此缺乏“门锁”，可以说，互联网肯定是世界上最大的（几乎）没有什么犯罪的社会。也许变是因为黑客们本质也是讲究诚信的，或者因为现在还没有什么可偷，又或者除非特别不喜欢某人，否则搞恶意破坏并没有什么好玩的。
Whatever the reason, let’s enjoy it while we can. But expect it all to change, and security to become the number one issue, when the most influential inhabitants of the Net are selling services they want to be paid for.
无论如何，让我们趁现在在网络还安全的时候赶紧享受吧！可是我们得知道，得心中有数，当那些最有影响力的网络居民兜售他们想要人们付款购买某些服务时，这一些可能会改变，而安全会成为首要问题。