美国国家公共电台 NPR Laura Galante: Are All Of Us Vulnerable To Fake News?

 

GUY RAZ, HOST:

On the show today, Truth and Lies, ideas about what happens when the truth gets distorted in such a way that it makes it kind of hard to tell what's real.

LAURA GALANTE: And in this case, it's questioning whether the elections in the U.S. are fair, questioning whether the democratic institution that's most seen at the heart of legitimacy² for the American presidency³ is all a sham⁴.

RAZ: This is Laura Galante. She's a cybersecurity consultant⁵.

GALANTE: I discuss cybersecurity and kind of the intersection⁶ of politics and technology.

RAZ: And Laura's talking about the hacking⁷ and the leaks that happened during the U.S. election in 2016.

(SOUNDBITE OF NEWS MONTAGE)

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #1: There is renewed confidence that Russia is, in fact, behind these cyber break ins.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN #2: Efforts to damage the political process in the United States.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN: By foreign hackers⁸ to influence the election.

RAZ: So just a refresher, last summer, the Democratic National Committee was hacked⁹. And a collection of emails from senior Democratic leaders was leaked and then published by WikiLeaks. And some of those emails made it seem like the DNC wasn't neutral in the primary election battle between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders.

GALANTE: And when that information goes public, the way that that gets picked up by the press and the way that those emails are portrayed¹⁰ start to play into that very concept that the U.S.' process and the concept of voting was all sort of a sham or being puppeteered by the parties and wasn't something that was really organically based on people's sentiment and their vote in the primaries.

So I think what you see is an opening that the Kremlin was interested in figuring out how to exploit, which is a lack of trust in the standard institutions that America had seen and trusted for its democratic process. You're never going to get, with any of this and particularly with Russia, Professor Plum in the parlor¹¹ with a pipe, right? But what was clear is regardless of the outcome, Russia stood to benefit if the U.S. political system was in chaos¹².

RAZ: And by seeding doubt in America's democratic institutions, the hackers created a climate, a climate that made it more plausible¹³ to deny the truth. And the Internet made that process happen seamlessly.

GALANTE: The dependence¹⁴ that we have for not just our news but really for how we're thinking about our collective experience as people and as a country and as a world is just so intensely derived¹⁵ from the Internet right now. Your smartphone is more your reality than walking down the street. So it's now time to figure out what seems fake, what seems real, why that's the case. And you don't yet have the same Spidey feeling or, you know, goosebumps on the back of your neck that you get when you're walking down the street and there's a shady character walking down and, you know, you're not going to trust something that they say or take it at face value. You don't have that feeling yet on the Internet.

RAZ: Here's Laura Galante on the TED¹ stage.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

GALANTE: As our realities are increasingly based on the information that we're consuming at the palm of our hand and from the news feeds that we're scanning and the hashtags and stories that we see trending, the Russian government was the first to recognize how this evolution had turned your mind into the most exploitable device on the planet. And your mind is particularly exploitable if you're accustomed to an unfettered flow of information now increasingly curated to your own tastes. This panorama¹⁶ of information that's so interesting to you gives a state - or anyone, for that matter - a perfect back door into your mind.

It's this new brand of state-sponsored information operations that can be that much more successful, more insidious¹⁷ and harder for the target audience - that includes the media - to decipher and characterize. If you can get a hashtag trending on Twitter or chum the waters with fake news directed to audiences primed to receive it - all tactics used in Russian operations - then you've got a shot at effectively camouflaging¹⁸ your operations in the mind of your target. This is what Russia's long called reflexive control. It's the ability to use information on someone else so that they make a decision on their own accord that's favorable to you.

RAZ: Why - why are we so susceptible¹⁹ to that kind of manipulation?

GALANTE: We love - particularly in the West - we love having all of this information coming at us that we get to kind of pick and choose what we like, right? So the more that we have this sort of buffet²⁰ of information at our fingertips and we get to choose what pieces we want to consume, the more we feel like we've helped construct our truth. But if there's two dishes on that buffet that never would have been there naturally - right? - or look extra enticing²¹, we're more willing to choose them.

So in a sense, because we are so accustomed to this kind of unfettered flow of information, it's given a malicious²² actor the ability to have that kind of seamless blend into the panorama of information that's in front of you. And if something fits with how we want our world to look through our rosy-colored glasses, then that information seems a bit more credible²³.

(SOUNDBITE OF TED TALK)

GALANTE: We must recognize that this place where we're increasingly living which we've quaintly²⁴ termed cyberspace²⁵ isn't defined by ones and zeros, but by information and the people behind it. This is far more than a network of computers and devices. This is a network composed of minds interacting with computers and devices. And for this network there's no encryption, there's no firewall, no two-factor authentication²⁶, no password complex enough to protect you. What you have for defense²⁷ is far stronger. It's more adaptable²⁸. It's always running the latest version. It's the ability to think critically, call out falsehood, press for the facts. And above all, you must have the courage to unflinchingly pursue the truth.

RAZ: I just can't get past this idea that we are so vulnerable as a species and as citizens, that we're so vulnerable to believing misinformation, to believing lies. I mean, you think about history, and we look back at these black-and-white reels of, like, Italians, you know, cheering on Mussolini and Germans cheering on Hitler, and we think, oh, God, how stupid could they have been? I mean, gosh, we would never do that today. And some of this stuff makes me think, well, is that true?

GALANTE: I think there's a Reagan quote that is we're always one generation away from losing our freedom.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

RONALD REAGAN: Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction²⁹. We didn't pass it on to our children in the bloodstream.

GALANTE: It's very easy to forget how hard people fought to live in a place where you could say what you wanted to say and you wouldn't be - feared to be in jail or - you know, or political dissonance was something that came with, you know, a good, healthy democracy. These concepts aren't something that are granted to us. They are not unalienable rights. They're something you fight for.

And if we can collectively reassert that we want a democracy that is based on these principles without having to go through a war, without having to have World War II, without having to have the Dark Ages to get to the Enlightenment, without having to, you know, have a massive, all-out fight, then I think that will be the ultimate mark of whether we've overcome this as a species.

RAZ: Laura Galante is a cybersecurity expert based in Washington, D.C. You can see her full talk at ted.com.

(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)

REAGAN: And if you and I don't do this, then you and I may well spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free.

(APPLAUSE)

RAZ: On the show today ideas about what's real and what's not. I'm Guy Raz, and you're listening to the TED Radio Hour from NPR.

1 ted   

vt.翻晒，撒，撒开

参考例句：

• The invaders gut ted the village.侵略者把村中财物洗劫一空。
• She often teds the corn when it's sunny.天好的时候她就翻晒玉米。

2 legitimacy   

n.合法，正当

参考例句：

• The newspaper was directly challenging the government's legitimacy.报纸直接质疑政府的合法性。
• Managing from the top down,we operate with full legitimacy.我们进行由上而下的管理有充分的合法性。

3 presidency   

n.总统(校长，总经理)的职位(任期)

参考例句：

• Roosevelt was elected four times to the presidency of the United States.罗斯福连续当选四届美国总统。
• Two candidates are emerging as contestants for the presidency.两位候选人最终成为总统职位竞争者。

4 sham   

n./adj.假冒(的)，虚伪(的)

参考例句：

• They cunningly played the game of sham peace.他们狡滑地玩弄假和平的把戏。
• His love was a mere sham.他的爱情是虚假的。

5 consultant   

n.顾问；会诊医师，专科医生

参考例句：

• He is a consultant on law affairs to the mayor.他是市长的一个法律顾问。
• Originally,Gar had agreed to come up as a consultant.原来，加尔只答应来充当我们的顾问。

6 intersection   

n.交集，十字路口，交叉点；[计算机] 交集

参考例句：

• There is a stop sign at an intersection.在交叉路口处有停车标志。
• Bridges are used to avoid the intersection of a railway and a highway.桥用来避免铁路和公路直接交叉。

7 hacking   

n.非法访问计算机系统和数据库的活动

参考例句：

• The patient with emphysema is hacking all day. 这个肺气肿病人整天不断地干咳。
• We undertook the task of hacking our way through the jungle. 我们负责在丛林中开路。

8 hackers   

n.计算机迷( hacker的名词复数 )；私自存取或篡改电脑资料者，电脑“黑客”

参考例句：

• They think of viruses that infect an organization from the outside.They envision hackers breaking into their information vaults. 他们考虑来自外部的感染公司的病毒，他们设想黑客侵入到信息宝库中。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Arranging a meeting with the hackers took weeks againoff-again email exchanges. 通过几星期电子邮件往来安排见面，他们最终同意了。 来自互联网

9 hacked   

生气

参考例句：

• I hacked the dead branches off. 我把枯树枝砍掉了。
• I'm really hacked off. 我真是很恼火。

10 portrayed   

v.画像( portray的过去式和过去分词 )；描述；描绘；描画

参考例句：

• Throughout the trial, he portrayed himself as the victim. 在审讯过程中，他始终把自己说成是受害者。
• The author portrayed his father as a vicious drunkard. 作者把他父亲描绘成一个可恶的酒鬼。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》

11 parlor   

n.店铺，营业室；会客室，客厅

参考例句：

• She was lying on a small settee in the parlor.她躺在客厅的一张小长椅上。
• Is there a pizza parlor in the neighborhood?附近有没有比萨店？

12 chaos   

n.混乱，无秩序

参考例句：

• After the failure of electricity supply the city was in chaos.停电后，城市一片混乱。
• The typhoon left chaos behind it.台风后一片混乱。

13 plausible   

adj.似真实的，似乎有理的，似乎可信的

参考例句：

• His story sounded plausible.他说的那番话似乎是真实的。
• Her story sounded perfectly plausible.她的说辞听起来言之有理。

14 dependence   

n.依靠，依赖；信任，信赖；隶属

参考例句：

• Doctors keep trying to break her dependence of the drug.医生们尽力使她戒除毒瘾。
• He was freed from financial dependence on his parents.他在经济上摆脱了对父母的依赖。

15 derived   

vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取

参考例句：

• Many English words are derived from Latin and Greek. 英语很多词源出于拉丁文和希腊文。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He derived his enthusiasm for literature from his father. 他对文学的爱好是受他父亲的影响。 来自《简明英汉词典》

16 panorama   

n.全景，全景画，全景摄影，全景照片[装置]

参考例句：

• A vast panorama of the valley lay before us.山谷的广阔全景展现在我们面前。
• A flourishing and prosperous panorama spread out before our eyes.一派欣欣向荣的景象展现在我们的眼前。

17 insidious   

adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧

参考例句：

• That insidious man bad-mouthed me to almost everyone else.那个阴险的家伙几乎见人便说我的坏话。
• Organized crime has an insidious influence on all who come into contact with it.所有和集团犯罪有关的人都会不知不觉地受坏影响。

18 camouflaging   

v.隐蔽( camouflage的现在分词 )；掩盖；伪装，掩饰

参考例句：

• Camouflaging an ammunition ship with the red cross is a filthy trick. 用红十字伪装一艘弹药船是下流的勾当。 来自辞典例句
• Lecture 2: Prefrontal Cortex and the Neural Basis of Cognitive Control. 课程单元2：额前皮质与认知控制的神经基础。 来自互联网

19 susceptible   

adj.过敏的，敏感的；易动感情的，易受感动的

参考例句：

• Children are more susceptible than adults.孩子比成人易受感动。
• We are all susceptible to advertising.我们都易受广告的影响。

20 buffet   

n.自助餐；饮食柜台；餐台

参考例句：

• Are you having a sit-down meal or a buffet at the wedding?你想在婚礼中摆桌宴还是搞自助餐？
• Could you tell me what specialties you have for the buffet?你能告诉我你们的自助餐有什么特色菜吗？

21 enticing   

adj.迷人的；诱人的

参考例句：

• The offer was too enticing to refuse. 这提议太有诱惑力，使人难以拒绝。
• Her neck was short but rounded and her arms plump and enticing. 她的脖子短，但浑圆可爱；两臂丰腴，也很动人。

22 malicious   

adj.有恶意的，心怀恶意的

参考例句：

• You ought to kick back at such malicious slander. 你应当反击这种恶毒的污蔑。
• Their talk was slightly malicious.他们的谈话有点儿心怀不轨。

23 credible   

adj.可信任的，可靠的

参考例句：

• The news report is hardly credible.这则新闻报道令人难以置信。
• Is there a credible alternative to the nuclear deterrent?是否有可以取代核威慑力量的可靠办法？

24 quaintly   

adv.古怪离奇地

参考例句：

• "I don't see what that's got to do with it,'said the drummer quaintly. “我看不出这和你的事有什么联系，"杜洛埃说道，他感到莫名其妙。 来自英汉文学 - 嘉莉妹妹
• He is quaintly dressed, what a strange one he is. 他一身的奇装异服，真是另类！

25 cyberspace   

n.虚拟信息空间，网络空间，计算机化世界

参考例句：

• She travels in cyberspace by sending messages to friends around the world.她利用电子空间给世界各地的朋友们发送信件。
• The teens spend more time in cyberspace than in the real world of friends and family.青少年花费在电脑上的时间比他们和真正的朋友及家人在一起的时间要多。

26 authentication   

鉴定，认证

参考例句：

• Computer security technology includes mainly:Authentication,Encryption,Access Control,Auditing and so on.计算机网络安全技术主要有: 认证授权、数据加密、访问控制、安全审计等。

27 defense   

n.防御，保卫；[pl.]防务工事；辩护，答辩

参考例句：

• The accused has the right to defense.被告人有权获得辩护。
• The war has impacted the area with military and defense workers.战争使那个地区挤满了军队和防御工程人员。

28 adaptable   

adj.能适应的，适应性强的，可改编的

参考例句：

• He is an adaptable man and will soon learn the new work.他是个适应性很强的人，很快就将学会这种工作。
• The soil is adaptable to the growth of peanuts.这土壤适宜于花生的生长。

29 extinction   

n.熄灭，消亡，消灭，灭绝，绝种

参考例句：

• The plant is now in danger of extinction.这种植物现在有绝种的危险。
• The island's way of life is doomed to extinction.这个岛上的生活方式注定要消失。