【英语语言学习】德国对抗美国的间谍活动

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

Spying is dangerous work but it has some perks¹, as 007 knows - high tech gadgets².

(SOUNDBITE OF JAMES BOND FILMS)

UNIDENTIFIED ACTOR:

Stun³ gas.

X-ray document scanner.

A typical leather belt.

Smoke screen, oil slick,

A standard issue radio directional finder,

Left and right front-wing machine guns.

SIMON: But Commander Bond, don't forget your typewriter. Germany is the latest to get on board with a new trend in spy gear. They're going low-tech to try to avoid cyber spies. A German politician named Patrick Sensburg announced on a news program that his country's intelligence agency has begun to use manual typewriters after learning the extent of NSA electronic surveillance, which made us wonder - would that really work? We're joined now by Vince Houghton, military and intelligence historian and curator for the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C. Thanks so much for being with us.

VINCE HOUGHTON: Oh, it's great to be here.

SIMON: Is this a drastic step?

HOUGHTON: It's a drastic step in certain circumstances in that it's a very low-tech response to a high-tech⁴ threat - the high-tech threat being American intelligence and the capabilities⁵ that organizations like the NSA have to eavesdrop⁶ on computers or on electronic communications. That's not the first time that intelligence agencies or countries have had to go low-tech in order to feed a much higher technologically⁷ advanced rival. With East Germans - the Stasi used to do to prevent eavesdropping⁸ inside their very important meetings - they used clear plastic furniture so that it was obvious that they weren't being bugged¹⁰, as you could see a bug⁹ if you tried to bug it. It's a very low-tech solution to a high-tech problem. I put this in the same ballpark as that. You're not going to be directly spied on by the NSA with a typewriter. But we did a lot of spying before the age of computers. We have ways to still spy on you, even if you go low-tech and completely off the grid¹¹.

SIMON: So this is just a hold the line until they can come up with something else?

HOUGHTON: The basic idea is the Germans feel they have to do something. Their population is up in arms about these revelations, not only about last October, finding out the NSA was spying on Angela Merkel, but the recent revelations that members of German intelligence and perhaps German military have been spying for the United States. The Germans...

SIMON: And we should remind ourselves Germans in particular might be sensitive about this because coming out of the period of Stasi and East Germany.

HOUGHTON: Well, and even further back than that the Gestapo. There's a natural reaction to these revelations by the German public. And so the German government feels as though that it needs to do something, whether that's kicking out the chief of station for the CIA, which they just did from Berlin, or if it's telling them that we're going to go back to a low-tech solution to potential eavesdropping like the typewriter. One way or another, this is not going to be long-lasting. It's too difficult to run a country the size of Germany or the size of anyone going purely¹² typewriter communication. There's a reason we use computers. There's a reason we use this kind of electronic communications.

SIMON: So review for us some of the ways that you can eavesdrop on type writer technology.

HOUGHTON: Well, there are several ways. There's an old-fashioned human intelligence way and we call this Humint (ph) using human intelligence sources to look at typewriter ribbons to - used to - when you wanted to make copies of something, you used carbon paper. Those can be pulled out of the trash by human intelligence assets. There's a more advanced way of doing it, using computers to analyze¹³ audio signatures. Each typewriter...

SIMON: Yes, there is a belief that each key makes a distinct sound, right?

HOUGHTON: Yeah, or at least each key makes a distinct sound based on its position on the keyboard. So you may be able to not determine exactly what key is being pressed, but you can determine what quadrant. And then using some basic cryptography, you can code-break that to break into plain text.

SIMON: I've got to tell you, when we saw the story this week, I was glad because it gives us an opportunity to play one of half a dozen music pieces that had been written over the years that actually feature the typewriter.

(SOUNDBITE OF SONG, "THE TYPEWRITER")

SIMON: Leroy Anderson "The Typewriter," right? Vince Houghton, military and intelligence historian and curator for the International Spy Museum. Thanks so much for being with us.

HOUGHTON: It's a pleasure to have been here.

1 perks   

额外津贴，附带福利，外快( perk的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Perks offered by the firm include a car and free health insurance. 公司给予的额外待遇包括一辆汽车和免费健康保险。
• Are there any perks that go with your job? 你的工作有什么津贴吗？

2 gadgets   

n.小机械，小器具（ gadget的名词复数 ）

参考例句：

• Certainly. The idea is not to have a house full of gadgets. 当然。设想是房屋不再充满小配件。 来自超越目标英语 第4册
• This meant more gadgets and more experiments. 这意味着要设计出更多的装置，做更多的实验。 来自英汉非文学 - 科学史

3 stun   

vt.打昏，使昏迷，使震惊，使惊叹

参考例句：

• When they told me she had gone missing I was totally stunned.他们告诉我她不见了时，我当时完全惊呆了。
• Sam stood his ground and got a blow that stunned him.萨姆站在原地，被一下打昏了。

4 high-tech   

adj.高科技的

参考例句：

• The economy is in the upswing which makes high-tech services in more demand too.经济在蓬勃发展，这就使对高科技服务的需求量也在加大。
• The quest of a cure for disease with high-tech has never ceased. 人们希望运用高科技治疗疾病的追求从未停止过。

5 capabilities   

n.能力( capability的名词复数 )；可能；容量；[复数]潜在能力

参考例句：

• He was somewhat pompous and had a high opinion of his own capabilities. 他有点自大，自视甚高。 来自辞典例句
• Some programmers use tabs to break complex product capabilities into smaller chunks. 一些程序员认为，标签可以将复杂的功能分为每个窗格一组简单的功能。 来自About Face 3交互设计精髓

6 eavesdrop   

v.偷听，倾听

参考例句：

• He ensconced himself in the closet in order to eavesdrop.他藏在壁橱里，以便偷听。
• It is not polite to eavesdrop on the conversation of other people.偷听他人说话是很不礼貌的。

7 technologically   

ad.技术上地

参考例句：

• Shanghai is a technologically advanced city. 上海是中国的一个技术先进的城市。
• Many senior managers are technologically illiterate. 许多高级经理都对技术知之甚少。

8 eavesdropping   

n. 偷听

参考例句：

• We caught him eavesdropping outside the window. 我们撞见他正在窗外偷听。
• Suddenly the kids,who had been eavesdropping,flew into the room. 突然间，一直在偷听的孩子们飞进屋来。

9 bug   

n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器

参考例句：

• There is a bug in the system.系统出了故障。
• The bird caught a bug on the fly.那鸟在飞行中捉住了一只昆虫。

10 bugged   

vt.在…装窃听器（bug的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The police have bugged his office. 警察在他的办公室装了窃听器。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He had bugged off before I had a chance to get a word in. 我还没来得及讲话，他已经走了。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 grid   

n.高压输电线路网；地图坐标方格；格栅

参考例句：

• In this application,the carrier is used to encapsulate the grid.在这种情况下，要用载体把格栅密封起来。
• Modern gauges consist of metal foil in the form of a grid.现代应变仪则由网格形式的金属片组成。

12 purely   

adv.纯粹地，完全地

参考例句：

• I helped him purely and simply out of friendship.我帮他纯粹是出于友情。
• This disproves the theory that children are purely imitative.这证明认为儿童只会单纯地模仿的理论是站不住脚的。

13 analyze   

vt.分析，解析 (=analyse)

参考例句：

• We should analyze the cause and effect of this event.我们应该分析这场事变的因果。
• The teacher tried to analyze the cause of our failure.老师设法分析我们失败的原因。