當大數據遇上老大哥◎Fareed Zakaria / Daniel 翻譯

Big Data, Meet Big Brother

當大數據遇上老大哥

若當今的電腦已能預測我們的行為，政府是否該監控我們的一舉一動？

 

by Fareed Zakaria

(Time Magazine, July 08, 2013)

Daniel 翻譯

 

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2146453,00.html

 

「違抗不義法律的人，必須公開地、慈悲地衝犯惡法，並情願為此面對刑罰。」此為馬丁．路德．金恩二世為公民抗命所下的定義。但是史諾登(Edward Snowden)可不這麼想。他竭盡所能地逃避他必須面對的司法審判與刑罰。

 

史諾登被拿來和艾爾斯伯格(Daniel Ellsberg)做比較；艾爾斯伯格把五角大廈機密文件洩露給《紐約時報》。但艾爾斯伯格並沒有在爆料之後跳上飛往香港或莫斯科的班機，他接受司法審判，面對100年刑期的可能。不過後來法官以控訴謬誤、司法濫用等名義駁回案件。甘地(Gandhi)和賈瓦哈拉爾(Jawaharlal Nehru)也曾為反抗殖民英國在他們土地上立下的律法，蒙受多年牢獄之災。

 

但是，即使史諾登稱不上是英雄，他的揭密之舉卻引發大眾關注這個全面資訊的美麗新世界。

 

我們的生活被兩股強大且密切相關的趨勢所左右。第一個是數位生活，如今你的生活離不開電子簽名。你在哪裡吃飯、購物或旅遊；你打電話、email或傳簡訊給誰；你所瀏覽過的網站、去過的咖啡廳、或博物館；即使就那麼一次，這些記錄都被留在雲端，且無法消除。埃里克施密特(Eric Schmidt)及杰瑞德科恩(Jared Cohen)在他們的著作《數位新時代》(The New Digital Age)中寫道：「這將是第一個擁有抹不去之記錄的人類世代。」

 

另一項趨勢是大數據。美國人大概會感到震驚：美國政府正在大量搜集國民的電子簽名記錄——數十億的通話、電子郵件及網路搜尋記錄。聯邦調查員目前當然不致於逐項密切監控，但他們要這麼做也很容易，而這就是大數據時代的特色。

 

古早以前 (我是說十年前)，電腦會在抽樣樣本中做整理、試圖建立出一套搜尋罪犯的規則；而今，資訊唾手可得，電腦效能也夠快、夠強大，專家們因此能夠分析一整套的資訊，不放過任何細節，達到「大海撈針」的境界。因此，他們已不再試圖理解某些事(例如犯罪)發生的原因。反之，他們在犯罪案件中觀察事件發生前的事件或行為。換言之，「將資訊轉換成知識」這件詭譎難搞的差事，現在已經不甩因果關係了，轉而分析事件的關聯性。

 

麥爾荀伯格(Viktor Mayer-Schonberger)、庫基耶(Kenneth Cukier)在他們的傑出著作《大數據》(Big Data)中描述了維州里奇蒙(Richmond, Virginia)的警方，他們追蹤各種情境下的犯罪事件，這些情境包含：公司發薪日、運動賽事、演唱會、槍械展及其它可能的導火線。他們利用電腦辨識事件發展模式，例如：槍械展後的兩週，往往會有一波暴力犯罪的高峰。將這樣的例子乘以千倍，你就能理解國家安全局電腦都在做什麼。然而得到可靠結果的關鍵，在於電腦具備整理大量資訊(也就是大數據)的能力。

 

誠如麥爾荀伯格與庫基耶所言：就算電腦能夠靠數據分析做出預測，我們難道就該在那些人行動前先行逮補，以防止作惡嗎？這聽起來似乎遙不可及，但事實並不然。國安局的稜鏡計畫(Prism)，目的就是要讓政府能夠預防恐怖攻擊(也就是在攻擊發生前先發制人)。國土安全部門有一項試圖以人們生命徵象(生理模式)預測恐怖行為的研究計畫，根據作者的描述，其準確率可達70%。

 

目前就我們所知，美國政府並未觸犯任何法律，並遵循著既定程序；此外，國會也以制定非公開法律的方式，秘密地支持這項計畫。歐巴馬執政團隊，重複前任更不透明的布希時期說詞，堅稱蒐集達兆位元數據資料的偵查行動，皆高度瞄準，並未涉及無辜美國人民。

 

也許真是那樣吧！但過去33年來，行政部門已向特殊法庭發出33900個監控要求。此特殊法庭成立宗旨就是要讓政府可合法授予監控權。在33900個要求中，除11個少數案例外，幾乎全數被核准。法庭盡到監督的責任了嗎？很難講！因為就連這法庭本身都是個機密。民眾所知道的是不是太少了？

 

大數據引發的另一項更大的議題是：政府是否該被允許使用電腦分析(即使極為精確)，去觀察、通報、隔離，甚至逮捕某些人，只因為他們很有可能作惡？這似乎是來自科幻懸疑片中的可怕情節。但是我們現在所處的現實生活，卻相當接近這樣的情結。這種狀況可以和自由社會相容嗎？

 

 

Big Data, Meet Big Brother

If computers can now predict our behavior, should governments watch our every move?

 

by Fareed Zakaria

 

"One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly and with a willingness to accept the penalty." That was Martin Luther King Jr.'s definition of civil disobedience. It does not appear to be Edward Snowden's. He has tried by every method possible to escape any judgment or punishment for his actions.

 

Snowden has been compared to Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers to the New York Times. But Ellsberg did not hop on a plane to Hong Kong or Moscow once he had unloaded his cache of documents. He stood trial and faced the possibility of more than 100 years in prison before the court dismissed the case against him because of the prosecution's mistakes and abuses of justice. Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru spent years in prison in India for defying colonial British rule in their native land.

 

But while Snowden is no hero, his revelations have focused attention on a brave new world of total information.

 

We are living with the consequences of two powerful, interrelated trends. The first is digital life. Your life today has a digital signature. Where you eat, shop and travel; whom you call, e-mail and text; every website, café and museum you visit even once is all stored in the great digital cloud. And you can't delete anything, ever. "This will be the first generation of humans to have an indelible record," write Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen in their book The New Digital Age.

 

The second is Big Data. Americans were probably most shocked by the revelation that the U.S. government is collecting massive quantities of their digital signatures--billions of phone calls and e-mails and Internet searches. The feds aren't monitoring every last one. But they easily could, and this is the essence of the age of Big Data.

 

In ancient times--by which I mean a decade ago--computers would sort through random samples of data or try to create an algorithm to search for a criminal. But today, data is so readily available and computers are so fast and powerful that experts can analyze entire data sets, every last piece of information, to find needles in haystacks. As a result, they have stopped trying to figure out why something--say, crime--happens. Instead they look at crimes and notice what events or behaviors seem to precede them. In other words, the tricky work of turning information into knowledge has shifted from causation to correlation.

 

In their excellent book Big Data, Viktor Mayer- Schönberger and Kenneth Cukier write about the police in Richmond, Va., who track criminal incidents against a variety of events: corporate paydays, sports events, concerts, gun shows and dozens of other possible triggers. The computer identifies patterns. Two weeks after a gun show, for example, there is always a jump in violent crime. Multiply this example by thousands, and you understand what the NSA computers are doing. The key to getting robust results, however, is that the computers must be able to sort through lots of information--Big Data.

 

As Mayer-Schönberger and Cukier point out, if the computers can make predictions based on data analysis, should we prevent bad actions by arresting people before they act? This is not as far-fetched as it sounds. The NSA program Prism aims to identify suspicious patterns to allow the government to prevent terrorism (i.e., to act before an attack takes place). A research project at the Department of Homeland Security that tried to predict terrorist behavior based on people's vital signs--physiological patterns--was 70% accurate, according to the authors.

 

As far as we know, the U.S. government has broken no laws and has followed all established procedures, and Congress approved this program, though it did so in secret, writing laws that aren't public. Obama Administration officials, echoing their (slightly less transparent) predecessors in the Bush era, insist that any fishing expeditions undertaken through terabytes of collected data are highly targeted and do not involve innocent Americans.

 

Maybe so, but over the past 33 years, the Executive Branch has made 33,900 requests for surveillance to a special court created to make sure there are solid grounds to grant these surveillance powers. The court has approved all but 11 of them. Is that genuine oversight? It is hard to say, for the court itself is secret. Shouldn't we know more?

 

The larger question Big Data raises is, Should any government be permitted to use computer analysis--even if highly accurate--to observe, inform on, quarantine or even arrest people simply because they are likely to do something bad? That seems like a scenario from a horrifying sci-fi thriller. Yet here we are, very close to a real-world version. Is that compatible with life in a free society?

 

Find this article at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2146453,00.html