美国总统竞选进入最危险时期

华人网 2024-10-1 21:27

Federal officials battling foreign interference in the coming election say they are entering what may be the most perilous period of the campaign: October, when the prospect for mischief runs high and the time to react runs short.

在即将到来的大选中对抗外国干预的联邦官员表示，他们正在进入竞选活动中最危险的时期：10月，此时最有可能出现恶意的行为，却又没有多少时间做出反应。

While the Russians make little attempt to hide their support for former President Donald J. Trump, the Iranians — among Moscow’s most important suppliers in the war in Ukraine — desperately want to stop him from returning to office, and are busy hacking into his campaign and dumping whatever they find, as well as plotting to assassinate him. The Justice Department is expected to announce, likely as soon as Friday, the indictment of an Iranian hacking group closely associated with the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps for the hack of the Trump campaign, along with efforts to attack the accounts of Washington journalists and others.

俄罗斯人几乎不掩饰他们对前总统唐纳德·特朗普的支持，而伊朗人——莫斯科在乌克兰战争中最重要的供应国之一——则拼命想阻止他重返总统宝座，并忙于让黑客刺探他的竞选团队，泄露他们发现的任何东西，以及密谋暗杀他。预计司法部最快将于周五宣布起诉一个与伊斯兰**卫队关系密切的伊朗黑客组织，罪名是黑客攻击特朗普竞选团队，以及攻击华盛顿记者和其他人的账户。That has been the essence of a series of private intelligence briefings for election workers and members of Congress recently, as U.S. officials describe the stark, oftentimes confusing battlefield in which disinformation ramps up and the risk of cyberattacks is greatest.

这就是最近为选举工作人员和国会议员举行的一系列闭门情报简报会的核心内容，联邦官员描述了一个严峻的、时常令人困惑的战场，在这个战场上，虚假信息愈演愈烈，网络攻击构成了最大风险。

At first glance, those briefings sound right out of the playbooks from 2016 and 2020. During one such meeting on Sept. 13, U.S. officials said Russia remained “the most active foreign influence threat” and other countries were flooding the internet with messages meant to “stoke discord and undermine confidence in our electoral process.”

乍看之下，这些简报内容与2016年和2020年发生过的事如出一辙。在9月13日的一次此类会议上，美国官员表示，俄罗斯仍然是“最活跃的外国影响力威胁”，其他国家正在互联网上大量炮制旨在“煽动不和并破坏对我们选举进程的信心”的信息。

But as the briefing went on it was clear that what may unfold in the next month and a half includes some new features that American election officials have never seen before.

但随着简报会的进行，我们可以清楚地看到，未来一个半月可能出现的情况包括一些美国选举官员从未见过的新特征。

Russia may be fully behind Mr. Trump, despite Vladimir V. Putin’s assertions to the contrary. But in this election cycle, its efforts might be partially canceled out by Iran — Russia’s ally in most everything these days — working the other side. China’s position is a muddle. And on the election-manipulation front, there are new worries, focusing on whether techniques used by criminals to freeze up the operations of American cities, companies and hospitals could be used to similar effect as Americans prepare to vote.

俄罗斯可能完全支持特朗普，尽管弗拉基米尔·普京的言论与此相反。但在这个选举周期中，俄罗斯的努力可能会被伊朗的部分努力所抵消，而伊朗是俄罗斯如今在大多数事情上的盟友.而在操纵选举方面又出现了新的担忧，主要集中在犯罪分子用来让美国城市、公司和医院无法正常运行的技术，是否会在美国人准备投票时被用来达到类似的效果。

“What is going to be happening in the next two months is going to be an onslaught,” said Senator Angus King, an independent from Maine who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee. He said foreign powers “are getting more active, more aggressive.”

“未来两个月要发生的将是一场猛烈的攻击，”参议院情报委员会成员、缅因州无党派参议员安格斯·金说。他表示，外国势力“正变得更加活跃，更具攻击性”。

The scenarios that worry American officials are legion. While the actual balloting processes being used on Nov. 5 seem safer than in previous elections — 97 percent of votes cast will involve some form of paper backup that makes recounts far more reliable — federal officials have been war-gaming the possibility that registration systems become locked up, perhaps in what may initially look like the kind of ransomware attacks that have closed down city services in Baltimore or Atlanta, or that have hit the Seattle airport.

令美国官员担忧的情况不胜枚举。虽然11月5日使用的实际投票过程似乎比之前的选举更安全——97%的选票将使用某种形式的纸质备份，让重新计票变得更加可靠——但联邦官员一直对登记系统被锁定的可能性进行战棋推演，也许最初看起来像是导致巴尔的摩或亚特兰大的城市服务关闭的那种勒索软件攻击，或者西雅图机场受到的攻击。

The fear is that if it becomes difficult to register voters in the final weeks before an election, it could skew the results on Nov. 5 — or, alternatively, give an opening to seemingly pro-Trump election officials who have taken power in a few key states, like Georgia, and give them an excuse not to certify the vote.

人们担心的是，如果在选举前的最后几周选民登记变得困难，可能会使11月5日的选举结果出现偏差——又或者，在佐治亚州等几个关键州，掌权的选举官员似乎是支持特朗普的，这有可能提供可乘之机，让他们有借口不认证投票结果。

Because of the threats, intelligence officials have been stepping up their unclassified and classified briefings, including a closed-door meeting for senators on Wednesday. Officials also held a highly classified briefing for the House Intelligence Committee last week, a session that quickly became contentious, with Republicans raising questions about the intelligence around Russian intentions, according to officials briefed on the meeting.

由于这些威胁，情报官员增加了机密类和非机密类汇报，包括周三为参议员们召开的那种闭门会议。官员们上周还为众议院情报委员会举行了一次高度保密的汇报，据了解会议情况的官员称，这次会议很快引起了争论，因共和党人对有关俄罗斯意图的情报提出了质疑。

Those complaints echoed Republican criticisms of years past, as Mr. Trump has questioned American intelligence assessments of Russia and Mr. Putin, and accused the F.B.I. and U.S. intelligence agencies of falsifying narratives of Russian interference.

这些抱怨与共和党过去几年的批评如出一辙，特朗普曾质疑美国对俄罗斯和普京的情报评估，并指责联邦调查局和美国情报机构伪造了俄罗斯干预的说法。

What is different this year is how aggressively the U.S. government is warning of possible election threats, hoping that a bit of advance education will reduce the ability of foreign actors to have much effect come Election Day, or in any recounts. That is a major change from eight years ago, when it took the Obama administration months to formally name and charge Russian actors with election interference, a step that came only after Mr. Trump had defeated Hillary Clinton. Jen Easterly, the head of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which has primary federal authority for helping the states defend election systems, said the U.S. government this year was undertaking a far more sophisticated effort to make sure the public is aware “of what these actors are doing and how they are doing it.”

今年的不同之处在于，美国政府对可能的选举威胁发出了更为积极的警告，希望提前进行的一点教育工作会削弱外国行为者对选举日或任何重新计票的影响力。与八年前相比，这是一个重大变化，当时奥巴马政府花了几个月的时间才正式点名俄罗斯行为者，并指控他们干预选举，而这一举措是在特朗普击败希拉里·克林顿之后才采取的。网络安全和基础设施安全局局长珍·伊斯特利表示，美国政府今年正在进行一项复杂得多的努力，以确保公众知道“这些行为者在做什么，以及他们是如何做的”。网络安全和基础设施安全局拥有帮助各州捍卫选举制度的主要联邦权力。

No matter whom the foreign powers favor, Ms. Easterly said, they have common goals.

伊斯特利表示，无论外国势力倾向于谁，他们都有共同的目标。

“The two main goals are to undermine American confidence in the security of our election and our democratic institutions and to sow partisan discord,” she said in an interview. “Those are the two goals of all our foreign adversaries.”

“他们的两个主要目标是：破坏美国人对我们的选举和民主制度安全的信心，以及制造党派分歧，”她在接受采访时说。“这就是我们所有外国对手的两个目标。”

This year, officials are worried that a big portion of the ever more polarized electorate is divided even on the issue of election interference. When Mr. Trump warns that someone, somewhere is working to manipulate the vote — an accusation he makes with increasing stridency and regularity — he is usually talking about his domestic political opponents and election workers. When Democrats talk about interference, they are often pointing at Russia — and its fondness for Mr. Trump.

今年官员们担心的是，在日益两极分化的选民中，有很大一部分人甚至在选举干预问题上也存在分歧。当特朗普警告某处有人在操纵选举时——他越来越频繁地提出这一指控——他通常指的是国内的政治对手和选举工作人员。当民主党人谈论干涉时，他们经常指向俄罗斯——以及俄罗斯对特朗普的喜爱。

“To the extent our intelligence services can determine that misinformation and mistrust in our election is of foreign origin, it is fair game to defend against and announce,” said Mr. King, the Senate Intelligence Committee member.

作为参议院情报委员会成员的金说：“只要我们的情报部门能够确定我们选举中的错误信息和不信任来自外国，我们就应该采取防御措施并公之于众。”

Mr. King invoked Federalist No. 68, in which Alexander Hamilton called out foreign intervention in our politics as a grave threat. “It is pretty prescient,” Mr. King said. “Here it is, 200 plus years later, and we are seeing it playing out in real time.”

金援引了《联邦党人文集》第68篇，亚历山大·汉密尔顿在文中指出了外国干预我们的政治是一个严重威胁。“这很有先见之明，”金说。“200多年后，就在这里，这一切正在实时上演。”

During last week’s hearing of the Senate Intelligence Committee, lawmakers quizzed representatives of Microsoft, Meta and Alphabet, Google and YouTube’s parent company, about their efforts to defend against foreign influence efforts.

在上周参议院情报委员会的听证会上，议员们询问了微软、Meta和谷歌与YouTube的母公司字母表的代表，询问他们为抵御外国影响所做的努力。

Senator Mark Warner, the Virginia Democrat who leads the panel, said foreign adversaries “are more incentivized than ever to intervene in our elections.”

该委员会主席、弗吉尼亚州民主党参议员马克·华纳表示，外国对手“比以往任何时候都更有动机干预我们的选举”。

America’s support for Ukraine under the Democratic administration means the November vote has big stakes for Russia.

美国在民主党执政期间对乌克兰的支持意味着，11月的选举对俄罗斯来说事关重大。

“Putin understands that influencing public opinion and shaping the elections in the United States is a cheap way to erode Western support for Ukraine and undermine America’s standing in the world,” he said.

“普京明白，影响美国的舆论和选举是一种削弱西方对乌克兰支持，以及破坏美国在世界上的地位的低成本方式，”他说。

In their most recent report to the public this week, U.S. intelligence officials announced that Russia and Iran had been using generative artificial intelligence technology to give a boost to their election influence efforts. The intelligence officials said that the use of A.I. had not been revolutionary, but instead had allowed foreign powers to produce better material more quickly.

在本周向公众发布的最新报告中，美国情报官员宣布，俄罗斯和伊朗正在利用生成式人工智能技术来增强他们对选举的影响力。情报官员表示，对人工智能的使用谈不上具有**性，但能让外国势力更快地生成更好的素材。

Russia, the intelligence officials said, may have used A.I. along with standard editing tools to produce falsified versions of speeches by Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, adding words she did not say in what sounds like her voice.

情报官员称，俄罗斯可能使用人工智能和标准的编辑工具，伪造了民主党提名人、副总统贺锦丽的演讲，用听起来像她的声音添加她没有说过的话。

Still, the use of artificial intelligence in videos remains difficult to pull off, and less artful uses of it are relatively easy to identify. And so Russia has continued to use old-school fake videos, using actors and fake story lines, to push some of their messages.

尽管如此，在视频中使用人工智能仍然很难成功，而且用不好反而比较容易被人看破。因此，俄罗斯继续使用老式的假视频，利用行为者和虚构的故事情节来宣传他们的一些信息。

The intelligence agencies’ findings echoed work done this month by Microsoft, which reported a shift by Russian operatives to attack Ms. Harris. Russia appears to have been initially caught flat-footed when President Biden exited the race. And for days after Ms. Harris took his place, Russian operatives continued to push out videos accusing the Biden family of corruption, said Clint Watts, the head of the Threat Analysis Center at Microsoft.

情报机构的发现与微软本月所做的工作不谋而合，微软报告称，俄罗斯特工已转向攻击贺锦丽。拜登总统退出竞选后，俄罗斯似乎一开始有些措手不及。微软威胁分析中心负责人克林特·瓦茨说表示，在贺锦丽取代拜登后的几天里，俄罗斯特工继续发布视频指责拜登家族腐败。

“It took the Kremlin a couple weeks to figure out what they wanted to say about Vice President Harris, what attack lines they wanted to pursue,” Mr. Watts said, adding: “You see all the Russian actors focusing on the U.S. election now.”

“克里姆林宫花了几周时间来确定如何评价贺锦丽副总统，以及采取什么样的攻击策略。”他还说：“你可以看到，所有的俄罗斯行为者都在关注美国大选。