Once upon a time, the antics of US spies in cyber space was of interest only to other spooks and to internet geeks. No longer.
对美国间谍在网络空间的荒谬行为感兴趣的，曾经只是其他间谍以及互联网极客。现在不再是这样了。
Last year Edward Snowden stirred political outrage with revelations that the US National Security Agency was spying on American citizens and European officials. Dianne Feinstein, chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, has created more furore by accusing the Central Intelligence Agency of snooping on Senate officials.
去年，爱德华•斯诺登(Edward Snowden)爆料称，美国国家安全局(National Security Agency，简称NSA)对美国公民和欧洲官员从事间谍活动，这激起了政界的愤怒。参议院情报委员会(Senate Intelligence Committee)主席黛安•范斯坦(Dianne Feinstein)指控中央情报局(CIA)对参议院官员进行间谍活动，由此掀起更大的怒潮。
But there is another area where the activities of American cyber spooks have created unexpected fallout: in financial exchanges and market data groups. Investors should watch this saga since it may have financial stability implications.
然而美国网络间谍的活动在另一个领域产生了意想不到的冲击波：金融交易所和市场数据集团。投资者应关注这个事件，因为它可能具有金融稳定方面的影响。
The issue revolves around the question of who can see the data generated in relation to complex securities. In decades past, information about issues such as private derivatives deals was patchy because trading records were scattered among numerous institutions and locations.
这个问题的焦点是：谁能看到与复杂证券相关的数据。过去几十年，有关私人衍生品交易等的信息一直是零碎的，因为交易记录分散保存于多个机构和地点。
However, since the financial crisis, regulators have been trying to find ways to collate these data so that they can be easily monitored. That is sensible. After all, the reason nobody spotted the risks in institutions such as insurer AIG before 2008 was that dangerous activities fell between the cracks of reporting systems. So creating a holistic data base is a self-evidently good step as it could help regulators and investors to see where financial risks are building up.
然而，自金融危机爆发以来，监管机构一直在设法统一收集和整理这些数据，以便对其进行监控。这是合理的。毕竟，人们之所以未能在2008年以前发现美国国际集团(AIG)等机构的风险，就是因为危险活动隐藏在报告制度的裂缝中。因此，创建一个全面的数据库显然是不错的方法，有望帮助监管机构和投资者发现金融风险在何处累积。
“With the current structure of trade repositories, no authority [is] able to examine the entire global network of over-the-counter derivatives data at a detailed level,” a committee linked to the Bank for International Settlements lamented last year in a report, demanding the creation of a “joined up” database.
与国际清算银行(BIS)关联的一个委员会去年在一份报告中哀叹：“在当前的交易数据库结构下，没有一个主管部门能在细节层面审视场外衍生品数据的整个全球网络。”该委员会要求创建“联合”数据库。
Indeed, the need for better monitoring seemed so self-evident after the financial crisis that US Congress created an Office of Financial Research, which is supposed to use Big Data and other computing advances to track financial flows in a holistic manner. “The financial crisis revealed serious deficiencies in our understanding of vulnerabilities in the financial system and the financial data needed to measure them,” Richard Berner, OFR head, told Congress last month. “[Our] mission is to fill in those critical gaps in analysis and data.”
的确，在金融危机爆发后，加强监控的必要性看上去如此显而易见，以至于美国国会设立了金融研究办公室(Office of Financial Research)，由其利用大数据以及其他运算方面的进步，全方位监测金融流动。“金融危机暴露出，我们在理解金融体系的脆弱性以及衡量此类脆弱性所需的金融数据方面存在严重不足，”金融研究办公室主任理查德•伯纳(Richard Berner)上月告诉国会，“（我们的）使命是填补这些分析和数据的严重缺口。”
While these efforts might seem laudable, they have encountered a hitch: the US spying scandals are making European politicians and bankers more nervous about giving information to centralised databases.
尽管这些努力或许值得称道，但它们遇到了麻烦：美国监听丑闻使得欧洲政治人士以及银行家对于将信息交予集中数据库感到更加紧张。
These concerns first started to bubble in the European parliament in the past decade, when it emerged the US government had subpoenaed the Brussels-based Swift banking payment system to force it to hand over confidential information about financial transactions to enable the tracking of terrorists. The NSA scandal has fuelled the anger. In October, members of the European parliament passed a motion demanding that the European Commission restrict US access to the Swift system. Last week MEPs reiterated that appeal.
这种担忧在过去10年最初在欧洲议会(European parliament)出现，当时有消息称，美国政府向总部位于布鲁塞尔的银行支付系统Swift发出传唤，迫使其交出机密的金融交易信息，以便追踪恐怖分子。NSA丑闻加剧了人们的愤怒情绪。去年10月，欧洲议会议员通过一项动议，要求欧盟委员会(European Commission)限制美国访问Swift系统。上周，欧洲议会议员重申了这一呼吁。
And, while the commission has not yet acted, the anger is making it harder to promote data-sharing in other areas such as derivatives.
尽管欧盟委员会尚未采取行动，但愤怒情绪加大了推动在衍生品等其他领域共享数据的难度。
The net result, then, is that those databases remain as fragmented as ever. “The financial crisis demonstrated the need for financial supervisors to get a holistic view,” says Kay Swinburne, a British MEP who sits on the chamber’s influential economic and monetary affairs committee. “Sadly [this] may be in jeopardy. The NSA scandal has caused many to reassess the risks of their personal data being shared across borders.”
结果是这些数据库仍像以往那样处于割裂状态。“金融危机说明了金融监督机构获得全方位视角的必要性，”英籍欧洲议会议员、欧洲议会有影响力的经济和货币事务委员会委员凯•斯温伯恩(Kay Swinburne)表示，“遗憾的是，（这件事）可能面对变数。NSA丑闻促使很多人对自己的个人数据被跨境分享的风险进行重新评估。”
Could this be fixed? European politicians still hope so, perhaps if the EU and the US sign a data protection agreement as part of a transatlantic trade deal. In the meantime, OFR officials keep chasing their transparency dream in other ways. They are trying, for example, to force banks to use standardised legal entity identifiers, or “tags” that mark financial securities, like bar codes, to make them easy to track).
这种局面能否纠正？欧洲政治人士仍希望答案是肯定的——或许通过欧盟和美国签订数据保护协议，作为跨大西洋贸易协定的一部分。同时，美国金融研究办公室官员继续以其他方式追寻透明度梦想。例如，他们正视图迫使银行使用标准化的法律实体标识，即像条码那样，给金融证券“贴标签”，使其容易被追踪。
But do not expect those efforts to bear fruit soon. While the advent of Big Data has created the tantalising vision of a more transparent financial system, the grubby reality of Big Geopolitics has turned this into a mirage. It is an irony not even Mr Snowden could have foreseen.
但不要指望这些措施会很快结出果实。尽管大数据的问世带来了一个更为透明的金融体制的诱人前景，但是“大地缘政治”的无情现实令其变成海市蜃楼。这种具有讽刺意味的情形，恐怕连斯诺登也预见不到。