The battle between Apple and law enforcement officials over unlocking a terrorist’s smartphone is the culmination of a slow turning of the tables between the technology industry and the United States government.

苹果公司与执法官员就破解一部恐怖分子用过的智能手机展开的战斗，意味着技术行业与美国政府之间发生缓慢改变的局面进入高潮。

After revelations by the former National Security Agency contractor Edward J. Snowden in 2013 that the government both cozied up to certain tech companies and hacked into others to gain access to private data on an enormous scale, tech giants began to recognize the United States government as a hostile actor.

美国国家安全局前承包商雇员爱德华·J·斯诺登(Edward J. Snowden)2013年披露政府通过拉拢某些技术公司，并侵入其他公司来获取规模巨大的私人数据之后，技术行业巨头们开始形成了把美国政府作为一个敌对方的认识。

But if the confrontation has crystallized in this latest battle, it may already be heading toward a predictable conclusion: In the long run, the tech companies are destined to emerge victorious.

但是，如果说双方的对抗在这场最新战斗中变明确的话，战斗可能已经在走向一个可预测的结局：从长远来看，技术公司注定会取得胜利。

It may not seem that way at the moment. On the one side, you have the United States government’s mighty legal and security apparatus fighting for data of the most sympathetic sort: the secrets buried in a dead mass murderer’s phone. The action stems from a federal court order issued on Tuesday requiring Apple to help the F.B.I. unlock an iPhone used by one of the two attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December.

此时此刻，结局可能看起来不是那样。对手中，一方是美国政府强大的法律和安全机器，它争夺的是那种最能赢得同情的数据：藏在死了的制造群体谋杀的人手机里的秘密。政府的行动源于联邦法院周二的命令，命令要求苹果公司帮助联邦调查局破解去年12月在加利福尼亚州圣贝纳迪诺杀死14人的两名袭击者之一用过的iPhone。

In the other corner is the world’s most valuable company, whose chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, has said he will appeal the court’s order. Apple argues that it is fighting to preserve a principle that most of us who are addicted to our smartphones can defend: Weaken a single iPhone so that its contents can be viewed by the American government and you risk weakening all iPhones for any government intruder, anywhere.

另一方是世界上市值最高的公司，其首席执行官蒂莫西·D·库克(Timothy D. Cook)表示，他将对法院的命令提出上诉。苹果公司认为，它在为保护一个原则而战，而我们中间那些痴迷于智能手机的大多数人会支持这个原则：削弱一部iPhone，使其内容能被美国政府检查，你将面临一种为任何地方的任何政府削弱所有iPhone的风险。

There will probably be months of legal tussling, and it is not at all clear which side will prevail in court, nor in the battle for public opinion and legislative favor.

可能会有好几个月的法律角逐，哪一方会在法庭占上风还完全不可知，谁会赢得公众舆论和立法者的青睐也不清楚。

Yet underlying all of this is a simple dynamic: Apple, Google, Facebook and other companies hold most of the cards in this confrontation. They have our data, and their businesses depend on the global public’s collective belief that they will do everything they can to protect that data.

然而，这一切的背后有一个简单的动力：苹果、谷歌、Facebook等公司掌握着控制这场争夺战局势的大部分主动权。它们拥有我们的数据，它们的业务依赖于全球公众的集体信念，那就是公司将尽一切可能来保护这些数据。

Any crack in that front could be fatal for tech companies that must operate worldwide. If Apple is forced to open up an iPhone for an American law enforcement investigation, what’s to prevent it from doing so for a request from the Chinese or the Iranians? If Apple is forced to write code that lets the F.B.I. get into the Phone 5c used by Syed Rizwan Farook, the male attacker in the San Bernardino attack, who would be responsible if some hacker got hold of that code and broke into its other devices?

这种信念的任何裂纹，对必须在全世界开展业务的技术公司来说，都可能是致命的。如果苹果被迫为美国执法机构的调查破解了一部iPhone的话，有什么能阻止它在中国或者伊朗的要求下这样做呢？如果苹果被迫编写代码、让联邦调查局进入制造圣贝纳迪诺袭击的男子赛义德·里兹万·法鲁克(Syed Rizwan Farook)用过的iPhone 5c的话，如果某个黑客获得了这些代码、用其闯入其他设备，那会由谁来负责呢？

Apple’s stance on these issues emerged post-Snowden, when the company started putting in place a series of technologies that, by default, make use of encryption to limit access to people’s data. More than that, Apple — and, in different ways, other tech companies, including Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft — have made their opposition to the government’s claims a point of corporate pride.

苹果在这些问题上的立场是在斯诺登出现后形成的，那之后，公司开始采用一系列的技术，这些技术在默认情况下将使用者的数据加密以限制他人访问。不仅如此，苹果、以及包括谷歌、Facebook、Twitter和微软在内的其他公司以不同的方式，都把它们反对政府的主张作为企业的一种骄傲。

Apple’s emerging global brand is privacy; it has staked its corporate reputation, not to mention invested its considerable technical and financial resources, on limiting the sort of mass surveillance that was uncovered by Mr. Snowden. So now, for many cases involving governmental intrusions into data, once-lonely privacy advocates find themselves fighting alongside the most powerful company in the world.

苹果正在全球显露的新品牌是隐私；它已经把公司的信誉押在限制那种被斯诺登披露的大规模监听监视上，更不用提在这方面投入了公司可观的技术和财务资源。所以在目前，就许多涉及政府侵入数据的案子而言，曾经孤独的隐私倡导者们发现他们正在与世界上最强大的公司一起作战。

“A comparison point is in the 1990s battles over encryption,” said Kurt Opsahl, general counsel of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a privacy watchdog group. “Then you had a few companies involved, but not one of the largest companies in the world coming out with a lengthy and impassioned post, like we saw yesterday from Tim Cook. The profile has really been raised.”

“可作为比较的事情是20世纪90年代有关加密的争夺战，”隐私监督组织电子前沿基金会(Electronic Frontier Foundation)的法律总顾问库尔特·奥普萨尔(Kurt Opsahl)说。“那时，有几家公司参与其中，但没有世界上最大的公司，用一篇充满激情的长文站出来表态，就像我们昨天看到的蒂姆·库克所做的那样。现在的确是高调得多了。”

Apple and other tech companies hold another ace: the technical means to keep making their devices more and more inaccessible. Note that Apple’s public opposition to the government’s request is itself a hindrance to mass government intrusion. And to get at the contents of a single iPhone, the government says it needs a court order and Apple’s help to write new code; in earlier versions of the iPhone, ones that were created before Apple found religion on privacy, the F.B.I. may have been able to break into the device by itself.

苹果及其他科技公司还握有一张王牌：使设备越来越难以侵入的技术手段。需要注意的是，苹果公开回绝政府要求，本身就是对政府大规模侵扰的一种阻碍。政府表示，为了获取这一部iPhone的内容，政府需要获得法庭命令，在苹果的帮助下编写新代码；对于早期版本的iPhone，也就是苹果在隐私保护方面产生执着追求之前的版本，FBI或许自己就能进入这些设备。

You can expect that noose to continue to tighten. Experts said that whether or not Apple loses this specific case, measures that it could put into place in the future will almost certainly be able to further limit the government’s reach.

预计套索会继续收紧。专家们表示，无论苹果是否输掉这起官司，苹果未来采取的举措几乎肯定会进一步限制政府的影响范围。

That’s not to say that the outcome of the San Bernardino case is insignificant. As Apple and several security experts have argued, an order compelling Apple to write software that gives the F.B.I. access to the iPhone in question would establish an unsettling precedent. The order essentially asks Apple to hack its own devices, and once it is in place, the precedent could be used to justify law enforcement efforts to get around encryption technologies in other investigations far removed from national security threats.

这不是说圣贝纳迪诺袭击案件的结果不重要。就像苹果及几名安全专家说的那样，下令强迫苹果编写软件，使得FBI可以进入相关的iPhone，会创下一个令人不安的先例。这项命令基本上是要求苹果入侵自己的设备，一旦这么做了，那么在其他远未涉及国家安全威胁的调查中，这个先例就会为绕过加密技术的执法行动提供正当理由。

Once armed with a method for gaining access to iPhones, the government could ask to use it proactively, before a suspected terrorist attack — leaving Apple in a bind as to whether to comply or risk an attack and suffer a public-relations nightmare.

一旦获得进入iPhone的方法，政府就可以要求在潜在恐怖袭击爆发前主动使用它，致使苹果陷入困境——是遵从命令，还是冒着袭击发生、遭遇公关噩梦的风险。

“This is a brand new salvo in the war against encryption,” Mr. Opsahl said. “We’ve had plenty of debates in Congress and the media over whether the government should have a backdoor, and this is an end run around that — here they come with an order to create that backdoor.”

“这是反加密一方发起的一场全新的攻击，”奥普萨尔说。“国会和媒体已经就政府是否应该拥有后门的问题展开了很多辩论，现在他们要绕过辩论——直接下令开设后门。”

Yet it’s worth noting that even if Apple ultimately loses this case, it has plenty of technical means to close a backdoor over time. “If they’re anywhere near worth their salt as engineers, I bet they’re rethinking their threat model as we speak,” said Jonathan Zdziarski, a digital forensic expert who studies the iPhone and its vulnerabilities.

但值得注意的是，即便苹果最终输掉官司，该公司掌握很多可以最终关闭后门的技术。“如果他们是称职的工程师，我打赌此时此刻他们正在重新考虑他们的威胁模型，”研究iPhone及其安全缺陷的数字取证专家乔纳森·兹阿尔斯基(Jonathan Zdziarski)说。

One relatively simple fix, Mr. Zdziarski said, would be for Apple to modify future versions of the iPhone to require a user to enter a passcode before the phone will accept the sort of modified operating system that the F.B.I. wants Apple to create. That way, Apple could not unilaterally introduce a code that weakens the iPhone — a user would have to consent to it.

兹阿尔斯基表示，对于苹果来说，一种相对简单的补救方式就是改变未来推出的iPhone，在手机接受苹果根据FBI的意愿改动过的操作系统前，用户要输入密码来确认。如此一来，苹果不能单方面引入削弱iPhone防护的代码，需要获得用户的同意。

“Nothing is 100 percent hacker-proof,” Mr. Zdziarski said, but he pointed out that the judge’s order in this case required Apple to provide “reasonable security assistance” to unlock Mr. Farook’s phone. If Apple alters the security model of future iPhones so that even its own engineers’ “reasonable assistance” will not be able to crack a given device when compelled by the government, a precedent set in this case might lose its lasting force.

“没有什么能百分之百防黑客，”兹阿尔斯基说，但他指出法官在这起案件中下令要求苹果提供“合乎情理的安全协助”，破解法鲁克的手机。如果苹果更改未来推出的iPhone的安全模式，以至于政府强迫苹果破解相关设备时，其工程师的‘合乎情理的协助’也无济于事，该案件创下的先例可能也会失去持久力。

In other words, even if the F.B.I. wins this case, in the long run, it loses.

换句话说，即便FBI赢了这场官司，从长远来看，他们还是会输。