Advanced Week 214

写在前面的话

“ScalersTalk 口译进阶小组”的前身是“ScalersTalk 交传小组”，成立于 2015 年 2 月，现阶段，小组继续专注高级阶段的交替传译与同声传译训练，在巩固语言基本功的同时训练各类口译技能，从而为承担正式场合的口译打下坚实基础。

本周复盘说明

第 214 周训练的主题为：网络安全。英译中练习的是Chris Domas的演讲“The 1s and 0s behind cyber warfare”。小组成员主要利用该材料练习了交传，并学习原文的词汇、表达和句型句式。设备建议：你需要电脑或手机播放音频、手机发送语音。

第 214 周——知识点整理

段落一

But after 30 minutes of work as a defense contractor, I soon found out that my idea of cyber was a little bit off. In fact, in terms of national security, keeping viruses off of my grandma's computer was surprisingly low on their priority list. And the reason for that is cyber is so much bigger than any one of those things. Cyber is an integral part of all of our lives, because computers are an integral part of all of our lives, even if you don't own a computer. Computers control everything in your car, from your GPS to your airbags. They control your phone. They're the reason you can call 911 and get someone on the other line. They control our nation's entire infrastructure. They're the reason you have electricity, heat, clean water, food. Computers control our military equipment, everything from missile silos to satellites to nuclear defense networks. All of these things are made possible because of computers, and therefore because of cyber, and when something goes wrong, cyber can make all of these things impossible.

参考译文

但是作为一个网络防卫服务者，工作了30分钟后，我就发现我对于网络的看法有失偏颇。事实上，在国家安全的意义上说，使我奶奶的电脑远离病毒的工作优先级是非常低的。网络的意义远远大于任何像这样的事情。网络遍布于生活的每个角落，因为即使你没有电脑，电脑也融入了生活的方方面面。从你的GPS到你的安全气囊，电脑控制着你车里的一切。它们控制你的手机。正因为有电脑，你才能拨打911和其它人连线。它们控制着我们国家的全部基础设施。是电脑让你能用电，暖气，清洁的水，食物。电脑也控制着我们的军事设备，从导弹发射井到卫星，到核防御网络等。这一切都因为电脑的存在而变得可能。因此，因为网络的存在，当有地方出现故障时，网络会让所有这一切不复存在。

解析

• They're the reason you can call 911 and get someone on the other line. 正因为有电脑，你才能拨打911和其它人连线。

• Get someone on the other line: 与他人连线；

  • They are the reason you can…不宜直译为“它们是…的原因”，这样翻译腔过于明显，应译为“正因为有电脑，你才能够……”；

• Missile silo: 导弹发射井是指供陆基战略弹道导弹垂直贮存、准备和实施发射的地下工程设施。是导弹发射阵地的主要样式。某些核潜艇的导弹垂直发射器也叫导弹发射井；

• In terms of national security: 在国家安全的意义上来说；

• be low on the priority list：优先级低

段落二

So let's consider an example of this that's completely theoretical. Suppose a terrorist wants to blow up a building, and he wants to do this again and again in the future. So he doesn't want to be in that building when it explodes. He's going to use a cell phone as a remote detonator. Now, it used to be the only way we had to stop this terrorist was with a hail of bullets and a car chase, but that's not necessarily true anymore. We're entering an age where we can stop him with the press of a button from 1,000 miles away, because whether he knew it or not, as soon as he decided to use his cell phone, he stepped into the realm of cyber. A well-crafted cyber attack could break into his phone, disable the overvoltage protections on his battery, drastically overload the circuit, cause the battery to overheat, and explode. No more phone, no more detonator, maybe no more terrorist, all with the press of a button from a thousand miles away.

参考译文

那么，我来举一个完全假想的例子。假定一名恐怖分子想炸毁一栋建筑，而且他还想在将来反复地进行这样的恐怖袭击。因此，他可不想在那个建筑爆炸时还呆里面。他打算用一个手机来做远程引爆装置。在过去，阻止这名恐怖分子的唯一办法是枪战和飙车。但如今再也不必这样了。我们正在进入一个新时代，1000英里以外的一个按钮就能阻止他。因为无论他知道与否，只要他决定用手机，他就已踏入了网络控制区。一个精心策划的网络袭击可以侵入他的手机，破坏他的电池的过压保护功能，让电路超负荷，从而引起电池过热而爆炸。没有了手机，也就没有了引爆装置，也许再也不会有恐怖分子，这一切都来自于1000英里外的一下按钮。

解析

• blow up a building: 炸毁建筑

• detonator: 引爆器；引爆装置

• hail: [sing.]a ~ of something：a large number or amount of something that is aimed at somebody in order to harm them一阵像冰雹般袭来的事物；雹子般的一阵a hail of arrows/ bullets一阵乱箭╱弹雨a hail of abuse 一顿痛骂；

• car chase: 飙车；汽车追逐

• well-crafted: 精心制作的；精心设计的；

  • craft [VN][usually passive]to make something using special skills, especially with your hands（尤指用手工）精心制作All the furniture is crafted from natural materials. 所有的家具均采用天然材料精心制作而成。a carefully crafted speech 精心准备的讲话

• break into/hack into one’s phone/computer: 侵入手机/电脑；

• overvoltage protection：过压保护，指被保护线路电压超过预定的最大值时，使电源断开或使受控设备电压降低的一种保护方式。

• overload the circuit: 电路过载

段落三

So I was frustrated, I was exhausted. After 30 hours in the lab, I probably smelled horrible. But instead of just going home and calling it quits, I took a step back and asked myself, what went wrong here? How could I make such a stupid mistake? I'm really pretty good at this. I do this for a living. So what happened? Well I thought, when you're looking at information at this level, it's so easy to lose track of what you're doing. It's easy to not see the forest through the trees. It's easy to go down the wrong rabbit hole and waste a tremendous amount of time doing the wrong thing. But I had this epiphany. We were looking at the data completely incorrectly since day one. This is how computers think, ones and zeros. It's not how people think, but we've been trying to adapt our minds to think more like computers so that we can understand this information. Instead of trying to make our minds fit the problem, we should have been making the problem fit our minds, because our brains have a tremendous potential for analyzing huge amounts of information, just not like this. So what if we could unlock that potential just by translating this to the right kind of information? So with these ideas in mind, I sprinted out of my basement lab at work to my basement lab at home, which looked pretty much the same. The main difference is, at work, I'm surrounded by cyber materials, and cyber seemed to be the problem in this situation. At home, I'm surrounded by everything else I've ever learned. So I poured through every book I could find, every idea I'd ever encountered, to see how could we translate a problem from one domain to something completely different?

参考译文

我十分沮丧，精疲力竭。在实验室呆了30个小时后，我很可能都散发难闻的味道了，但是我并没有选择直接回家，放弃这一切，我回过头，问我自己，到底出了什么错？为什么我会犯这么愚蠢的错误？我在这方面是做得相当好的。我以此谋生。那么到底发生了什么？我想，当你在这个层次上分析信息时，很容易偏离正轨。很容易只见树木不见森林。很容易走到错误的兔子洞（未知世界）里，在错误的事情上浪费大量的时间。但我顿悟了。我们从一开始就以完全错误的方式来分析这些数据。这是电脑的思考方式，0和1。这不是人类思考的方式。但我们一直试图让我们的脑子以计算机的方式思考，以理解这些信息。我们不应该让我们的思维适应问题，我们应该让问题适应我们的思维。因为我们的大脑有巨大的潜力来分析大量的信息，而不是像这样。那么，如果我们把问题转化为正确形式的信息，来激发大脑的潜力，将会怎样？带着这个想法，我从我工作的地下实验室冲出来，到了我家里的地下实验室，这两处看起来差不多。主要的不同是，在工作的地方，我被网络包围了，在这种情况下，网络本身似乎就是个问题。在家里，包围我的一切都是我熟知的。所以，我倾倒出所有我能找到的书，所有的想法也从脑海里倾倒而出，看看如何把一个领域的问题转换成完全不同的形式。

解析

• call it quits: 俚语，有两个意思

  1) 互不拖欠：agree or acknowledge that terms are now equal, especially on the settlement of a debt. Eg "take this cheque and we'll call it quits"

  2) 就此罢休/停止/不干了：decide to abandon an activity or venture. Eg. "Surely, after covering eleven wars, he could be forgiven for calling it quits?"

• lose track of：keep/ lose track of somebody/ something to have/not have information about what is happening or where somebody/ something is了解╱不了解…的动态；与…保持╱失去联系Bank statements help you keep track of where your money is going. 银行账单有助于你了解你的资金使用情况。I lost all track of time (= forgot what time it was).我一点儿也说不准现在是什么时间。

• Not see the forest through the trees：只见树木，不见森林

• Rabbit hole：a complexly bizarre or difficult state or situation conceived of as a hole into which one falls or descends; Rabbit hole直译为“兔子洞”，根据韦氏词典，该词常用的引申义为“一种复杂、奇异或未知的状态和情景”，人们常用going down the rabbit hole来表示“掉入未知世界”。这种用法最早出现于1938年，源于著名童话书《爱丽丝梦游仙境》，在这本书中，主角爱丽丝从兔子洞掉入了一个拟人化的异境世界，开启了她奇妙的旅程。

  • 除了rabbit hole，《爱丽丝梦游仙境》还制造了很多常见俚语，比如：童话中，Hatter（疯帽子）是一个擅长制帽、性格怪诞的角色，所以人们用mad as a hatter来表示“疯疯癫癫”，Cheshire cat（柴郡猫）是一只笑容阴森的大猫，于是Cheshire cat grin/grin like a Cheshire cat便用来指“咧嘴坏笑”、“露齿嬉笑”；而jabberwocky是故事中一首毫无意义的诗歌中的一个毫无意义的单词，该词已被收录进词典，意思是“毫无意义的废话”。

• Epiphany: a moment of sudden and great revelation or realization.顿悟；

  • Epiphany另一个意思为基督教中的“主显节”，亦称“显现节”，日期为每年1月6日，源自于希腊词epiphaneia，其字面的意思是“显现”或“为人所知”，意指“耶稣曾三次向世人显示其神性”。据《新约圣经》载，第一次为诞生时，大星引领东方三博士前来朝拜，显示出他是基督；第二次为开始传道受洗时，“圣灵”如鸽子降在他头上，显示出他是上帝的儿子；第三次在参加迦拿城的婚筵时，将水变为酒，显示出他的荣耀。

• So what if/we could unlock that potential/just by translating this to the right kind of information? 那么，如果我们把问题转化为正确形式的信息，来释放大脑的潜力，将会怎样？

  这个句子比较复杂，翻译时可以拆成几个部分，理解完整意思后再译出。

  • Unlock potential：释放潜力

• Sprint (v.)：to run or swim a short distance very fast短距离快速奔跑（或游泳）[V, usually +adv./prep.]He sprinted for the line. 他向终点线冲去。名词时为“短跑”的意思，如a 100-metre sprint * 100 米短跑the world sprint champion 短跑世界冠军