抓捕俄罗斯黑客 美国困境重重

WASHINGTON — When a suspected Russian cybercriminal named Dmitry Ukrainsky was arrested in a Thai resort town last summer, the American authorities hoped they could whisk him back to New York for trial and put at least a temporary dent in Russia’s arsenal of computer hackers.

华盛顿——当名为德米特里•乌克兰斯基(Dmitry Ukrainsky)的俄罗斯网络犯罪嫌疑人于去年夏天在一个泰国度假小镇被捕时，美国当局原本希望他们可以将他迅速带回纽约进行审判，对俄罗斯计算机黑客团队至少造成短暂的打击。

But the Russian authorities moved quickly to persuade Thailand not to extradite him, saying that he should be prosecuted at home.

但俄罗斯当局很快采取行动，说服泰国不引渡他，称他应该在自己的国家接受起诉。

American officials knew what that meant.

美国官员知道那意味着什么。

If Mr Ukrainsky got on a plane to Moscow, they concluded, he would soon be back at work in front of a computer.

他们推断，如果乌克兰斯基登上飞往莫斯科的飞机，他很快就会回到电脑前工作。

The American authorities continue the unacceptable practice of ‘hunting’ for Russians all over the world, ignoring the norms of international laws and twisting other states’ arms, the Russian Foreign Ministry said.

美国当局持续进行让人无法接受的满世界‘追捕’俄罗斯人的行动，无视国际法的规范，向其他国家施压，俄罗斯外交部表示。

The dispute over Mr Ukrainsky,

乌克兰斯基的案件依然被搁置。

whose case remains in limbo, highlights the difficulties — and at times impossibilities —

围绕他产生的争端，突显出美国在对付俄罗斯黑客上遭遇的困难，有时甚至是不可能实现的事。

that the United States faces in combating Russian hackers, including those behind the recent attacks on the Democratic National Committee.

这些黑客就包括民主党全国委员会(Democratic National Committee)最近遭遇的袭击背后所潜藏的人。

That hack influenced the course, if not the outcome, of a presidential campaign and was the culmination of years of increasingly brazen digital assaults on American infrastructure.

这场袭击就算没有影响一场总统竞选的结果，也影响了它的进程，称得上是连续多年来，对美国基础设施所实施的数字袭击的巅峰，而且这种袭击还在日益变得肆无忌惮。

The United States has few options for responding to such hacks.

在对此类袭击做出反应时，美国的选择并不多。

Russia does not extradite its citizens and has shown that it will not easily be deterred through public shaming.

俄罗斯不引渡它的公民，而且表明它不会因为遭到公开的羞辱而轻易退却。

At times, the American authorities have enlisted local police officials to arrest suspects when they leave Russia — for vacation in the Maldives, for example.

有时，美国当局会在嫌疑犯离开俄罗斯时——比如去马尔代夫度假——让当地的警察逮捕他们。

But more often than not, the F.B.I. and Justice Department investigate and compile accusations and evidence against people who will almost certainly never stand trial.

但更常见的情况是，联邦调查局(FBI)和司法部(Justice Department)调查和整理了针对一些人的指控和证据，而这些人几乎可以肯定永远不会受到审判。

You can indict 400 people.

你可以起诉400个人，

They don’t care, said Robert E. Anderson Jr., who until last year served as the F.B.I.’s most senior executive overseeing computer investigations.

他们不在乎，直到去年还在担任FBI计算机犯罪调查部门最高长官的小罗伯特•E•安德逊•(Robert E. Anderson Jr.)说道。

The American government divides the cybersecurity world into two categories: attacks directed or sponsored by governments, and those conducted by criminals.

美国政府将网络安全世界划分成两类：由政府指使或资助的袭击和由犯罪分子进行的。

But Russian hacking defies easy categorization, American officials say, because the Russian government tacitly supports many private hackers and occasionally taps them for freelance government work.

但美国官员表示，他们无法简单地对俄罗斯黑客袭击进行分类，因为俄罗斯政府暗地里支持了许多个人黑客，偶尔还让他们做一些政府兼职工作。

That has complicated investigations and upended the normal diplomatic order.

这令调查变得更加复杂，也打破了常规的外交秩序。

In May 2009, for instance, Secret Service agents met in Moscow with their counterparts in the Russian Federal Security Service, known as the F.S.B.

比如在2009年5月，美国特勤局(Secret Service)的特工在莫斯科与俄罗斯联邦安全局（Russian Federal Security Service，简称FSB）的特工会面。

The Americans said they were investigating a hacker who had installed malicious code in the software that some American businesses used to process credit card transactions.

美方表示，他们在调查一名黑客，此人在一些美国公司用来处理信用卡交易的软件中设置了恶意代码。

The hacker was stealing millions of credit card numbers and selling them in an underground digital marketplace.

这名黑客在盗取数百万信用卡号码，将它们拿到一个地下数字市场出售。

The agents provided a name — Roman Seleznev — and the aliases he used online.

这些特工提供了一个名字——罗曼•谢列兹尼奥夫(Roman Seleznev)——及他在网上使用的一些化名。

His father was a member of the Russian Parliament.

他的父亲是俄罗斯国会议员。

The Secret Service had followed his digital trail to Vladivostok, Russia, and they asked for help catching him.

美国特勤局追踪他的数字踪迹至俄罗斯的符拉迪沃斯托克，要求俄方帮助抓捕他。

Within weeks, all evidence of Mr Seleznev’s online identity vanished from the internet.

然而在几周之内，有关谢列兹尼奥夫网上身份的所有证据便从互联网上消失了。

Rather than advancing the case, the Russian government had set it back, the American authorities believed.

美国当局认为，俄罗斯政府非但没有推进这个案件，反倒形成了阻碍。

Prosecutors described their blunt conclusion in court documents: Further coordination with the Russian government would jeopardize efforts to prosecute this case.

检方在法庭文件里下了这样的结论：与俄罗斯政府的进一步合作，将危及起诉这个案件的努力。

The American authorities were left to pursue Mr Seleznev by themselves.

美国当局现在只能自己设法追查谢列兹尼奥夫了。

In the D.N.C. case and other election-year hacks, the authorities have concluded that people affiliated with the Russian government are to blame.

当局得出结论，认为在民主党全国委员会的案件和竞选年里的其他黑客袭击中，罪魁祸首是与俄罗斯政府有关联的人。

But even if intelligence officials can identify who is behind those attacks, naming the actual perpetrators is even harder.

但即便情报官员能确定谁是这些袭击的幕后主使，要找到真正的犯罪者却更难。

One senior federal law enforcement official said this week that investigators still had many unanswered questions.

一位高层联邦执法官员表示，本周调查人员还有很多问题没有得到答案。

If it can be done, naming and prosecuting the hackers would follow a path set in 2014,

如果可以做到这些，确认身份和对黑客提起指控的情形就会和2014年的案件一样。

when the Justice Department indicted five members of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army on charges of hacking into American networks.

当时司法部以入侵美国网络的罪名起诉了五名中国人民解放军人员。

The indictment links the men to specific email addresses and aliases, but does not reveal how the authorities made those connections.

这份起诉书将这些人与特定的邮件地址和化名联系起来，但没显示当局是如何建立起这些联系的。

The chance of us ever getting those Chinese guys is about zero, said Mr Anderson.

我们抓到这些中国人的几率几乎等于零，安德逊说。

But it does show them that there’s a change afoot.

但这的确让他们看到，情况在发生变化。

At least the way we’re looking at it policy-wise.

至少我们在政策方面看待它的方式在发生变化。

Criminal charges have more practical implications, too.

犯罪指控也有更多实际的影响。

It’s about denying them the ability to travel freely and preventing them from spending their ill-gotten gains anywhere but Russia, said Leo Taddeo, the chief security officer at Cryptzone and the former top agent in the F.B.I.’s New York computer operations division.

这基本上会让他们无法自由出行，也能防止他们在俄罗斯以外的地方用这些非法所得进行消费，之前为FBI纽约网络犯罪分部首席特工、现在担任Cryptzone首席安全官的利奥•塔代奥(Leo Taddeo)说。

You’re confining them to a prison that spans 11 time zones that can be a pretty unpleasant place.

你是把他们关进了一座跨越11个时区的监狱，那里有时可能让人相当不舒服。