谷歌和雅虎真的参与了“棱镜项目”吗？

    他们并不仅仅是在讨论打造国防部的防御体系。更重要的是，军方想让这些技术界的精英发挥最大的聪明才智，帮他们发动一场与常规战争迥异的战争，打击一群无国别的敌人。这次会议启动了一个机密项目，为此这些硅谷巨擘们要密切监视那些拥有潜在军事应用的新兴科技公司，把它们的情况及时汇报给军方和情报部门的高层。

    关键在于要迅速完成漫长繁琐的全部流程，从明确需求，到从零开始设计解决方案，再到呈现解决方案。一位与会者说：“为期18个月的‘提案请求’（request for proposal -RFP）过程并不会催生出创新方案。我们要实时解决问题，要让那些初创公司中有着新奇想法的人和那些致力于保卫国家的人通力合作。”会后的三年里，这些大佬一再去华盛顿碰头，同时把那些前景看好的创新项目提交给军方代表，以及来自联邦调查局（FBI）、中央情报局（CIA）和国家安全局（NSA）的代表。

    这些技术大佬表示，他们并不清楚这些做法后来到底执行情况如何，因为他们在提交方案后就基本对后续进展毫不知情了，也不清楚布林、佩奇和费罗在首次会议后又参加过哪些别的活动。科瓦姆称，有一次，立法机构听到了有关该项目的风声，打算提请国会进行监督，国防部于是暂缓了项目进程。2006年，该项目再次启动，并命名为“防务风险催化行动”（Defense Venture Catalyst Initiative）——或简称为DeVenCI——但发起成员没再继续参与。科瓦姆去年对我说：“他们给这个项目起了个缩写名称，并让它成为整个监视行动的一部分。我们当时就说，‘这事肯定成不了。我觉得这不是什么好兆头。它没法实现当时定下的目标。’”

    谷歌的一位发言人拒绝对此发表评论。截至发稿时，雅虎的一位代表也未做回应。而五角大楼的一位发言人则称，DeVenCI项目去年9月就暂停了，因为政府支出削减计划已在年度预算中取消了这个项目的400万美元预算。

    鉴于国家安全局的棱镜（PRISM）监听计划不久前被曝光，我们到底该如何看待这段历史？这些科技公司的高管推荐新应用——不管是他们自己的，他们同业的，还是他们投资组合里的——与他们偷偷把用户个人信息及通讯情况提交给监听部门是完全不同的两码事。而我们也开始明白，随着情报部门对硅谷的科技企业不断施压，迫使他们合作后，硅谷和华盛顿的关系也就变得日益复杂了。如今，这些科技公司的高管可能不再亲自飞往华盛顿义务帮助政府了，但值得注意的是，这种合作的根基非常深厚，而且历史悠久。（财富中文网）

    译者：清远

    They weren't just talking about building up Defense's defenses. More significant, the military wanted to squeeze the tech industry's brightest for help as they began a very different kind of war against a stateless enemy. The meeting launched a classified project for which the Silicon Valley chieftains scouted emerging technologies with potential military applications and reported them to military and intelligence agency leadership.

    The point was to end-run the lengthy bureaucratic process of identifying a need, designing a solution for it from scratch, and then bidding it out. "Innovation doesn't happen through 18-month RFPs," one participant said. "This was about real-time problems and getting people who had incredible ideas in early-stage companies together with the people who were trying to save our country." For the next three years, the group would reconvene in Washington and pitch promising innovations to representatives of the military branches, as well as the FBI, CIA, and NSA.

    The industry participants themselves say they don't know the full scope of what the effort yielded, because they were largely cut out of the loop after they presented. It is not clear how much Brin, Page, and Filo participated beyond the initial meeting. Kvamme said the Defense Department wound down the project once lawmakers got wind of it and wanted to subject it to Congressional oversight. It relaunched in 2006 under the moniker "Defense Venture Catalyst Initiative" -- DeVenCI for short -- but the founding members didn't rejoin. "The minute they gave it an acronym and made it part of the whole thing, we just said, 'This isn't going to work,'" Kvamme told me last year. "I just saw the writing on the wall. It wasn't going to be what it had been."

    A spokesperson for Google declined to comment. A Yahoo representative had not responded to requests for comment at press time. A Pentagon spokesperson says DeVenCI wound down in September of last year, after spending cuts eliminated the program's $4 million annual budget.

    What to make of this history in light of the recent disclosures about the NSA's PRISM program? There's a major difference between tech executives recommending new capabilities -- whether their own, their peers', or from their investment portfolios -- and secretly handing over users' personal data and communications. And as we're learning, the relationship between Silicon Valley and Washington has grown much more complicated as the intelligence agencies have increased the pressure on industry to cooperate. Tech executives may no longer be flying themselves across the country to volunteer their help, but it is worth noting the roots of the collaboration are both deep and lengthy.