VOA慢速英语2012 Technology Report - New Laws Needed to Deal With Users’ Digital Legacies（在线收听）

Technology Report - New Laws Needed to Deal With Users’ Digital Legacies

科技报道 - 数字遗产处理有待立法

This is the VOA Special English Technology Report.

这里是美国之音慢速英语科技报道。

Benjamin Stassen took his own life in twenty-ten. His parents thought their twenty-one year old son was happy. Since his suicide, they have attempted to learn why he killed himself.

2010年，本杰明·斯塔森（Benjamin Stassen）结束了自己的生命。他父母曾以为自己21岁的儿子非常幸福。儿子自杀以后，他们曾试图了解他自杀的原因。

Alice and Jay Stassen thought Benjamin’s Facebook account might hold clues to his suicide. But the account does not belong to them, nor did it belong to their son. Facebook owns everything in his account. That is what the company says in its user agreement.

爱丽丝和杰伊·斯塔森（Alice and Jay Stassen，即斯塔森夫妻）认为本杰明的Facebook帐户可能有他自杀的线索。但该帐户不属于他们，也不属于自己的儿子。Facebook拥有他账户的一切，这是该公司用户协议中提出的。

Jay Stassen says he found it difficult even to communicate with Facebook.

杰伊·斯塔森说，他发现甚至与Facebook沟通都很难。

JAY STASSEN: “If you search on the home page of Facebook for an email address, a mailing address, a phone number, a contact person to assist in a situation like we’ve been in, you will find a dearth of information.

杰伊·斯塔森：“如果你在Facebook主页上查找该公司协助处理像我们这种状况的的邮件地址、邮寄地址、电话号码、联系人，你会发现缺乏这类信息。”

A court ordered the company to let the Stassens see their son’s account. However, Facebook has yet to obey the order.

法庭命令该公司允许杰伊·斯塔森查看他儿子的账户。然而Facebook尚未服从该命令。

Thirty-four-year-old Mac Tonnies died in his sleep in two thousand nine. He left behind a lot of online friends, many of whom liked his futuristic blog, “Post-Human Blues.” Work on the blog stopped when he died. A short time later, the comments area was filled with unwanted advertising. That angered his friend Dia Sobin.

2009年，34岁的麦克·滕尼斯（Mac Tonnies）在睡梦中去世，身后留下了很多网上好友，其中许多人喜欢他的未来派博客---后人类布鲁斯（Post-Human Blues）。他去世后博客停止了更新。很短时间后，评论区被不受欢迎的广告填满。这激怒了他的朋友Dia Sobin。

DIA SOBIN: “It’s really like a desecration to find spam in that comment section in that blog, which basically has become almost like a virtual burial plot.”

DIA SOBIN：“在这个基本已经成为虚拟墓地的博客的评论区发现垃圾邮件信息真是亵渎神灵。”

Lawyer John Boucher stays informed about digital rights and the law. But he admits that he and his wife have signed many user agreements without reading them. He says he would not know how to get information from his wife’s accounts if she dies.

约翰·鲍彻（John Boucher）律师了解数字权利和法律。但他承认，他和妻子在没有阅读前就签署了很多用户协议。他说，如果妻子去世，他不知道如何获得妻子的账户信息。

JOHN BOUCHER: “I have no clue. So there is a dual problem here. One is people don’t think about it. And two, even if they did, they might find they are legally barred from doing it. I personally think what’s gonna happen over time is there are going to be model laws drafted to deal with all these circumstances. But they’re gonna take years to be accepted by the states, you know. There’s going to be a gray area for the foreseeable future.”

鲍彻：“我没有头绪。这有两个问题。一是人们没去想过，二是即使他们想过可能也会发现法律禁止他们这么做。我个人认为，随着时间推移，会起草示范性的法律来处理所有这类情况，但需要很多年时间才能被各州接受。你知道，就可预见的未来而言，这将会是一个灰色地带。”

Some businesses now are offering people a way to control what happens to their online information after they die. One way to do this is to place your online accounts and passwords in a digital storage area. You give the owners of the area orders about which information to destroy and which to give others when you die.

一些企业目前为人们提供了一种途径，来处理去世后的自己的网上信息。办法之一是将你的网上账户和密码保存到一个数字存储区域，并给这个存储区域的所有人下令，在自己去世后，哪些信息销毁，哪些信息提供给他人。

Mark Plattner was one of Mac Tonnie’s friends. He recently used a program called Sitesucker to download Mac’s blog. He then uploaded a copy of the blog to a new web site under his control. Mark Plattner says we should all plan our own digital legacy. He says “don’t be passive -- get to work on your online afterlife now.” 

马克·普拉特纳（Mark Plattner）是麦克·滕尼斯（Mac Tonnies）的朋友之一。他最近使用一个名为Sitesucker的程序下载了麦克的博客，然后将博客副本上传到自己控制下的一个新网站上。普拉特纳表示，我们都应该规划自己的数字遗产。他表示，“不要被动--现在开始耕耘你的网上后世吧。”

And that’s the VOA Special English Technology Report. You can leave comments about this story at www.voanews.cn. I’m Christopher Cruise.

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Contributing: Adam Phillips