Title:Google Offers Free Protection to U.S. Political Websites

After Tennessee voters went to the polls in primary elections this month, a massive surge of traffic hit a Know County website as it reported the results, knocking it offline for over an hour. In the wake of the incident, a cyber-security experts reported that  "a suspiciously large number of foreign countries"  accessed the site, which caused it to crash.

继田纳西州选民本月参加初选投票后，大量的流量涌入初选结果的网站，公布选举结果，迫使该网站崩溃了一个多小时。事件发生后，一名网络安全专家报告说，该网站有“可疑的大量国外”流量涌入，造成网站崩塌。

These sort of cyber shenanigans, known as a  "distributed denial of service"  (DDoS) attacks, are cheap and easy to arrange, and have the potential to be widespread during November elections in the U.S.

这种被称为“分布式拒绝服务”的网络谢南加人攻击，既便宜又容易安排，有可能在美国11月的选举中广泛传播。

That's why Jigsaw, the policy wing of Google's parent company Alphabet (googl), has decided to offer free DDoS protection to any U.S. political organization or candidate. The protection comes in the form of a service called Project Shield, which Jigsaw has already been offering to journalists, human rights workers and election organizers in other countries.

这就是为什么谷歌母公司Alphabet（googl）的政策部门Jigsaw决定向任何美国政治组织或候选人提供免费的DdoS保护。保护工作采取名为"盾牌项目"的服务形式，Jigsaw已经向其他国家的新闻记者、人权工作者和选举组织者提供。

Project Shield is based on the same technology that Google uses to defend its websites from cyber attacks, and works by deflecting malicious web traffic.

盾牌项目的基础是谷歌用来保护其网站免受网络攻击的同样的技术，并改变恶意网络流量。

"The power of Project Shield s being able to take Google's infrastructure and adapt it to small and medium sites,"  said George Conard, the project manager of the service, told Fortune.

服务项目经理乔治·康拉德(George Conard)对《财富》表示：“护盾项目能够利用谷歌的基础设施，并使之适应中小型网站。

Conard noted that DDoS attacks are proliferating, and they've become cheaper and more powerful. This is partly due to the growing number of insecure devices connected to the Internet, which hackers are able to capture and deploy in criminal operations.

康纳德指出，DDOS攻击正在蔓延，并且变得更便宜和更强大。部分原因是连接因特网的不安全设备越来越多，黑客能够抓获并部署在犯罪行动中。

While DDoS attacks don't steal data, they could nonetheless cause considerable mischief in upcoming elections by taking down the websites of political candidates, or crippling voter information sites at critical times. It's also likely, given the incident in Tennessee, that Russia—which famously deployed a variety of hacking efforts during the last election—will reprise these tactics during the 2018 midterms.

虽然"多哈发展议程"的攻击没有窃取数据，但它们在即将到来的选举中仍会造成相当大的不利影响，破坏了政治候选人的网站，或在关键时刻对选民信息网站造成瘫痪。鉴于田纳西州发生的事件，俄罗斯在上次选举中著名的黑客入侵行动可能会在2018年中期重演这些战术。

Jigsaw's Conard says setting up the service is quick and easy. Any registered political candidate or organization can fill out a short application, and then provide information about the websites where they publish information.

Jigsaw的Conard说，设立这项服务既迅速又容易，任何注册的政治候选人或组织都可以填写一份简短的申请，然后提供有关他们公布信息的网站的信息。

The service is free, and Jigsaw is urging political organizations large and small to implement the protections before election season is in full-swing. While it's possible to deploy Jigsaw's tools while a website is under attack, an organization will have an easier time if they are deployed in the first place.

这项服务是免费的，Jigsaw敦促大小政治组织在选举季节到来之前实施保护。虽然可以在网站遭到攻击时部署Jigsaw的工具，但如果首先部署这些工具，一个组织就会更轻松。