The ban on robot vacuums won’t make them safer, only worse
The ban on robot vacuums won’t make them safer, only worse
针对扫地机器人的禁令不会让它们更安全，只会适得其反
No other gadget knows as much about your home as a robot vacuum. They map your space, learn your routines, and many now carry a camera and microphone into every room in your house. As AI gives them a better understanding of what they see, the privacy and security risks these autonomous robots pose are only growing.
没有其他设备比扫地机器人更了解你的家。它们绘制你的空间地图，学习你的生活习惯，而且现在许多机器人还会在你家中的每个房间配备摄像头和麦克风。随着人工智能让它们能更好地理解所见内容，这些自主机器人带来的隐私和安全风险也在不断增加。
That’s why greater scrutiny makes sense, but the ban on foreign-made mobile robots issued by the Federal Communications Commission earlier this week — implemented to address “unacceptable risks to the national security of the United States or the safety and security of United States persons” — doesn’t actually judge products by how secure they are, just where they’re built. It effectively means no new robot vacuums from major companies can enter the US market unless they are built here. And spoiler alert: none are.
这就是为什么加强审查是有道理的，但美国联邦通信委员会（FCC）本周早些时候发布的针对外国制造移动机器人的禁令——旨在解决“对美国国家安全或美国人员安全构成的不可接受风险”——实际上并不是根据产品的安全性来评判，而仅仅是根据它们的产地。这实际上意味着，除非在美国本土制造，否则主要公司生产的新款扫地机器人将无法进入美国市场。剧透一下：目前还没有任何一款是美国制造的。
This ban means Americans will see fewer new models, slower innovation, and more expensive robot vacuums. Cybersecurity and manufacturing are not the same thing. If the goal is safer robot vacuums (and robot lawnmowers, companion bots, humanoids, and all the other robots this ban sweeps up), this policy misses the mark. A meaningful security standard for robots would require encrypted map storage, security audits, vulnerability disclosures, and clear data retention policies.
这项禁令意味着美国消费者将看到更少的新型号、更缓慢的创新以及更昂贵的扫地机器人。网络安全和制造业并不是一回事。如果目标是让扫地机器人（以及该禁令涵盖的割草机器人、陪伴机器人、人形机器人等）更安全，那么这项政策就偏离了目标。一个有意义的机器人安全标准应该要求加密地图存储、安全审计、漏洞披露以及明确的数据保留政策。
Instead, this ban means Americans will see fewer new models, slower innovation, and more expensive robot vacuums. In short, we’ll get worse vacuums than those we have today.
相反，这项禁令意味着美国消费者将看到更少的新型号、更缓慢的创新以及更昂贵的扫地机器人。简而言之，我们得到的扫地机器人将比现在市面上的更差。
I’ve been covering and testing robot vacuums for over a decade, and have seen dozens of privacy and security stories. The fear that your robot vacuum could spy on you or leak your data isn’t paranoia; it’s a well-documented fact that we have personal experience with here at The Verge. Many of the industry’s largest manufacturers — including Dreame, Ecovacs, Roborock, iRobot, and Shark — have suffered security vulnerabilities or data breaches.
我报道和测试扫地机器人已经超过十年，见证了数十起隐私和安全事件。担心扫地机器人监视你或泄露你的数据并非多疑；这是一个有据可查的事实，我们在 The Verge 也有过亲身经历。该行业许多最大的制造商——包括追觅（Dreame）、科沃斯（Ecovacs）、石头科技（Roborock）、iRobot 和 Shark——都曾遭遇过安全漏洞或数据泄露。
Those failures don’t point toward regulating manufacturing, but toward the need for stronger cybersecurity requirements, like those defined by the government’s Cyber Trust Mark program. But that program doesn’t exist yet, and if it ever does, it will be entirely voluntary.
这些失败并不指向监管制造业，而是指向对更强网络安全要求的迫切需求，例如政府“网络信任标志”（Cyber Trust Mark）计划所定义的那些要求。但该计划目前尚未实施，即便未来实施，也将完全是自愿性质的。
This manufacturing ban applies to any foreign-made robot, but footnotes in the FCC’s public notice indicate that China is a particular concern, warning that foreign governments could use vulnerabilities found in advanced robotics to access sensitive data. China’s commerce ministry has already called the policy “discriminatory and suppressive against Chinese companies and products.”
这项制造禁令适用于任何外国制造的机器人，但 FCC 公告的脚注显示，中国是一个特别关注点，警告称外国政府可能利用先进机器人技术中发现的漏洞来获取敏感数据。中国商务部已将该政策称为“对中国企业和产品的歧视和打压”。
There are real security advantages to domestic robot production. Mehul Nariyawala, president and co-founder of Matic, the only robot vacuum currently assembled in the US (although with too many foreign parts to be considered US-made), points out that domestic manufacturing makes it easier to ensure there are no hardware backdoors and to hold companies accountable for any failures. But a robot vacuum made in Massachusetts isn’t automatically more secure than one made in Shenzhen. And the FCC’s ban doesn’t actually take steps to ensure they will be.
本土机器人生产确实具有安全优势。目前唯一在美国组装的扫地机器人公司 Matic 的总裁兼联合创始人 Mehul Nariyawala 指出，本土制造更容易确保没有硬件后门，并能让公司对任何故障负责（尽管该产品因使用了过多外国零部件而无法被视为“美国制造”）。但马萨诸塞州制造的扫地机器人并不自动比深圳制造的更安全。而 FCC 的禁令实际上并未采取任何措施来确保这一点。
The robot ban is a carbon copy of those the FCC has issued to Wi-Fi routers and drones over the last few months. So far, it has already granted several waivers to router companies that don’t appear to be moving their manufacturing to the US, which the waivers require. This raises questions about how consistently and fairly the new rules will be enforced and whether they can actually achieve their intended effect.
这项机器人禁令是 FCC 过去几个月针对 Wi-Fi 路由器和无人机所发布禁令的翻版。到目前为止，FCC 已经向几家路由器公司授予了豁免权，而这些公司似乎并没有按照豁免要求将生产转移到美国。这引发了人们对新规则将如何一致且公平地执行，以及它们是否真的能达到预期效果的质疑。
Today, the practical consequences won’t be better security — the millions of robot vacuums already in American homes remain unaffected, as do any currently sold models. If these really are a risk, and we’ve seen plenty of evidence they can be, why leave the largest source of that risk exactly where it is?
今天，实际后果并不会是安全性提升——美国数百万台已经在使用的扫地机器人不受影响，目前在售的型号也不受影响。如果它们确实存在风险（我们已经看到了大量证据表明确实如此），为什么还要让这些风险的最大来源原封不动地留在那里呢？
In an optimistic future, the ban could spur American manufacturing. Nariyawala believes it “creates the conditions for American startups to design, engineer, and build all manner of trustworthy robots at scale.” He adds that consumer robots are where robotics manufacturing reaches scale, and the supply chains they require are the same ones defense, industrial, and healthcare robots will depend on. “Get it right, educate customers to demand it, and that domestic supply chain stops being an aspiration and becomes a reality.”
在乐观的未来，这项禁令可能会刺激美国制造业。Nariyawala 认为，它“为美国初创公司大规模设计、研发和制造各种值得信赖的机器人创造了条件”。他补充说，消费级机器人是机器人制造业实现规模化的地方，它们所需的供应链与国防、工业和医疗机器人所依赖的供应链是相同的。“如果做对了，教育消费者去提出要求，那么本土供应链就不再只是一个愿望，而会成为现实。”