ABIN 2018 — Questão 3 · Língua Inglesa - Compreensão e Interpretação de Texto

Text CB1A5AAA

1---------Cyber-cafés were once a favoured tool of Western

intelligence and security agencies. They were inconspicuous,

cheap to establish and highly effective. Set up near an

4 international summit buzzing with targets, or close to a place

where drug-dealers peddle their wares, these facilities allowed

their masters to monitor browsing habits, obtain targets’ logins

7 and passwords, and plant spyware for future use. This was

legal: consent was buried in the terms and conditions which

users clicked on without reading. And in a neat twist,

10 security-conscious people trying to avoid using their own

computers favoured such places. Some would hop between

cafés, unaware that all the convenient ones were run by the authorities.

13--------- Not any more. Edward Snowden, a former contractor

for America’s National Security Agency (NSA) now living in

Moscow, revealed the use of cyber-cafés to spy on the G20

16 summit in London in 2009. Now people are wary. In many

countries the cyber-cafés have been closed. The staff who ran

them have had to be moved (and in some cases given costly

19 new identities).

The episode highlights one of the most important

trends in modern intelligence work. Collecting electronic

22 information is generally getting easier. It is hard to lead a

completely non-digital life, and any activity using computers

and networks creates openings for the watchers. An e-mail is as

25 easy to read as a postcard for anyone with modest technical

skills. With a few tweaks, mobile phones become tracking

beacons and bugging devices. Most people readily trade private

28 information for convenience. And hacking into computers can

yield vast amounts of intelligence.

A lot of spying, however, has become trickier. It is

31 much more difficult for intelligence officers to maintain

secrecy and create fake identities. And high expectations of

privacy, especially in the digital realm, mean that in many

34 countries the work of intelligence and security agencies arouses

outrage, not gratitude.

Intelligence and democracy — a new age of espionage.

In: The Economist, 30/7/2015 (adapted)

Based on text CB1A5AAA, judge the following items.

The author is critical of people who should be, but are not, thankful for the work intelligence and security agents do.