This video starts with a mystery:
这段视频从一个谜开始：
in 2011, James and Theresa Arnold moved to a farm
2011年 詹姆斯和特丽莎·阿诺德搬去了
in Butler County, Kansas, just north of the town of Potwin.
堪萨斯州巴特勒县波特温镇北部的一个农场
It was a quiet town. A small town.
那是一个安静的小镇
The kind of town you’d go to and think
那种你去了就会想
“Gee, this town sure is small and quiet.”
“哇 这个镇子肯定又小又安静”
A few days after the Arnolds moved in, though,
然而 在阿诺德夫妇搬进来几天后
two sheriff’s deputies showed up looking for a stolen truck.
两名副警长来找一辆被盗的卡车
The Arnolds found this odd, as they hadn’t stolen a truck,
阿诺德夫妇觉得奇怪 他们并未偷过卡车
and famously, police never make mistakes
不过众所周知 警察从不犯错
—still, they didn’t think much of it.
至少目前没有 他们就没多想
But police kept showing up, looking for various stolen items.
但警察不断出现 寻找各种被盗物品
So did FBI agents, looking for runaway children.
联邦调查局特工也来寻找离家出走的儿童
The IRS sent agents claiming the Arnolds had committed tax fraud.
国税局派出特工 声称阿诺德夫妇有税务欺诈行为
Ambulances, searching for suicidal veterans,
寻找自杀老兵的救护车
would barge onto the property at night, waking them up.
会在晚上闯入庄园 把他们惊醒
They got threatening phone calls from people
他们接到人们的威胁电话
who claimed the Arnolds had scammed them out of money,
声称阿诺德夫妇骗了他们的钱
or stolen their credit cards.
或盗用了他们的信用卡
Sometimes they’d find total strangers angrily searching through their barn,
有时他们发现素昧平生的人在愤怒翻找他们的谷仓
and one time they found a broken toilet on their driveway,
有次他们在车道上发现了一个坏了的马桶
seemingly put there either as a bizarre, confusing threat,
似乎放在那里是一种奇怪的 令人困惑的威胁
or a bizarre, confusing gift.
或者是一份奇怪的 令人困惑的礼物
So, why?
那么 为什么呢
Why were the Arnolds undergoing this Kafkaesque torture?
为什么阿诺德夫妇要经受这种卡夫卡式的折磨
Comment below if you’ve figured it out:
如果你想到了答案 请在下方评论：
your prize is increasing my comment engagement.
你的奖品是提高我的评论参与度
Also feel free to comment whether or not I used Kafkaesque correctly,
另外 欢迎评论我是否正确地使用了卡夫卡
because I’m pretty sure I didn’t.
因为我很确定我没有
In order to understand the answer, we need to talk about MaxMind.
为了理解这个答案 我们需要谈谈MaxMind
Despite sounding like a PBS series about a kid whose superpower is math,
这听起来像是讲拥有数学超能力孩子的PBS系列节目
MaxMind is actually a company
但MaxMind实际上是一家
that specializes in geolocating IP addresses.
专门从事IP地址地理定位的公司
Over 5,000 companies, plus a slew of government agencies,
5000多家公司和很多政府机构
use MaxMind to figure out where people are
都使用MaxMind锁定人们的IP地址
based on their IP addresses.
从而找到他们的位置
IP addresses, if you don’t know, are strings of numbers
如果你不知道 IP地址是一串数字
––or, in some cases, numbers and letters
–或某些情况下 是数字和字母
––that are unique to your computer.
–是你的计算机所独有的
The same way a physical address allows your home to receive mail or Amazon packages,
和你接收邮件或亚马逊包裹的家庭住址一样
an IP address allows your device to receive email
IP地址能让你的设备接收电子邮件
or desperate Amazon attempts to make a new Game of Thrones.
或让绝望的亚马逊尝试制作新的《权力的游戏》
The thing is, while IP addresses are really good at communicating
问题是 虽然IP地址非常擅长
where your device is within the internet
在网络设备中交流联系
they aren’t really designed to communicate where that device is physically.
但并非真的设计来交流该设备的物理位置的
That’s why IP mapping companies like MaxMind
所以像MaxMind这样的IP定位公司
have to figure that out themselves,
必须自己解决这个问题
gathering IP location info through everything from sophisticated methods
通过各种复杂的方法收集IP位置信息
like buying data from smartphone apps
比如从追踪手机GPS坐标的智能手机
that track a phone’s GPS coordinates,
应用程序中购买数据
to desperately sketchy methods like “war driving,”
以及像“驾驶攻击”这样令人绝望的粗略方法
where they send a bunch of people out in cars to find open Wi-Fi networks
他们派一群人开车出去寻找开放的Wi-Fi网络
and capture their IP addresses,
并获取它们的IP地址
like a slightly more depressing version of Pokemon Go.
就像有点丧版的《精灵宝可梦Go》
Then people, companies, or agencies go to MaxMind’s database and go
然后人们 公司或代理商进入MaxMind的数据库 说：
“Hey, where is this IP address,”
“嘿 这个IP地址在哪里？”
and MaxMind looks at all their data and goes,
MaxMind看了看他们所有的数据 说：
“uhhhh…here, probably.”
“呃…可能 在这”
The thing is, despite their best efforts,
问题是 尽管他们尽了最大努力
sometimes MaxMind can’t narrow the location down all that much.
但有时MaxMind也无法将地点缩小到那么多
Maybe they can only figure out what city an IP address is in,
也许他们只能查出IP地址所在城市
but nothing more than that.
但也就到这程度了
Or maybe they just know that it’s somewhere in Texas.
或者他们只知道它在德克萨斯州的某个地方
Or, in some cases,
或者 在某些情况下
all MaxMind knows is that the IP address is in the United States.
MaxMind所知道的全部信息就是该IP地址在美国
So, what do they do in that scenario?
那在这种情况下 他们是怎么做的呢？
Well, the way MaxMind was designed, it still had to spit out coordinates.
按照MaxMind的设计方式 它仍需显示坐标
So to indicate “all we know is, it’s in America,”
因此 为了表明“我们所知道的是 它在美国”
MaxMind decided to just send users coordinates
MaxMind决定只向用户
that are in the center of America.
发送位于美国中心的坐标
Except, not exactly
当然 也不完全是
because the exact center of America these long, ugly coordinates,
因为美国正中心的坐标数据又长又难看
so MaxMind changed it to the short, sexy coordinates
所以MaxMind把它改为短而性感的坐标
38 degree north, 97 degrees west.
即北纬38度 西经97度
Normally, what you should do in a situation like this is
通常在这种情况下 你要做的就是
make sure those coordinates are in the middle of a lake or something,
确保这些坐标在湖中央或其他地方
so that it’s clear to people you aren’t actually trying to provide them
这样人们就清楚你并没有提供给他们
with an actual, exact location.
真实且确切的位置
But MaxMind, being a poor, naive,
但MaxMind作为一家可怜 天真
multi-million dollar tech company,
拥有数百万美元的科技公司
didn’t think of that.
并未想到这一点
And you’ll never guess what just so happened to be on the exact coordinates of
而你永远不会猜到什么恰好在北纬38度
38 degree north, 97 degrees west: the Arnolds’ farm.
西经97度的准确坐标上：阿诺德家的农场
Well, actually you probably did guess it was the Arnolds farm.
实际上你可能确实猜到了是阿诺德家的农场
It was pretty obvious from the build-up.
依前面所说 这很明显
It turned out that there were over 600 million IP addresses
结果发现 有超过6亿个IP地址
that MaxMind showed as coming from the Arnolds’ home.
在MaxMind显示为来自阿诺德夫妇的家
So when the FBI was tracking the IP address of a kidnapper;
因此 当联邦调查局追踪绑架者的IP地址
or the IRS was tracking the IP address of a fraudster;
或国税局追踪欺诈者的IP地址
or some sad, lonely man was trying to figure out what monster
或一些悲伤 孤独的人试图找出是什么怪物
broke his brand new toilet,
毁了他的全新马桶时
they would see that the IP address tracked to the Arnolds’ farm,
他们都会发现IP地址追踪到了阿诺德家的农场
and instead of realizing that was MaxMind’s way of saying
而不是意识到这是MaxMind说
“all we know is, they’re in America,”
“我们所知道的是 他们在美国”的方式
they would assume that farm is where the IP address was actually coming from,
他们会认为那个农场是IP地址的真正来源
and go there in the middle of the night to wake up the Arnolds
并在半夜去那里叫醒阿诺德夫妇
to question slash harass slash provide unnecessary medical care to them.
质问 骚扰他们并产生不必要的争执
The crazy thing is, the Arnolds had absolutely no idea
疯狂的是 阿诺德多年来完全不知道
why any this was happening for years
为什么会发生这种情况
until a reporter named Kashmir Hill constructed a database of locations
直到一位名叫克什米尔·希尔的记者建了一个
that had multiple IP addresses mapped on them,
映射有多个IP地址的地点的数据库
noticed the Arnolds had a bonkers number of them,
注意到阿诺德家的IP地址多到惊人
and then called the farm to basically be like
然后打电话给农场说道
“Hey, just curious, has anything weird been happening to you lately,”
“嘿 只是好奇 你最近有遇到怪事吗？”
to which the Arnolds replied “is that a question or a threat?”
阿诺德回复道：“你是在质问还是在威胁我？”
After learning what had been going on, the Arnolds sued MaxMind,
阿诺德夫妇在得知情况后 起诉了MaxMind
who promptly moved the default US location to the middle of a lake
后者迅速将美国的默认位置搬到了一个
with no nice families living in it.
没有什么真的家庭居住的湖中央
But seeing as a lot of their customer companies don’t update their data regularly,
但鉴于他们的许多客户公司并不定期更新数据
the Arnolds still live in a tech-induced hellscape,
阿诺德家族仍生活在由技术引入的地狱里
which brings me to our sponsor: Meta.
这让我想到了我们的赞助商Meta公司
No, I’m just kidding.
不 我只是开玩笑
Our sponsor is Fabulous,
我们的赞助商是Fabulous
which is actually designed to, among other things,help you escape the digital hellscape.
它的设计初衷之一实际就是助你逃离数字地狱
I don’t know about you,
我不知道你的情况
but I very often have trouble regularly doing the things that I know are good for me
但我经常在做我知道对我有好处的事情时遇到麻烦
but Fabulous makes it easy.
但Fabulous让一切变得简单
When you download the app, you’ll take a really easy quiz
你下载这个APP时要做一个非常简单的测试
that asks you things like how much you sleep,
问你一些问题 比如你睡多久
or how easily you’re distracted
或者你有多容易分心
and then it’ll ask you what you’re hoping to improve on,
然后它会问你希望改善什么
like productivity, or mindfulness, or eating better,
比如效率 专注力 或者吃得更好
and then works by giving you little nudges and dopamine hits
然后通过轻微的刺激和多巴胺的碰撞
to kind of trick your brain into doing the things you want it to.
诱使你的大脑去做你想做的事情
I personally have been enrolled in a productivity journey,
我个人已经参与了一场效率之旅
and one really simple thing it’s helped me do is make to-do lists,
它帮我做了一件很简单的事 制定待办事项清单
which have actually had a huge impact on my ability to get things done.
这确实对我完成任务的能力产生了巨大影响
Whether you’re hoping to sleep more, get off social media more,
无论你是希望更多的睡眠 远离社交媒体
be more productive, or stress a little less,
更有效率 还是压力更小
Fabulous has a program for you
Fabulous都有一个适合你的项目
and you can get started with 25% off a premium subscription
你可以点击屏幕上的按钮或简介中的链接
by being one of the first 500 to sign up by clicking the button on screen
注册成为首批500名会员之一
or heading to the link in the description.
即可享受25%的高额会员折扣
Fabulous: Build Habits That Are Better Than The Habits You Have Now.
Fabulous：建立比你现在更好的习惯