BEC商务英语阅读：Facebook泄露你的秘密

　　原文阅读：Facebook透露你的“秘密”

　　The increasing amount of personal information that can be gleaned by computer programs that track how people use Facebook has been revealed by an extensive academic study.

　　Such programs can discern undisclosed private information such as Facebook users’ sexuality, drug-use habits and even whether their parents separated when they were young, according to the study by the University of Cambridge academics.

　　In one of the biggest studies of its kind, scientists from the university’s psychometrics team and a Microsoft-funded research centre analysed data from 58,000 Facebook users to predict traits and other information that were not provided in their profiles.

　　The algorithms were 88 per cent accurate in predicting male sexual orientation, 95 per cent for race and 80 per cent for religion and political leanings. Personality types and emotional stability were also predicted with accuracy ranging from 62-75 per cent.

　　The study highlights growing concerns about social networks and how data trails can be mined for sensitive information, even when people attempt to keep information about themselves private. Less than 5 per cent of users predicted to be gay, for example, were connected with explicitly gay groups.

　　Michal Kosinksi, one of the report’s authors, told the Financial Times that the university’s techniques could easily be replicatedby companies to infer personal attributes a person did not wish to share, such as sexual orientationor political views: “We used very simple and generic methods. Marketing companies and internet companies could spend much more time and resources, and hence get much higher accuracy than we did.”

　　The report also revealed some unexpected correlations – such as people who liked ‘curly fries’ having higher IQs, while those who like Facebook’s “Sliding on Floors With Your Socks On” page were unlikely to use drugs.

　　学习指南：

　　1.Word of the day

　　replicate: If you replicate someone's experiment, work, or research, you do it yourself in exactly the same way. 复制; 重做(试验、工作或研究)

　　ex:He invited her to his laboratory to see if she could replicate the experiment.

　　例句：他邀请她到他的实验室看她能否复制该实验。

　　小编注：replicate和duplicate都意为“复制”，但两者不可混用。熟悉各种编辑软件的同学也许会发现，其中使用的都是duplicate，因为duplicate强调结果，表示复制后的两者完全一样，而repulicate则强调过程，指将同一件事(比如实验)以相同的过程重做一遍。另一个词repeat也有重做的意思，但并不强调过程相同。

　　2.Phrase of the day

　　sexual orientation: Someone's sexual orientation is whether they are sexually attracted to people of the same sex, people of the opposite sex, or both. 性取向

　　小编注：同性恋的正式说法是homosexual。细分之，男性称为gay，女性称为lesbian，其他如queer，fairy，queen等称呼带有很重的歧视口吻，最好少用为妙。另外，还有一种情况叫bi-sexual(双性恋)，简称bi。

　　3.Sentence of the day

　　In one of the biggest studies of its kind, scientists from the university’s psychometrics team and a Microsoft-funded research centre analysed data from 58,000 Facebook users to predict traits and other information that were not provided in their profiles.

　　在这次研究中，来自大学心理测验团队和微软公司(Microsoft)资助的一家研究中心的科学家们共同分析了5.8万名Facebook用户的数据，以推测其个人资料中并未提供的个人特征和其他信息。在同类研究中，这是规模最大的研究之一。

　　小编注：psychometrics解释为心理测量学。以ics结束的名词，当解释为学科时，通常为单数。比如说：Economics(经济学)isa vital subject. 然而当他们解释为学科以外的意思时则常做复数使用。如：The economics(经济状况)of the project arestill being considered.

　　4.Cultural point of the day

　　社交网络：社交网络可以说是近几年最火的东西了，Facebook至2004年上线以来，仅仅几年内飞速发展，甚至在2010年世界品牌500强超越微软勇夺第一。然而这几年，关于Facebook泄露用户信息的争议也从未消停，在一些国家，以Facebook和Twitter为首的社交网络甚至因其信息的迅速传播而成为革命的导火索。在德国，Facebook也因为不允许使用假名而被政府封杀。但不论如何，社交网络的成功已经是毫无疑问的事儿了。

　　5.Translation of the day

　　The report also revealed some unexpected correlations – such as people who liked ‘curly fries’ having higher IQs, while those who like Facebook’s “Sliding on Floors With Your Socks On” page were unlikely to use drugs.

　　该报告还揭示出一些出人意料的相关性。比如说喜欢“扭扭薯条(curly fries)”的人智商更高，而喜欢一个名为“穿着袜子在地板上滑(Sliding on Floors With Your Socks On)”的页面的人不太可能吸食毒品。

　　小编注：while有很多种用法，本句中的while解释为“而”，是一个并列连词。根据上下文，有时while作“正当……时候”解释，引导时间状语从句。有时也会解释为“但是(but)”和“虽然(although)”，可以说while的用法是非常灵活的，翻译时必须看清上下文的逻辑关系。