外媒看中國 12306不如讓馬雲去做大綱

China’s government-run online train ticket sales site 12306 has been causing problems since pretty much the moment it was launched. It broke during its first Spring Festival rush back in 2011, and since then has been the source of a litany of complaints: not processing refunds, cheating customers, promising an app that didn’t materialize for years and then sucked when it finally showed up, breaking again, listing nonsensical departure/arrival times, being associated with corruption, facilitating ticket scalping, shutting down third-party services that fix its bugs, and more.

自從12306在線火車票訂購網站的誕生後，這個由中國政府獨立運營的系統似乎就在不停地出問題。2011年，在它第一次開始運營春運高峯時它就崩潰了，接下來它便成了一系列抱怨的根源：不處理退票，欺騙客戶，承諾的app多年沒有出現，一出現就糟糕透頂，反覆癱瘓，顯示無意義的出發抵達時間，貪污腐敗，促進倒票行爲，關閉幫助其修補漏洞的第三方服務，等等等等。

That’s an incredibly litany of crimes for a service that has only been around for three years, but its latest may be the worst yet: last week news broke that personal data from 140,000 users was leaked via a security flaw on the 12306 site. The leaked data includes personal ID numbers, email addresses, and phone numbers. It also contains unencrypted, plaintext passwords.

作爲剛剛運營了3年的服務系統，它一連串的罪行是令人難以置信的，而最近新爆出的一條可能是最糟糕的：上週消息傳出，由於12306網站的一個安全漏洞140000用戶的個人信息被泄露。泄露信息包括個人身份證號碼，電子郵箱地址還有電話號碼。它還包含未加密的明文密碼。

In a statement on its website after the leak, 12306 denies that the information comes from its database, saying that it doesn’t store plaintext passwords. Instead, the site suggests the ticket buyers’ data may have been leaked from one of the third-party plugins and programs Chinese people use to purchase tickets so that they don’t have to interact with the 12306 site directly. (Subsequent reports suggest hackers used leaked data from other sites to access 12306’s database).

泄露醜聞發生後，12306在其網站上發聲明，否認信息是來自於它的數據庫，說它不存儲明文密碼。相反，該網站建議購票者的數據可能是被中國人用於購票的一個第三方插件和程序所泄露的，因此他們不必與12306進行直接交互。（後續報道顯示黑客使用其它網站泄露的信息登錄12306數據庫）。

But it almost doesn’t matter whether the leaked data actually came from 12306 or a third-party plugin. The fact is that if 12306 was a reliable, fully functional, and convenient platform for purchasing train tickets, nobody would use third-party apps to begin with. But because the site is so buggy and user-unfriendly, nearly half of China’s internet users buy their tickets via third-party services. (These services don’t sell tickets directly, they just facilitate purchases from 12306 by presenting a cleaner and more convenient user experience). Even if the leak came from a third-party plugin, it’s 12306’s fault that its crappy site has forced so many users onto those plugins in the first place.

但實際上數據是否是從12306泄露的還是從第三方插件已經無所謂了。事實是，如果12306是一個可靠的、功能齊全,方便購買火車票的平臺,沒有人會使用第三方應用程序。而正是因爲這個網站如此卡又不好用，才使得近一半的中國的互聯網用戶通過第三方服務商購買車票。(這些服務商並不直接賣門票,他們只是爲用戶提供一個在12306購買車票時更便捷、更方便的用戶體驗)。即使泄漏來自第三方插件,12306蹩腳糟糕的網站已經迫使很多用戶不得不在第一時間選擇這些插件，這是12306的過錯。

As an ecommerce platform, there’s simply no denying that 12306 is awful. But it would be so easy to fix! China has numerous internet companies with experience in building robust online shopping platforms that can withstand massive traffic. I have no doubt that a company like Alibaba or JD would be capable of building a more secure, more stable, and more convenient platform for train ticket sales, probably within a short time frame.

12306作爲一個電子商務平臺，它的糟糕是無可厚非的。修補它是非常簡單的！中國有衆多互聯網公司，它們擁有健壯的網上購物平臺構建經驗,可以承受巨大的流量。我毫不懷疑,可能在短時間內，像阿里巴巴或京東這樣的公司能夠建設一個更安全、更穩定、更方便的火車票銷售平臺。

This is not the first time I’ve made this plea. And there were rumors that the site was looking for an ecommerce partner to help almost immediately after the site launched, though no partnership ever materialized. But it’s better late than never, and whether or not it directly leaked the buyers’ personal information last week, China’s government must recognize that it is culpable here. Despite having cost nearly US$100 million, three years on 12306 still offers a user experience so terrible that nearly half its customers turn to third-party plugins and programs to complete their 12306 transactions.

這不是我第一次做這個請求。還有傳言說這個網站在投放時就在尋找一個電子商務合作伙伴,以幫助網站立即啓動,雖然從來沒有落實這個夥伴關係。但它的遲到總比不到好,上週無論它是否直接泄露買家的個人信息,中國政府必須認識到,12306是有責任的。儘管投入成本近1億美元,三年間，12306還是令其用戶感到糟糕，致使近一半的客戶轉向第三方插件和程序來幫助完成他們在12306上的交易。

By any reasonable standard, 12306’s design is an abject failure, and the site would have gone out of business long ago if it did not have a monopoly on sales of one of the most popular products in China. China’s government is unlikely to turn its ticket sales over to a private company any time soon, but it should at least hire Alibaba or JD to redesign its online platform from the ground up to create something that actually meets users’ needs, rather than driving them towards dubious third-party solutions as the current site does.

用任何公道的衡量標準，12306的設計失敗都是可悲的，在中國，車票在線銷售是最受歡迎的產品之一，如果12306不是憑藉着擁有壟斷銷售的地位，它可能很早以前就無生意可做了。中國政府短時間內不大可能將車票銷售私有化，但至少它可以僱傭像阿里巴巴或京東這樣的團隊去重新設計其在線平臺，從而真正迎合用戶需求，而不是像當下這樣驅使12306用戶投奔不可靠的第三方解決需求。