Rod Drury, an entrepreneur in Auckland, New Zealand, regularly visits the United States. Sometimes there are multiple visits a day.

新西兰奥克兰的创业者罗德·德鲁里(Rod Drury)经常去美国。有时候一天要去若干次。

“People here can’t get Netflix, so they get a VPN that gives them a U.S. I.P. address, and watch Netflix like they’re in America,” he said. “If I want something off iTunes, I buy U.S. cards online.”

“这里的人看不到Netflix，所以要通过VPN得到一个美国的IP地址，伪装成在美国的样子来看Netflix，”他说。“要是想上iTunes买点什么，我会去网上买美国卡。”

Decoding¹ the jargon²: Millions of people around the world now pay for virtual private computer networks — a security method that uses encryption to hide Internet traffic — and similar services to hook into a server in the United States. As far as the video and retail³ services can tell, Mr. Drury is one more American customer.

解释一下这堆术语：全世界有成千上万的人在花钱购买虚拟专用电脑网络——一种通过加密来隐藏网络数据往来的安全方法——以及类似的服务，为的是连入美国的服务器。从视频和零售服务商的角度看，德鲁里无非是又一个美国顾客。

If the Internet breaks down national boundaries, it may happen from the comfort of our couches. VPNs were originally thought of as a way for companies to guarantee security or dissidents to avoid the prying⁴ eyes of their governments. Now they are part of a larger movement for people to work and play anywhere on the planet, at all times.

如果说互联网推倒了国界，那么这一切可能是我们舒舒服服靠在沙发上时发生的。VPN原本是企业用来确保安全的一种手段，或者被异见人士用来躲避政府的监控。如今它已经属于一场涉及面更广的运动，被全世界的人在工作、玩乐中随时用到。

And if the software can’t come to consumers, the customers use VPN to get to the software.

如果软件不能为消费者所用，顾客就通过VPN主动去使用该软件。

“Unblock geo-restricted websites and web services like Netflix, Hulu, BBC iPlayer, Skype, and many more!” says the webpage of PureVPN, which charges $45 a year to turn you into a virtual American. You might prefer being Canadian, since Netflix Canada has a bigger selection of films.

“解除Netflix、Hulu、BBC iPlayer、Skype等等等等网站和网络服务的区域封锁！”PureVPN的网页上写着。该服务收取每年45美元（约合280元人民币）的费用，把你变成一个虚拟美国人。也许你应该选择当加拿大人，因为Netflix加拿大站点的电影选择更多。

Unblock-us, a service Mr. Drury uses that is similar to a VPN, charges $50 annually⁵. It offers easy access to scores of movie, television and sports videos that collectively would probably be impossible to obtain in most countries.

德鲁里使用的Unblock-us是一种类似VPN的服务，年费50美元。通过它可以方便地获取大量电影、电视和体育视频。在绝大多数国家，同时获取这么多内容都是不太可能的。

Uzair Gadit, the co-founder⁶ and director of PureVPN, says his company provides services to people in 90 countries who want to go virtually overseas unhindered.

PureVPN的联合创始人、董事乌扎尔·加迪特(Uzair Gadit)说，公司的客户遍布全世界90个国家，这些人都希望能自如地虚拟出国。

Online gamers use PureVPN to avoid service slowdowns with local Internet providers, as well as cyberattacks by rival gamers. Online retailers⁷ in many countries, Mr. Gadit says, need a stealthy way to collect prices from Amazon, eBay and others, to make sure they are competitive. Globally, he figures, perhaps 20 million consumers use VPNs and similar services to reach more than 300 channels that are geographically⁸ blocked in some way.

网络游戏玩家使用PureVPN来避免被本地互联网供应商的低网速拖累，或是遭到对手的网络攻击。加迪特说，许多国家的网络零售商需要通过隐蔽的方式来搜集亚马逊(Amazon)和eBay等网站的价格，以确保它们能给出有竞争力的价格。他估计全球有大约2000万消费者在使用VPN或类似服务，以便获取300余种受区域限制的频道。

“You might be amazed how much people want to watch stuff,” Mr. Gadit said. “We had 100 percent growth for each of the last three years, and we’re expecting that again this year. We hear Apple is creating a Netflix-like service — that’s great news for us.”

“你肯定猜不到人们有多想看这些东西，”加迪特说。“过去三年我们每年都有100%的增长，今年预计还是有这么大的幅度。我们听说苹果(Apple)在制作一种类似Netflix的服务——对我们是重大利好消息。”

PureVPN is in Hong Kong, an odd place for a company that also keeps people invisible to state spies. “China only spies on its own people,” Mr. Gadit said. “Most of the world worries about the U.S., the U.K., Australia and New Zealand — they spy on everybody.”

PureVPN位于香港，对于一个同时还在帮助人们躲开政府监控的公司来说，这个选址是很奇怪的。“中国只监视自己的国民，”加迪特说。“大多数人担心的是美国、英国，澳大利亚和新西兰——它们什么人都监视。”

Netflix’s terms of service forbid customers from circumventing⁹ regional barriers to its content, though the company is aware this is not universally respected. “There’s not a lot we can do to track that since VPNs by their very nature are set up to be difficult to spot,” Cliff Edwards, a Netflix spokesman, said in an email. Netflix also plans to offer service in New Zealand next month.

Netflix的服务条款禁止用户规避其内容的区域壁垒，不过公司知道并非所有人都把这条规矩当回事。“我们也没什么办法来搞追踪，VPN本身的特性决定了它很难被发现，”Netflix发言人克里夫·爱德华兹(Cliff Edwards)在电子邮件中说。Netflix还计划下月在新西兰开展服务。

What drives this enthusiasm for VPNs, it could be argued, is the way media companies are not providing entertainment fast enough in a world where everyone can be hip¹⁰ to the newest movie and television show. New Zealand movie theaters are now showing “Dumb and Dumber To,” which was on screens in the United States in November.

可以说，在这样一个大家都追逐最新影视节目的世界里，媒体公司提供娱乐内容的速度却不够快，对VPN热潮起到了推动作用。新西兰的电影院现在放映的《阿呆与阿瓜2》(Dumb and Dumber To)，在美国是去年11月上映的。

“There is a mismatch between the perception that you get what you want over the Internet and distribution doesn’t matter anymore, and a copyright holder¹¹ selling things by territory,” said Tim Wu, a professor of media and copyright at Columbia Law School.

“一方面你觉得从互联网可以得到想要的一切，发行已经无关紧要，另一方面，版权持有人又在分区出售内容，两者是对不上的，”哥伦比亚大学法学院(Columbia Law School)媒体与版权教授吴修铭(Tim Wu)说。

“The industry is depending on 95 percent of the population thinking the technology is too complex for them to use,” he said. “If there is a simple device that does this for consumers, entertainment’s easy assumption of territoriality¹² will change.”

“这个产业指望的是95%的人认为技术太复杂，不适合他们用，”他说。“如果有一种简单的设备能帮消费者完成这些事，娱乐分区这种想当然的设定就要动摇了。”

While it is diverting to consider what these copyright-beating services mean to entertainment, the end of borders and regions because of global networks has significant implications for the workplace.

想到这些摧垮版权的服务将给娱乐带来怎样的改变，固然值得欣喜，但全球网络对国界和地区的终结，在商务层面有着更加深远的影响。

Mr. Drury is founder and chief executive of Xero, which makes cloud-based accounting¹³ software. He has customers in 150 countries, 2014 revenue of $100 million and 1,100 employees spread over four nations. A substantial amount of Xero’s revenue comes from accountants who make a living by doing the books of companies in countries on the other side of the world.

德鲁里是云端财会软件开发商Xero的创始人兼首席执行官。他的客户遍布150个国家，2014年的营收达1亿美元，在四个国家拥有1100名员工。Xero的收入中，有相当一部分来自那些给地球另一端的公司做账的会计员。

Xero built a basic accounting software model, then adapted it to a country’s local accounting quirks¹⁴. It relies on back-end computing¹⁵ that does not need to be near the work.

Xero创建了一种基本的财会软件模型，然后根据每个国家的财会偏好做出相应调整。这种服务依赖后端计算，并不需要在用户身边。

Elsewhere, individuals who toiled¹⁶ online via freelance sites like Elance and ODesk did $67 million worth of work outside their country of residence in January. That was an increase of more than 50 percent in two years. On the Indonesian island of Bali, a tropical paradise popular with foreigners, 100,000 online freelancers¹⁷ are registered with Elance and ODesk, which operate jointly¹⁸.

在别的领域，许多个人通过Elance和ODesk等自由职业者的网站勤奋工作，仅在1月份就在他们所在国家以外的地方挣出了6700万美元。这是在两年内实现了超过50%的增长。在印度尼西亚的巴厘岛，一个受外国游客青睐的热带天堂，10万网络自由职业者在Elance和ODesk上注册。这两家网站是联合运营的。

“Tech is globalizing everything, so anyone building just a regional strategy isn’t thinking big enough,” Mr. Drury said.

“科技将一切都全球化了，如果有谁还在制定一种地区性的策略，那就是目光短浅，”德鲁里说。