????這是彭博終端消息功能的組成部分，而這個功能在華爾街被廣泛使用，它是如今常見的一種追蹤信息。Facebook和其他社交網絡會告訴你還有誰在線上，但它們不像彭博終端那樣跟買賣股票和債券以及轉移資金密切相連，而Facebook也不得不對其隱私政策進行反思，并多次致歉。

“隱身者”最終會被華爾街所接受嗎？

????有一種方法可以退出，彭博終端用戶可以選擇隱藏自己的狀態，這會在他們的個人頁面上標注一個灰點。很顯然，太平洋投資管理公司（PIMCO）的人喜歡隱藏自己對彭博終端的使用狀態。比爾?格羅斯和穆罕穆德?艾爾-埃利安兩人電郵地址旁邊都是灰點。貝萊德集團（Blackrock）的首席執行官拉里?芬克也是所謂的隱身者，但大多數人不是，這在一定程度上是因為它不符合華爾街的社交禮儀。“我們會開隱身者的玩笑。”一位對沖基金經理表示，“他們認為自己是什么大人物，但誰在乎你是在線還是離線呢？”

????然而，你能夠想象出一些使用狀態在其中很重要的情景。舉例來說，如果知道美聯儲的交易操作負責人西蒙?波特在他的辦公室并正在使用終端，那么債券交易員或許能夠探查到一些蛛絲馬跡。哎呀，彭博終端上并沒有波特狀態的任何信息，這要么是因為他沒有自己的終端，要么是因為美聯儲有人覺得最好還是向全世界提供這些信息。但我能看到紐約聯儲主席威廉?杜德利不在線，達拉斯聯儲主席理查德?費舍爾雖然在線但目前并不在使用終端，而亞特蘭大聯儲主席丹尼斯?洛克哈特是一位隱身者——他是美聯儲最富有的高管之一。

????繼續嘲笑吧，但既然你知道彭博利用了你的狀態信息，而且所有其他記者和彭博終端新手也知道這件事，你們這些華爾街人士可能要考慮同樣當一名隱身者了。

彭博記者有機會獲取的信息比其余人多多少？

????然而，僅僅因為你隱藏自己的狀態信息并不意味著彭博記者無法追蹤你的使用情況。在這一點上，彭博的一位發言人拒絕發表評論。多克托洛夫和溫克勒試圖為此事辯解，但目前尚不清楚彭博記者能夠獲取多少信息。彭博方面表示，記者的特殊訪問權限已在上月被取消。

????彭博確認其記者能夠訪問用戶登錄歷史記錄，除此之外的事情就不清楚了。溫克勒說，從那些記錄只能看出匯總的用戶數據，“類似于看到某人使用微軟Word和Excel這些軟件的次數。”但是，其他曾在彭博社任職的記者表示，你可以輸入一個具體的人，然后看到其正在查看的東西。所以，那聽起來并不像什么匯總數據。而且，彭博終端跟Word和Excel有什么相同之處呢？有報道說，彭博記者能夠知道誰閱讀了他們的報道，那看起來像是非常詳細的窺探。

銀行會起訴彭博嗎？

????彭博記者窺探終端用戶的丑聞是在高盛集團發起投訴后曝光的。但現在看來——根據《紐約時報》的報道——幾乎每家大銀行都已經跟彭博生出嫌隙。突然之間，那些不明原因的消息泄露能夠解釋得通了。你還記得自己想破腦袋也想不出“熟悉該銀行業務的消息人士”是誰嗎？嗯，那位消息人士就是你的彭博終端。

????It's part of Bloomberg's messaging function, which is widely used on Wall Street, and it's the kind of tracking info that's common these days. Facebook and other social networks will tell you who else is online. But none of those things is as closely tied to buying and selling stocks and bonds, and moving money, as Bloomberg. And Facebook (FB), too, has had to rethink and apologize for its privacy policies numerous times.

Will "grey dotters" finally become socially acceptable?

????There is a way to opt out. Bloomberg users can choose to keep their status on private, which gives them a grey dot on their Bloomberg bio page. PIMCO-ites, apparently, like to keep their Bloomberg usage to themselves. Bill Gross and Mohamed El-Erian both have grey dots next to their e-mails. Blackrock CEO Larry Fink is also a so-called grey dotter. But most people don't, in part because it's not socially acceptable on Wall Street. "We make fun of grey dotters," says one hedge fund manager. "They think they are big shots. Who cares if you are in or out?"

????But you could imagine instances when it could matter. Bond traders, for instance, might be able to glean some edge knowing that Simon Potter, who heads up the buying and selling for the Federal Reserve, is in his office and at his terminal. Alas, Bloomberg doesn't have any information on the status of Potter, either because he doesn't have his own machine, or someone there thought better of providing that information to the whole world. But I was able to see that New York Fed chairman William Dudley was out. And Richard Fisher of Dallas was in but not currently using his terminal. Atlanta's Dennis Lockhart, and one of the richest top executives of the Fed, however, is a grey dotter.

????Go ahead and scoff, but now that you know how Bloomberg uses your status information and that every other reporter and now Bloomberg novice knows about it, you Wall Streeters might decide to become grey dotters, too.

How much more info did Bloomberg reporters have access to than the rest of us?

????But just because you put up the grey dot doesn't mean that Bloomberg reporters weren't able to track your usage. A Bloomberg spokesperson declined to comment on this point. Doctoroff and Winkler have tried to explain it away, but it's not clear how much info Bloomberg reporters had access to. They say the special access was cut off last month.

????Bloomberg has confirmed that its reporters had access to a log-on history. Beyond that it's not clear. Winkler said the reports could only see aggregate user data, "akin to being able to see how many times someone used Microsoft Word vs. Excel." But other ex-Bloomberg reporters have said that you could type in a specific person and see the types of things they were looking at. So that doesn't sound like aggregate data. And what exactly is the Bloomberg terminal equivalent of Word and Excel? Some reports have said that Bloomberg reporters were able to tell who read their stories. That seems like detailed snooping.

Will banks sue Bloomberg?

????The revelation that Bloomberg reporters were spying on clients came to light after complaints from Goldman. But now it appears, according to latest reporting from the New York Times, that pretty much every big bank has had some beef with Bloomberg. All of a sudden that unexplained leak makes sense. Remember being stumped by who a "source with knowledge of the bank's activities" was? Well that source was your Bloomberg terminal.