Open Secrecy: How Technology Empowers the Digital Underworld (1)

By: Isak Ladegaard

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Synopsis: Examines how the global digital underground is liberated by "open secrecy"—a novel and ominous mix of tools for mass communication and anonymity Shadowy groups are increasingly capable of collective action. Using military-grade encryption, rerouting software, and cryptocurrencies, anonymous and pseudonymous actors can now communicate, solve problems, recruit members, and manage resources across multiple public and semipublic spaces. This swirling mix of secrecy and openness enables people to move through cyberspace like nomads with verifiable personas, which makes them impossible to stop. Isak Ladegaard takes readers inside a dark, digital economy for banned drugs that has survived numerous police crackdowns, examines how activist software developers in China and other countries have maintained paths to the open internet, and documents how the American far right uses the same tools to sustain antisocial movements based on paranoia and hate. Timely and perceptive, Open Secrecy argues that although information technology enables mass surveillance, it also undermines state power by boosting groups that evade its rule. These dual forces of control and liberation are propelling us forward, with no one at the wheel.

Book Quality:: Publisher Quality
Book Size:: 304 Pages
ISBN-13:: 9780520397309
Related ISBNs:: 9780520397286, 9780520397293
Publisher:: University of California Press
Date of Addition:: 05/20/25
Copyrighted By:: Isak Ladegaard
Adult content:: No
Language:: English
Has Image Descriptions:: No
Categories:: Nonfiction, Computers and Internet, Social Studies, Communication, Politics and Government, Sociology
Submitted By:: Bookshare Staff
Usage Restrictions:: This is a copyrighted book.