"Advances in information technology have made it easier for shadowy groups to organize collective action. Using military-grade encryption, rerouting software, and cryptocurrencies, they move through cyberspace like digital nomads, often with law enforcement and other powerful actors on their tails. This book reveals how the same technology enables these groups to communicate and collaborate in public and semipublic spaces, making them both open and secret at the same time--and efforts to stop these groups provoke countermeasures with unintended, far-reaching consequences. Isak Ladegaard begins by taking readers inside a digital economy for banned drugs that has survived numerous police crackdowns and is still thriving, nearly fifteen years after its genesis. He then examines how, in roughly the same time period, a community of activist software developers in China and other countries has been able to maintain paths to the open internet, again despite police interventions. Finally, he explains how the American far right uses the same tools to build movements based on paranoia and hate. Timely and perceptive, Open Secrecy helps readers understand how information technology, for better and worse, undermines state control"--
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.
