Julian Assange Concepts

This Machine Kills Secrets: Julian Assange, the Cypherpunks, and Their Fight to Empower Whistleblowers

by Andy Greenberg · 12 Sep 2012 · 461pp · 125,845 words

6 THE GLOBALIZERS CHAPTER 7 THE ENGINEERS CONCLUSION THE MACHINE SOURCES ACKNOWLEDGMENTS THE PUZZLE CONTAINED IN THIS BOOK INDEX CHARACTERS (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) JULIAN ASSANGE Founder of WikiLeaks, former hacker, cypherpunk, and activist who demonstrated the power of digital, anonymous leaking by publishing record-breaking collections of secret corporate and government material

…

encryption to facilitate anonymous, untraceable, and crowd-funded contract killings. JACOB APPELBAUM Activist, hacker, and developer for the Tor anonymity network who befriended Julian Assange and became the WikiLeaks’ primary American associate. PAUL SYVERSON Logician and cryptographer in the Naval Research Laboratory who is credited with inventing the anonymous communications protocol known as

…

Domscheit-Berg to set up a revamped submission system for WikiLeaks in late 2009 and 2010. After a falling-out with Assange, he joined Domscheit-Berg at OpenLeaks. PROLOGUE THE MEGALEAK On a rainy November day in a garden flat in London, Julian Assange is giving me a lecture on the economics of

…

be a mistake to focus only on how WikiLeaks has been contained, muzzled, punished, and sabotaged while ignoring a larger lesson: how the group has inspired an entire generation of political hackers and digital whistleblowers. That story didn’t begin or end with Julian Assange, or even with his institution-eviscerating group. Instead

…

, Lamo’s legal history, and the “crazy white-haired Australian” Julian Assange, with whom Manning had been communicating. At one point, Manning began to wax lyrical about the victims and perpetrators of the Apache helicopter video he had helped to expose, which WikiLeaks had used to send shock waves around the world just

…

a nameless volunteer, but as one of its most die-hard supporters and its most prominent American face. In late 2010, Julian Assange told Rolling Stone that “Tor’s importance to WikiLeaks cannot be understated” and that “Jake has been a tireless promoter behind the scenes of our cause.” In late 2010, when

…

Department of Justice to hand over Appelbaum’s data, along with that of two others associated with Julian Assange’s secret-spilling group, likely part of a larger dragnet to build a conspiracy charge against WikiLeaks staffers. Since then, the threat of an indictment that could put Appelbaum in prison for a significant

…

least favorite website. In a surprise speech at the Hackers on Planet Earth conference in July 2010, Appelbaum gave a keynote address on behalf of WikiLeaks after Julian Assange decided that traveling to the United States spelled legal trouble. Since then, the U.S. government has expressed its displeasure with him by tasking

…

looming threat of prosecution. When the agents interrogate him, he says the questions are always the same: “What’s your relationship to Julian Assange? What’s your association with WikiLeaks?” Appelbaum usually responds to those questions with stony silence, and he won’t answer them for me either. But when I ask Appelbaum

…

world. In July 2010, three months after WikiLeaks had released a clip of a U.S. Apache helicopter gunning down civilians and journalists in a Baghdad suburb and just days before the group would publish seventy-six thousand secret military documents from Afghanistan, Julian Assange was scheduled to deliver the keynote address to

…

truth-tellers of every variety. The inspiration for the Initiative, known as IMMI, was conceived in the same hacktivist fits of imagination as WikiLeaks. Jónsdóttir, Julian Assange, and other WikiLeaks volunteers crafted it side-by-side, and Jónsdóttir worked with the secret-spilling group during its ascendancy to the international spotlight and its release

…

interview with the magazine Der Spiegel. He told the newsweekly that his real name was Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and that he was leaving WikiLeaks after having been suspended by Julian Assange. His expulsion after three years of work, he said, was due to his having asked too many questions about Assange’s focus

…

helped them gain the trust of their most useful source of all: Julian Assange. Clay Shirky, a bald and brilliant new media professor at New York University, traces the concepts behind the Icelandic Modern Media Initiative to a time long before WikiLeaks, before science fiction novels like Cryptonomicon and Islands in the Net

…

brothers were indicted, but Ólafsson, the Elton John fan, faces charges of money laundering, and his prosecution is ongoing. WikiLeaks immediately became a household name in Iceland. And just three months later, Julian Assange and Daniel Domscheit-Berg arrived in Reykjavík, conquering heroes from abroad. They were invited to appear on the talk

…

to learn more about Tchobanov and Yordanov. Two months later, Tchobanov received an e-mail from his contact at WikiLeaks. He and Yordanov were invited to Ellingham Hall for a meeting with Julian Assange. Tchobanov and Yordanov’s first hours in England went badly. Yordanov left his laptop in an overhead bin on

…

to keep her private data private. Soon it was apparent she wasn’t alone: the online information of Jacob Appelbaum, the Dutch WikiLeaks associate Rop Gonggrijp, and likely Julian Assange and Bradley Manning were all caught up in the same dragnet. The U.S. Department of Justice was searching for any scrap of

…

-Berg believes that merely replicating the previous project’s security isn’t good enough. Not only because, the former WikiLeaker says, Julian Assange’s brainchild never quite reached his ideal standards for data protection. Nor because, despite his denials, the German is still playing out a dark and

…

GM produce more cars anymore,” he says. He posted a message on WikiLeaks’ IRC chat room, offering to help. Two days later, he got a response from Julian Assange himself. “Still interested in a job?” For much of his first year with WikiLeaks, as Daniel Domscheit-Berg tells it, the group functioned as a

…

, Domscheit-Berg explains what he believes is the real story behind his excommunication. Andy Müller-Maguhn has been asked by Julian Assange to retrieve the submissions that he and the Architect took from WikiLeaks. The fact that the OpenLeakers still haven’t handed the materials over, as Domscheit-Berg tells it, is prejudicing

…

an organization is, the more leaks induce fear and paranoia in its leadership and planning coterie,” Julian Assange wrote in his “Conspiracy as Governance” essay in 2006. Five years later, that maxim wholly applied to WikiLeaks and Assange himself. The Architect’s and Domscheit-Berg’s departure from the group with three thousand

…

Guardian who first engineered the partnership with WikiLeaks to release the Cablegate files. In January 2011, The Guardian’s reporters published their own tell-all book about their work with WikiLeaks. And there, in the heading to the eleventh chapter, were printed the words that to Julian Assange must have jumped off the page

…

with horrifying significance: “AcollectionOfDiplomaticHistorySince_1966_ToThePresentDay#—Julian Assange’s 58-character password.” It was the full passphrase to

…

spies versus spies, and megaleaks. It’s about giving everyone a way to be subversive.” Jones has no intention of rebuilding WikiLeaks. But he does say he was directly inspired by Julian Assange. He sees himself as part of the next generation of Assange’s Bourbaki media movement, enabling “scientific journalism” that uncovers

…

primary sources in their own right. They include Daniel Ellsberg’s memoir Secrets, Suelette Dreyfus and Julian Assange’s Underground, Steven Levy’s Crypto, Daniel Domscheit-Berg’s memoir Inside WikiLeaks, Robert Manne’s “The Cypherpunk Revolutionary: Julian Assange” in Australia’s The Monthly, Nathaniel Rich’s “The Most Dangerous Man In Cyberspace” in Rolling

…

revealing their passwords over the phone Suelette Dreyfus and Julian Assange. Underground: Hacking, madness and obsession on the electronic frontier. First published by Mandarin, a part of Reed Books, Australia, 1997, available at http://suelette.home.xs4all.nl/underground/Underground.pdf speculation that WikiLeaks’ target would be Bank of America shaves off $3

…

is he?” Washington Post Magazine, May 4, 2011. basics of Web servers and Internet routing Hansen. “quirky as hell” David Leigh and Luke Harding. WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy (New York: Public Affairs), p. 25. “I have been telling him he needs to get a job and he won’t

…

to speak. “No More Secrets” Tim May. “BlackNet Worries,” in ibid., p. 245. CHAPTER 3: THE CYPHERPUNKS “was in heaven” Stephen Muirhead. “MUMS the Word: Julian Assange, Wikileaks, and the Fight to End Government Secrecy.” Paradox, August 15, 2010. insisting that it be replaced with an image of an alien Ibid. most physicists

…

published at his death Available at http://cryptome.org/cia-2619.htm “. . . Will you be that person?” E-mail from Julian Assange to John Young, October 4, 2006, http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak.htm Then he unsubscribed John Young from the list All the above quotes from ibid. Jim Bell was scheduled for

…

documents by post and even scan in reams of paper submissions and convert them to text files E-mail from Julian Assange to WikiLeaks developer list, December 13, 2006, available at http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak.htm “Yes, the guy running the exit node can read the bytes that come in and out there

…

gave site its start.” TheRegister.co.uk, June 2, 2010. “When they pull, so do we” E-mail from Julian Assange to John Young, January 7, 2007, available at http://cryptome.org/wikileaks/wikileaks-leak2.htm thirty times the size of every text article stored on Wikipedia Wikipedia: Database download, available at http://en

…

.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Database_download “let it flower into something new” Julian Assange to John Young, January 7, 2007, available at http

…

Dickson. “Nearly Half of 2011’s New York Times Issues Rely on WikiLeaks.” Theatlanticwire.com, April 25, 2011. “closer to being a hi-tech terrorist than the Pentagon Papers” Ewen MacAskill. “Julian Assange like a hi-tech terrorist, says Joe Biden.” The Guardian, December 19, 2010. “pursued with the same urgency we pursue

…

servers, banned the group Rachel Slajda. “How Lieberman Got Amazon to Drop WikiLeaks.” Talking Points Memo, December 1, 2010. Another woman said he had begun having sex with her in her sleep Juha Saarinen. “Documents in Julian Assange Rape Investigation Leak Onto Web.” Wired.com, February 2, 2011. once housed the writer of

…

his favorite quote on the power of anonymity: Oscar Wilde David Allen Green. “An interview with Julian Assange’s lawyer.” Jack of Kent blog, December 14, 2010. five gigabytes of data from the megabank Dan Nystedt. “WikiLeaks plans to make the Web a leakier place.” Computerworld.com, October 9, 2009. “I think it

…

“Bulgaria, Romania’s Schengen Applications Formally Vetoed” Novinite.com, September 22, 2011. CHAPTER 7: THE ENGINEERS “dangerous, malicious conman” “Julian Assange live,” L’Espresso, March 30, 2011. “raised by wolves” Daniel Domscheit-Berg, Inside WikiLeaks (New York: Crown, 2011), p. 64. “Leaking Sky Prevents OpenLeaks Launch” Anna Sauerbrey. Die Zeit, August 12, 2011

…

in limbo without architect” abc.net.au, October 4, 2011. worked with CIA agents during her time at the consulting firm McKinsey Julian Assange. “Statement by Julian Assange on the reported destruction of WikiLeaks source material by Daniel Domscheit-Berg,” August 20, 2011. a real problem of methodology and, therefore, of credibility “OPEN LETTER TO

…

WIKILEAKS FOUNDER JULIAN ASSANGE: ‘A BAD PRECEDENT FOR THE INTERNET’S FUTURE.’” Reporters Without Borders website, August 12, 2010. “We were very, very upset with [the Afghan War release,]

…

, May 12, 2011. five gigabytes of internal data from Bank of America WikiLeaks Twitter feed, August 21, 2011. have your very own copy of the WikiLeaks’ archive! How cool is that? Comment by user 5X32C54B, PirateBay.se, December 8, 2010. AcollectionOfDiplomaticHistorySince_1966_ToThePresentDay#—Julian Assange’s 58-character password David Leigh and Luke Harding

The End of Secrecy: The Rise and Fall of WikiLeaks

by The "Guardian", David Leigh and Luke Harding · 1 Feb 2011 · 322pp · 99,066 words

About the Book It was the biggest leak in history. WikiLeaks infuriated the world’s greatest superpower, embarrassed the British royal family and helped cause a revolution in Africa. The man behind it was Julian Assange, one of the strangest figures ever to become a worldwide celebrity. Was he an internet messiah or

…

. Now, together with the paper’s investigative reporting team, Leigh and Harding reveal the startling inside story of the man and the leak. Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy David Leigh and Luke Harding with Ed Pilkington, Robert Booth and Charles Arthur This eBook is copyright material and must not

…

Library ISBN: 978-0-85265-239-8 CONTENTS Cast of characters Introduction Chapter 1: The Hunt Chapter 2: Bradley Manning Chapter 3: Julian Assange Chapter 4: The rise of WikiLeaks Chapter 5: The Apache video Chapter 6: The Lamo dialogues Chapter 7: The deal Chapter 8: In the bunker Chapter 9: The

…

The ballad of Wandsworth jail Chapter 18: The future of WikiLeaks Appendix: US Embassy Cables Acknowledgements CAST OF CHARACTERS WikiLeaks MELBOURNE, NAIROBI, REYKJAVIK, BERLIN, LONDON, NORFOLK, STOCKHOLM Julian Assange – WikiLeaks founder/editor Sarah Harrison – aide to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange Kristinn Hrafnsson – Icelandic journalist and WikiLeaks supporter James Ball – WikiLeaks data expert Vaughan Smith – former Grenadier Guards captain, founder of

…

and online confidant Timothy Webster – former US army counter-intelligence special agent Tyler Watkins – former boyfriend David House – former hacker and supporter David Coombs – lawyer Julian Assange Christine Hawkins – mother John Shipton – father Brett Assange – stepfather Keith Hamilton – former partner of Christine Daniel Assange – Julian’s son Paul Galbally – Assange’s

…

Afghanistan and former ambassador to Kabul INTRODUCTION Alan Rusbridger Back in the days when almost no one had heard about WikiLeaks, regular emails started arriving in my inbox from someone called Julian Assange. It was a memorable kind of name. All editors receive a daily mix of unsolicited tip-offs, letters, complaints

…

countries. It was, by any standards, a stonking story. This Assange, whoever he was, was one to watch. Unnoticed by most of the world, Julian Assange was developing into a most interesting and unusual pioneer in using digital technologies to challenge corrupt and authoritarian states. It’s doubtful whether his name

…

able to demonstrate any damage to life or limb. It is impossible to write this story without telling the story of Julian Assange himself, though clearly the overall question of WikiLeaks and the philosophy it represents is of longer-lasting significance. More than one writer has compared him to John Wilkes, the

…

up, however, it was obvious that this strange figure was Julian Assange, his platinum hair concealed by a wig. At more than 6ft tall, he was never going to be a very convincing female. “You can’t imagine how ridiculous it was,” WikiLeaks’ James Ball later said. “He’d stayed dressed up

…

Within days of the WikiLeaks 9/11 spectacular, Manning took the first big step. He made contact with a man whom he described as “a crazy white-haired Aussie who can’t seem to stay in one country very long”. The game was on with Julian Assange. CHAPTER 3 Julian Assange Melbourne, Australia December 2006

…

was a pseudonym, and the person behind the mask was Julian Assange, a computer hacker living in a crowded student house in Melbourne, dreaming up a scheme for an idealistic information insurgency which was eventually to become celebrated – and execrated – worldwide as WikiLeaks. Assange had a striking and, some critics would say,

…

, that came as no surprise. CHAPTER 4 The rise of WikiLeaks Annual congress of the Chaos Computer Club, Alexanderplatz, Berlin December 2007 “How do you reveal things about powerful people without getting your arse kicked?” BEN LAURIE, ENCRYPTION EXPERT Julian Assange can be seen on the conference video giving an enthusiastic raised

…

was genuinely injunction-proof. It was WikiLeaks one, Julius Baer nil. Assange picked up another award in London from the free speech group Index on Censorship. One of the judges, poet Lemn Sissay, blogged about a typical piece of showmanship: “We did not know whether Julian Assange … was to turn up to

…

the New Yorker, whose writer Raffi Khatchadourian was following Assange about for a major profile. (It appeared in June under the title “No Secrets: Julian Assange’s mission for total transparency”. Assange assured friends later that it was “too flattering”.) Khatchadourian was present to record Jónsdóttir, the feisty feminist MP for

…

over the internet, he was demoted from the rank of specialist to that of private first class, after he punched another soldier in the face. Julian Assange had recently publicised, in rapid succession, four leaked classified files he had laid his hands on, all of different types, but all accessible to

…

it to a crazy white-haired Aussie who can’t seem to stay in one country very long.” He went on: “Crazy white-haired dude = Julian Assange. In other words, I’ve made a huge mess. (I’m sorry. I’m just emotionally fractured. I’m a total mess. I think

…

of the royal family. Today, however, Davies’s attention was caught by the Guardian’s foreign pages: “American officials are searching for Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, in an attempt to pressure him not to publish thousands of confidential and potentially hugely embarrassing diplomatic cables that offer unfiltered assessments of Middle

…

. The key to accessing the cables – and to the stories they contained – had to be Julian Assange. Davies himself had never met him but was aware of Assange’s website: he had come across WikiLeaks during the Guardian’s 2009 investigation into tax evasion and Swiss banks. He wanted to get to

…

logs launch, Davies’ phone rang. On the other line was Stephen Grey, a freelance reporter. Grey began: “Guess what? I’ve just been with Julian Assange.” Grey explained that Assange had given him an exclusive TV interview about the blockbusting Afghan war logs. He had also provided material for Channel 4

…

the first tranche of war logs about Afghanistan represented a smooth and well-orchestrated media coup. It gave the three papers massive exposure, and turned Julian Assange, for a time, into the world’s most famous man. It was the biggest leak in history – until it was followed by an even

…

by the Guardian and its partners the New York Times and Der Spiegel. The field report was among the 92,000 allegedly turned over to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange by US soldier Bradley Manning. The log disclosed that there had actually been no “airstrike” (whose reconnaissance cameras might indeed have been less

…

reach for a condom, but Assange stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs” BRAUN TESTIMONY, SWEDISH POLICE DOSSIER The revelation that Julian Assange had been accused of rape came as a bombshell. In a series of frantic overseas phone calls, Leigh and Davies attempted to piece together a

…

extradition of Assange from Britain to face questioning over allegations of sexual misconduct. No one had anticipated this. One thing is clear: on present evidence Julian Assange is absolutely not a rapist as the term is understood by many – that is, he does not practise, nor is he accused of, the

…

be passed to the duty prosecutor, and a call was put out for the arrest of an accused foreigner, Julian Assange. That night, the story about the allegations made against the man behind WikiLeaks leaked to the Swedish tabloid newspaper Expressen. Who leaked it? We don’t know. The prosecutor, who later

…

their new collaborator could only increase the risk that it might taint the WikiLeaks enterprise as a whole. CHAPTER 13 Uneasy partners Editor’s office, the Guardian, Kings Place, London 1 November 2010 “I’m a combative person” JULIAN ASSANGE, TED CONFERENCE, OXFORD, 2010 The three partner papers decided it was time

…

for a meeting with Julian Assange. Everything was threatening to get rather messy. The embattled WikiLeaks founder now wanted the Americans frozen out of the much-delayed deal to

…

down the number. I could only see half of it. I had to tell him: ‘Left a bit, left a bit,’” Katz recalls. For Julian Assange – like Jason Bourne, the Hollywood secret agent constantly on the run from the CIA – elaborate security precautions may have been second nature. But for journalists

…

Hall, Assange sought to open his own channel of negotiations, sending a letter on 26 November to the US embassy in London. Headed “Julian Assange, editor-in-chief, WikiLeaks”, it began: “Dear Ambassador Susman, I refer to recent public statements by United States government officials expressing concern about the possible publication by

…

months in virtual solitary confinement, would only see an end to his harsh treatment, his friends started to believe, if he was willing to implicate Julian Assange and WikiLeaks in some serious crimes. It seemed clear that prosecuting Assange – an Australian citizen now living in the UK – for espionage or conspiracy was going

…

far more damaging in the long-term to the US and its multilateral interests, one of Medvedev’s aides proposed, tongue-in-cheek, that Julian Assange should be nominated for the Nobel peace prize. It was Assange himself that dominated the coverage in Australia. The Sydney Morning Herald hailed Assange as

…

BALLAD OF READING GAOL If aliens had landed their spaceship outside, they might have presumed that one of God’s saints was about to ascend. Julian Assange had just become, in many eyes, the St Sebastian of the internet age, a martyr pierced by the many arrows of the unbelievers. A

…

“fine”. He had held a successful meeting with police. “It was very cordial. They verified his identify. They are satisfied he is the real Julian Assange and we are ready to go into court.” But the rest of the afternoon’s proceedings didn’t go according to plan. In a beige

…

grey-haired Loach emerged from court, reporters from CNN, broadcasting live, had no idea who he was. “Who was that gentleman? It may be Julian Assange’s attorney; we’re trying to find out,” the stumped CNN anchor said. Jemima Goldsmith’s attendance was even more bizarre. Goldsmith admitted she didn

…

latex gloves” (as Vanity Fair put it) with which the mainstream media have handled him, much of the world has nothing but admiration for WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. In his native Australia and elsewhere he is regarded by many unreservedly as a hero, as someone whose war on secrecy has created something genuinely

The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire

by Wikileaks · 24 Aug 2015 · 708pp · 176,708 words

This eBook is licensed to Edward Betts, edward@4angle.com on 04/01/2016 The WikiLeaks Files The World According to US Empire Introduction by Julian Assange This eBook is licensed to Edward Betts, edward@4angle.com on 04/01/2016 First published by Verso 2015 The collection © Verso 2015 Contributions © The

…

Truro, Cornwall Printed in the US by Maple Press This eBook is licensed to Edward Betts, edward@4angle.com on 04/01/2016 Contents Introduction Julian Assange Part I 1.America and the Dictators 2.Dictators and Human Rights 3.War and Terrorism Part II 4.Indexing the Empire Sarah Harrison 5

…

Johnston, and Alexander Main Notes List of Contributors Index This eBook is licensed to Edward Betts, edward@4angle.com on 04/01/2016 Introduction: WikiLeaks and Empire Julian Assange One day, a monk and two novices found a heavy stone in their path. “We will throw it away,” said the novices. But

…

ideas. WHAT IS A TERRORIST? “Worse than a military attack,” the Republican congressman Peter King expostulated in November 2010, urging that WikiLeaks be categorized as a “terrorist organization.”23 Vice President Joe Biden accused Julian Assange of being a “high-tech terrorist.” Hunt him down like bin Laden, exhorted Sarah Palin.24 “Yes

…

2012 a Spanish court convicted him of improper conduct in another investigation. Later that year, Garzón agreed to serve as lead defense attorney for Julian Assange in the WikiLeaks founder’s asylum case in Great Britain.23 Visiting Brussels during the 2014 crisis in Ukraine, President Obama gave a speech rallying his European

…

. The topic of censorship among our media partners is discussed at length in my other work. See Julian Assange, Cypherpunks (New York: OR Books, 2012), pp. 121–4, and endnotes 104–12; Julian Assange, When Google Met WikiLeaks (New York: OR Books, 2014), pp. 167–70, and footnotes 259–63. 14Hillary Rodham Clinton, “America’

…

Washington can’t decide,” Guardian, February 5, 2011. 25K. T. McFarland, “Yes, WikiLeaks Is a Terrorist Organization and the Time to Act Is NOW,” Fox News, November 30, 2011, at foxnews.com. 26David Leigh and Luke Harding, WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy (London: Guardian, 2011). 27This phrase is from a chat

…

Manifesto for the Fast World,” New York Times Magazine, March 28, 1999. 2“Business and WikiLeaks: Be Afraid,” Economist, December 9, 2010. 3Andy Greenberg, “WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange Wants To Spill Your Corporate Secrets,” Forbes, November 29, 2010. 4https://wikileaks.org/wiki/Minton_report:_Trafigura_toxic_ dumping_along_the_Ivory_Coast_broke_EU_regulations,_14_Sep

…

to US interference in Ecuador. She has also documented the US criminal investigation into WikiLeaks and the Australian government’s treatment of Julian Assange since 2010. She has been actively involved in campaigning to support WikiLeaks and defend the rights of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning. Gareth Porter is an independent investigative journalist and historian who

WikiLeaks and the Age of Transparency

by Micah L. Sifry · 19 Feb 2011 · 212pp · 49,544 words

on a daily basis around the world—thousands of times. I am watching with fascination as the WikiLeaks saga unfolds. I have tried my best to separate my feelings about its embattled founder, Julian Assange, from the greater questions that now need answers. What is the nature of information in a connected

…

the WikiLeaks phenomenon and how it ﬁts into the 11 WIKILEAKS AND THE AGE OF TRANSPARENCY much larger global movement for transparency, I hope we can agree that a future where citizens are the ultimate authority requires the best, most timely, and most accurate information. Interestingly, that’s the same reason Julian Assange

…

ways the Internet is changing politics, governance, and society. It has been, however, called into existence by WikiLeaks and the urgent debates that have been ignited by the actions of its founder Julian Assange and his supporters around the world. But readers should be forewarned—I am not aiming to untangle every

…

provide their populace with an unprecedented deluge of witnessed, but seemingly unanswerable injustices. — Julian Assange, “Conspiracy as Governance,” December 3, 2006 Back in the fall of 2009, getting hold of Julian Assange wasn’t easy. The Australian founder of WikiLeaks seemed to be constantly on the move, and his email habits were unpredictable. Andrew

…

keynote session on whistle-blowing and muckraking, then and now. To keep it simple, we’d frame it as a conversation with you and Julian Assange, the cofounder of Wikileaks, who is already planning to attend . . . . 28 MICAH L. SIFRY I also added a personal note, because I knew the odds of

…

who can’t seem to stay 32 MICAH L. SIFRY in one country very long.” Later he made it explicit: “Crazy white haired dude = Julian Assange.”14 (Despite this apparent statement, as of late January 2011 government investigators had reportedly not yet found a way to connect Manning directly to Assange

…

bureaucrat but by exposing systemic details of how America actually conducts its foreign and military policies. Or, as writer Bruce Sterling memorably put it, “Julian Assange has hacked a 138 MICAH L. SIFRY superpower.”6 The result is a series of deeply uncomfortable contradictions. In the days after the State Department

…

Department began pursuing a criminal investigation against WikiLeaks, demanding that Twitter turn 139 WIKILEAKS AND THE AGE OF TRANSPARENCY over the subscriber account information—including personal addresses, connections made to and from the account, IP addresses used, means of payment (though Twitter is free)— for Julian Assange, Bradley Manning, and three other people

…

ratchet up old means of control’ rather than embracing new liberating principles.”12 In the case of WikiLeaks and Cablegate, these painful contradictions could have been averted had the State Department responded positively to Julian Assange’s oﬀer in November to help redact information that the government felt needed to be kept out

…

doing is terrorism, in my opinion”);19 Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol (“Why can’t we use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators, wherever they are?”);20 and Democratic political consultant Bob Beckel (“This guy’s a traitor. . . . And I’m not for the

…

example, Senator Dianne Feinstein started a Wall Street Journal op-ed calling for Assange’s prosecution under the Espionage Act with these words, “When WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange released his latest document trove— more than 250,000 secret State Department cables—he intentionally harmed the U.S. government.”29 Dozens of news organizations

…

of other government employees can also access the information that the government is trying to hide. 154 MICAH L. SIFRY Let’s posit that what Julian Assange is doing is ”radical transparency,” that is, publishing everything he can get his hands on. He has not, in fact, been doing that, though

…

be a new fact of life, and take real steps to align their words with their deeds. In that respect, Hillary Clinton should thank Julian Assange, rather than apologize to world leaders for what he did. It should go without saying that transparency does not mean exposing everyone’s secrets to

…

scrutiny, and the kind of network eﬀects that occur around instances of information censorship generally don’t happen around spreading someone’s shopping list. As Julian Assange argued as recently as the middle of January 2011, “Transparency should be proportional to the power that one has. The more power one has,

…

L. SIFRY 8 WikiLeaks and the Future of the Transparency Movement All I want is the truth; just give me some truth. ––John Lennon I may not agree with what you have to say, but I will ﬁght to death for your right to say it. —Voltaire Julian Assange is not an

…

as Cablegate began to break open, blogger Aaron Bady wrote a long essay called “Julian Assange and the Computer Conspiracy; ‘To destroy this invisible government,’” pointing to these essays and oﬀering exactly that analysis of Assange’s philosophy. WikiLeaks’ Twitter account then tweeted a link to Bady’s post, reading, “Good essay

…

down both MasterCard and Visa for about a day, with 181 WIKILEAKS AND THE AGE OF TRANSPARENCY the other sites suﬀering shorter outages. The website for the lawyer representing the two Swedish women who have made accusations against Julian Assange was also crashed.24 MasterCard’s and Visa’s internal operations were

…

/wiki/Minton_report_ secret_injunction_gagging_The_Guardian_on_Traﬁgura,_11_Sep_2009. 4 See http://techpresident.com/blog-entry/wikileak-julian-assange-dontbe-martyr for the video of Assange’s remarks. 5 Noam Cohen and Brian Stelter, “Iraq Video Brings Notice to a Web Site,” The

…

07/ world/07wikileaks.html, and http://twitter.com/#!/wikileaks/status/753 0875613. 6 Kevin Charles Redmon, “WikiLeaks Proves Its Worth as a Backstop,” The Atlantic, April 6, 2010, www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive /2010/04/ wikileaks-provides-its-worth-as-a-backstop/38517. 7 “Exclusive – Julian Assange Extended Interview,” The Colbert Report, April 12,

…

2010, www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos /260785/ april-12-2010/exclusive-julian-assange-extended-interview. 8 Raﬃ Khatchadourian, “No Secrets: Julian Assange’s Mission for Total Transparency,” The New

…

. Army.” Kevin Poulsen and Kim Zetter, “U.S. Intelligence Analyst Arrested in Wikileaks Video Probe,” Wired.com, June 6, 2010, www.wired.com/ threatlevel/2010/06/leak. Kim Zetter, “Report: U.S. Can’t Link Bradley Manning to Julian Assange,” Wired.com, January 25, 2011, www.wired.com/threatlevel/2011/01/ manning

…

government authorities concerning what references should be redacted. Ewen MacAskill, “Julian Assange like a hi-tech terrorist, says Joe Biden,” The Guardian, December 19, 2010, www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/ dec/19/assange-high-tech-terrorist-biden; and Associated Press, “McConnell: WikiLeaks Head a High-Tech Terrorist,” December 5, 2010, www.

…

2009, www.ox.ac.uk/media/news_ releases_for_journalists/090511.html. Letters between WikiLeaks and the U.S. government, The New York Times, http://documents.nytimes.com/letters-between-wikileaks-and-gov. Bill Keller, “Dealing with Julian Assange and the Secrets He Spilled,” The MICAH L. SIFRY 15 16 17 18 19

…

Post, December 7, 2010, www.huﬃng tonpost.com/2010/12/07/fox-news-bob-beckel-calls_n_793467.html. Jennifer Epstein, “Rep. Peter King: Prosecute WikiLeaks, Julian Assange,” November 29, 2010, Politico, www.politico.com/news/ stories/1110/45667.html. Elisabeth Bumiller, “Gates on Leaks, Wiki and Otherwise,” The New York Times,

…

blows time on the old game,” The New Statesman, December 6, 2010, www.newstatesman.com/society/2010/12/ wikileaks-governments-cables. Interview with Julian Assange, Paris Match, January 10, 2011, translated by Mark K. Jensen, http://wlcentral.org/node/876. Paul Kane, “House Staﬀers Livid Over Website,” The Washington Post

…

/net-activism-delusion. Chapter 8 1 Philip Shenon, “Civil War at WikiLeaks,” The Daily Beast, September 3, 2010, www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-09-03/wikileaksorganizers-demand-julian-assange-step-aside. 2 Marina Jimenez, “Q&A: Birgitta Jonsdottir on WikiLeaks and Twitter,” The Globe and Mail, January 12, 2011, www.theglobeandmail

…

com/politics/features/2011/02/the-guardian-201102. 7 Alan Rusbridger, “WikiLeaks: The Guardian’s role in the biggest leak in the history of the world,” The Guardian, January 28, 2011, www.guardian. co.uk/media/2011/jan/28/wikileaks-julian-assange-alan-rusbridger and Marcel Rosenbach and Holger Stark, “An Inside Look

…

at Diﬃcult Negotiations with Julian Assange,” Spiegel Online, January 28, 2011, www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,742163,00.html. 8 “Chinese

…

Technology/Chinese-cyberdissidents-launch-WikiLeaks-a-site-forwhistl eblowers/2007/01/11/1168105082315.html. 9 Julian Assange, “State and Terrorist Conspiracies,” November 10, 2006, and “Conspiracy

The Snowden Files: The Inside Story of the World's Most Wanted Man

by Luke Harding · 7 Feb 2014 · 266pp · 80,018 words

is the author of three previous non-fiction books. They are The Liar: The Fall of Jonathan Aitken, nominated for the Orwell Prize; and WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange’s War on Secrecy, both written with David Leigh. Mafia State: How One Reporter Became an Enemy of the Brutal New Russia appeared in 2011

…

the Tower of London. Significantly, verax is also an antonym of mendax. Mendax means ‘deceiving’ and was the handle used by Julian Assange of WikiLeaks when he was a young Australian hacker. WikiLeaks, with their electronic mass-leaking of US army files from Afghanistan, and of State Department diplomatic cables from all over the

…

that the US embassy in Berlin had her under some form of surveillance. In connection with her latest documentary, Poitras had been in touch with Julian Assange, Washington’s bête noire, who since the summer of 2012 had been holed up in London’s Ecuadorean embassy. Given the company she’d been

…

privacy. At the same time, mushrooming technical developments started to make mass eavesdropping much more feasible. The intricate web of the internet secretly became what Julian Assange of WikiLeaks was to call, with only some exaggeration, ‘the greatest spying machine the world has ever seen’. But before the appearance of Edward Snowden, very

…

. (This was an important but ultimately futile exercise; in the summer of 2011, six months after the first stories appeared based on US diplomatic cables, Julian Assange released the entire un-redacted cache of documents.) Blishen was summoned, headed for the airport, and arrived in Hong Kong the next day. For him

…

away, someone else in hiding had been taking a close interest in these developments. Julian Assange had been frantically trying to make contact with the fugitive NSA contractor. Assange is the self-styled editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks. He had been holed up in the tiny Ecuadorean embassy in London for over a

…

Europe. Most connections also involved changing planes in the US, clearly not an option. Snowden’s itinerary does, however, seem to bear the fingerprints of Julian Assange. Assange was often quick to criticise the US and other western nations when they abused human rights. But he was reluctant to speak out against

…

– had helped the bad guys. One senior Whitehall figure called Snowden a ‘shit-head’. Dame Stella Rimington, the former head of MI5, branded him and Julian Assange ‘self-seeking twerps’. (Dame Stella was at a literary festival, promoting her new career as a writer of spy novels.) Snowden hadn’t acted out

Messing With the Enemy: Surviving in a Social Media World of Hackers, Terrorists, Russians, and Fake News

by Clint Watts · 28 May 2018 · 324pp · 96,491 words

ran from al-Shabaab’s assassins through the Somali forests. But Sheikh Aweys, years before his Shabaab escapades, surprisingly became the first victim of Julian Assange’s creation, WikiLeaks. WikiLeaks began its campaign for international transparency on December 28, 2006, posting a full English translation of a document allegedly written by Sheikh Aweys on

…

November 9, 2005. The message made less news than the messenger. Julian Assange began his climb to international fame and today, more than a decade later,

…

of Assange’s connections to Shamir mounted in late 2011. WikiLeaks supporters became rightly confused as to why the transparency outlet had helped Lukashenko, the very type of authoritarian the group had originally sought to target. Then, on April 17, 2012, Julian Assange’s show, World Tomorrow, debuted on Russia’s state-sponsored

…

The leak, referred to internationally as the Panama Papers, dwarfed any previous disclosure by WikiLeaks. The data dump differed from WikiLeaks not only in size but in approach. Rather than post the raw data without context or with Julian Assange’s narrative, ICIJ shared the data with dozens of news outlets around the world

…

employ their adversary’s strengths against them. As Putin famously demonstrated his judo skills on YouTube, Edward Snowden settled into a Kremlin-provided safe house. Julian Assange stowed away in the Ecuadorian embassy. The Kremlin trolls practiced on audiences in Ukraine and Syria, and occasionally heckled me. As for the hackers swirling

…

months before on RT accusing President Clinton of sexual abuse, spoke to a crowd in Florida on August 10, claiming that he’d communicated with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. Stone publicly promoted Guccifer 2.0 as the hacker behind the DNC breach, calling Guccifer a “HERO” and privately sending direct messages via Twitter

…

became a tragic conspiracy scapegoat among Russia meddling investigations. D.C. police believe that Rich’s murder was the result of a robbery gone wrong. WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange, however, issued a reward for details regarding the murder, suggesting that he may have been the source of the DNC email leak. Alt-right websites

…

Guardian (September 2, 2011). https://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/sep/02/why-i-had-to-leave-wikileaks. 9. Kapil Komireddi, “Julian Assange and Europe’s Last Dictator, Alexander Lukashenko,” New Statesman (March 1, 2012). https://www.newstates man.com/blogs/the-staggers/2012/03/belarus-assange-lukashenko.

…

House of Representatives (September 15, 2016). https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/hpsci_snowden_review-unclasssummary-final.pdf. 25. An edited extract of a copy of Julian Assange’s “Conspiracy as Governance” was posted by the Frontline Club on June 28, 2011 and is available at: https://www.frontlineclub.com

…

/julian_assange_the_state_and_terror ist_conspiracies/. 26. Khatchadourian, “NoSecret.” 27. Ibid. 28. Mariano Castillo, “Bodies Hanging from Bridge in Mexico Are Warning to Social Media

The Stack: On Software and Sovereignty

by Benjamin H. Bratton · 19 Feb 2016 · 903pp · 235,753 words

, Japanese imperial revisionists, as well, it must be said, of some voices on the European Left. 34. For a melodramatic but not uninformed account, see Julian Assange, When WikiLeaks Met Google (N.p.: OR Books, 2014). 35. See, for example, the European Schengen Cloud, or Brazil's proposed “independent Internet”: http://www.itworld

…

come to fruition in any way resembling Google's stated aspirations as long as this is the case. In his slashing review of the book, Julian Assange characterizes it as “an attempt by Google to position itself as America's geopolitical visionary—the one company that can answer the question, ‘Where should

…

, and bizarre rationalizations. Within critical Google discourse it is in a league of its own, for both better or worse. Julian Assange, When Google Met Wikileaks (New York: OR Books, 2014). 64. See Julian Assange, “The Banality of ‘Don't Be Evil,’” New York Times, June 1, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02

…

://www.situatedtechnologies.net/. The conflicts involved, however, are impossible to tally in real time. In their book Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet, Julian Assange, Jacob Appelbaum, and Andy Muller-Maguhn are alarmed that “Siemens is marketing a platform for intelligence agencies that does actually produce automated actions. So when

…

used for, if anything of significance, we do not know. 37. Secure hashes may be another worthwhile model to pursue. Julian Assange outlines lays out a vision for this in his When WikiLeaks Met Google (N.p.: OR Books, 2014). 38. Once again there is a correspondence between the universal addressability of discrete

…

.com/archives/2012/01/bright-ideas-anita-allens-unpopular-privacy.html. 65. Jacob Applebaum, Andy Mueller-Maguhn, Jeremie Zimmermann, and Julian Assange, “Episode 8, Part 1,” WikiLeaks World Tomorrow, April 2012, https://worldtomorrow.wikileaks.org/episode-8.html.If you look at it from a market perspective, I'm convinced that there is a

Surveillance Valley: The Rise of the Military-Digital Complex

by Yasha Levine · 6 Feb 2018 · 474pp · 130,575 words

out of an abandoned World War II cannon platform in the North Sea off England’s coast. Look that way and find Sarah Harrison, WikiLeaks member and Julian Assange confidante who helped Edward Snowden escape arrest in Hong Kong and find safety in Moscow. She’s laughing and having a good time. I

…

against their president, Rafael Correa. Naturally, Appelbaum is the hero of the tale. President Correa is widely respected in the international hacker community for granting Julian Assange political asylum and for giving him refuge at the Ecuadorian embassy in London. Like a modern Smedley Butler, Appelbaum explains how he refused to go

…

up. They love Jacob Appelbaum. Everyone at 32c3 loves Jacob Appelbaum. Appelbaum is the most storied member of the Tor Project. After Edward Snowden and Julian Assange, he is arguably the most famous personality in the Internet privacy movement. He is also the most outrageous. For five years he’s played the

…

wanted to free the world of secrets. Tor Gets Radical Jacob Appelbaum and Julian Assange had met in Berlin sometime in 2005, just as the mysterious Australian hacker was getting ready to set WikiLeaks in motion. Assange’s idea for WikiLeaks was simple: government tyranny can only survive in an ecosystem of secrecy. Take

…

’s best evidence of Tor’s purity from Big Brother’s interference, perhaps, is his very public association with WikiLeaks, the American government’s least favorite website.” With Julian Assange endorsing Tor, reporters assumed that the US government saw the anonymity nonprofit as a threat. But internal documents obtained through FOIA from the

…

that Appelbaum had been detained at the Las Vegas airport and questioned about his relationship with WikiLeaks.89 News of the detention made headlines around the world, once again highlighting Appelbaum’s close ties to Julian Assange. And a week later, Tor’s executive director Andrew Lewman, clearly worried that this might affect

…

insurgents without giving away his identity.151 They also might work for someone with a high degree of technical savvy—say, a wily hacker like Julian Assange or a spy like Edward Snowden—who can use Signal and Tor combined with other techniques to effectively cover their tracks from the NSA. But

…

confidence to the opposition,” Cohen wrote Hillary Clinton’s deputy secretary of state William Joseph Burns in a 2012 email. 149. As Julian Assange wryly noted in When Google Met WikiLeaks, “If Blackwater/Xe Services/Academi was running a program like [JigSaw], it would draw intense critical scrutiny. But somehow Google gets a

…

free pass.” Julian Assange, When Google Met WikiLeaks (New York: OR Books, 2014). 150. Yazan al-Saadi, “StratforLeaks: Google Ideas Director Involved in ‘Regime Change,’” Al-Akhbar English, March 14, 2012; Doug

…

Cables Offer Raw Look at U.S. Diplomacy,” New York Times, November 28, 2010. 81. “Affidavit of Julian Paul Assange,” WikiLeaks, September 2, 2013, https://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/Affidavit_of_Julian_Assange.html. 82. “In late 2010, when Assange seemed to be on the brink of long-term jail awaiting questioning for alleged

…

Fall,” Wired, June 2015. 138. It’s not clear whether Julian Assange’s support was what gave Dread Pirate Roberts the confidence to use Tor to build Silk Road, but the young programmer began developing the site almost at the same time WikiLeaks became an international sensation. 139. “Child-Porn Website Creator Accidentally

…

immigrants, 55–56 William Godel’s counterinsurgency efforts, 22 See also Cold War antisurveillance movement. See privacy AOL, 154–156 Appelbaum, Jacob background, 239–242 Julian Assange and WikiLeaks, 242–245, 247 Moxie Marlinspike’s Signal, 257 privacy movement, 245–247 32C3, 221–222 Tor encryption, 260 training Arab Spring protesters in social

Targeted: The Cambridge Analytica Whistleblower's Inside Story of How Big Data, Trump, and Facebook Broke Democracy and How It Can Happen Again

by Brittany Kaiser · 21 Oct 2019 · 391pp · 123,597 words

written my master’s thesis using leaked government data from Wikileaks as my primary source material. The data showed what had happened during the Iraq War, exposing numerous cases of crimes against humanity. From 2010 onward the “hacktivist” (i.e., activist hacker) Julian Assange, founder of the organization, had declared virtual war on

…

in the service of upholding international human rights law. More recently, he had taken on the case of WikiLeaks founder (and the source of primary material for one of my master’s theses) Julian Assange, who was evading extradition to Sweden and had sought asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London. John and

…

plenty of people who could have wanted John dead, from those who hated any one of his controversial clients, who ranged from Muammar Gaddafi and Julian Assange to those who had carried out genocide in the Baltic States and those whom John had prosecuted. Had he been murdered? John had been severely

…

for nearly a year, wishing that I could seek his counsel. Perhaps that’s why, in mid-February 2017, when the opportunity to visit with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks arose, I didn’t hesitate. Julian, who had been one of John’s last clients, was still holed up in the Ecuadorian embassy in

…

revealed that Alexander himself had reached out to WikiLeaks during the campaign to try to obtain Hillary Clinton’s hacked emails. This had probably been enough to spark Congress’s interest in Cambridge’s relationship with the Trump campaign. Both Alexander Nix and Julian Assange had come out in public saying that the

…

’s emails had been unsuccessful. Assange hadn’t even bothered to respond to him. Neither of these revelations surprised me. As far as I knew, Julian Assange had no reason to help out a man like Alexander Nix, and he wasn’t exactly a man to accept cold calls, either. In December

…

that year, Carole would cite an anonymous source stating that I was “funneling” Bitcoin to fund Wikileaks (I guess she’s referring to my student-budget donation in 2011) and had gone to visit Julian Assange to discuss the U.S. elections. Her theory and inference that I could be Guccifer 2.0

…

, despite having no causal evidence. This features writer posing as an investigator wanted to connect CA with WikiLeaks, with the downfall of Hillary and the rise of Trump, and she presumed that both Julian Assange and Alexander Nix had been lying when each said that they had not in fact ended up working

…

-schooler, I’d studied the case of Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers. I’d written my undergraduate thesis using primary source materials leaked by Julian Assange. I knew what Assange had suffered. I’d visited him in his place of asylum. His seemed a terrible fate to me—held for years

…

rejected the war in Vietnam and replaced Richard Nixon with a leader who deserved to be called president of the United States. Others, such as Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning, ended up losing large parts of their lives to vilification and incarceration. They were celebrated for their attempts to let the world

Free Speech: Ten Principles for a Connected World

by Timothy Garton Ash · 23 May 2016 · 743pp · 201,651 words

film ‘V for Vendetta’, when they joined real-life protests at what they saw as the abuse of anonymous state and corporate power revealed by Julian Assange and Edward Snowden.144 After all, police or secret services would photograph you as you marched, and enter your digital image ineradicably into a searchable

…

Der Spiegel, Le Monde and The Hindu—of carefully redacted versions of secret US State Department communications leaked by Private Bradley (subsequently Chelsea) Manning via Julian Assange’s WikiLeaks, and then a selection of the NSA and GCHQ documents passed to them by Snowden. When he first met the journalists involved, in a

Barefoot Into Cyberspace: Adventures in Search of Techno-Utopia

by Becky Hogge, Damien Morris and Christopher Scally · 26 Jul 2011 · 171pp · 54,334 words

Bottoms Up and the Devil Laughs

by Kerry Howley · 21 Mar 2023

Mindf*ck: Cambridge Analytica and the Plot to Break America

by Christopher Wylie · 8 Oct 2019

Fancy Bear Goes Phishing: The Dark History of the Information Age, in Five Extraordinary Hacks

by Scott J. Shapiro · 523pp · 154,042 words

Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the Surveillance State

by Barton Gellman · 20 May 2020 · 562pp · 153,825 words

Culture & Empire: Digital Revolution

by Pieter Hintjens · 11 Mar 2013 · 349pp · 114,038 words

Bitcoin: The Future of Money?

by Dominic Frisby · 1 Nov 2014 · 233pp · 66,446 words

The Laundromat : Inside the Panama Papers, Illicit Money Networks, and the Global Elite

by Jake Bernstein · 14 Oct 2019 · 470pp · 125,992 words

Disaster Capitalism: Making a Killing Out of Catastrophe

by Antony Loewenstein · 1 Sep 2015 · 464pp · 121,983 words

Future Crimes: Everything Is Connected, Everyone Is Vulnerable and What We Can Do About It

by Marc Goodman · 24 Feb 2015 · 677pp · 206,548 words

On the Road: Adventures From Nixon to Trump

by James Naughtie · 1 Apr 2020

Explore Everything

by Bradley Garrett · 7 Oct 2013 · 273pp · 76,786 words

Why We Can't Afford the Rich

by Andrew Sayer · 6 Nov 2014 · 504pp · 143,303 words

The Patient Will See You Now: The Future of Medicine Is in Your Hands

by Eric Topol · 6 Jan 2015 · 588pp · 131,025 words

Filthy Rich: A Powerful Billionaire, the Sex Scandal That Undid Him, and All the Justice That Money Can Buy: The Shocking True Story of Jeffrey Epstein

by James Patterson, John Connolly and Tim Malloy · 10 Oct 2016 · 234pp · 63,844 words

Sweden Travel Guide

by Lonely Planet

Blank Space: A Cultural History of the Twenty-First Century

by W. David Marx · 18 Nov 2025 · 642pp · 142,332 words

My Glorious Defeats: Hacktivist, Narcissist, Anonymous: A Memoir

by Barrett Brown · 8 Jul 2024 · 332pp · 110,397 words

Breaking News: The Remaking of Journalism and Why It Matters Now

by Alan Rusbridger · 14 Oct 2018 · 579pp · 160,351 words

Hacker, Hoaxer, Whistleblower, Spy: The Story of Anonymous

by Gabriella Coleman · 4 Nov 2014 · 457pp · 126,996 words

Cybersecurity: What Everyone Needs to Know

by P. W. Singer and Allan Friedman · 3 Jan 2014 · 587pp · 117,894 words

The New Digital Age: Transforming Nations, Businesses, and Our Lives

by Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen · 22 Apr 2013 · 525pp · 116,295 words

Snowden's Box: Trust in the Age of Surveillance

by Jessica Bruder and Dale Maharidge · 29 Mar 2020 · 159pp · 42,401 words

We Are Anonymous: Inside the Hacker World of LulzSec, Anonymous, and the Global Cyber Insurgency

by Parmy Olson · 5 Jun 2012 · 478pp · 149,810 words

Cult of the Dead Cow: How the Original Hacking Supergroup Might Just Save the World

by Joseph Menn · 3 Jun 2019 · 302pp · 85,877 words

Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare

by Thomas Rid

In the Flow

by Boris Groys · 16 Feb 2016 · 230pp · 60,050 words

News and How to Use It: What to Believe in a Fake News World

by Alan Rusbridger · 26 Nov 2020 · 371pp · 109,320 words

Underground

by Suelette Dreyfus · 1 Jan 2011 · 547pp · 160,071 words

The Powerful and the Damned: Private Diaries in Turbulent Times

by Lionel Barber · 5 Nov 2020

We Are Data: Algorithms and the Making of Our Digital Selves

by John Cheney-Lippold · 1 May 2017 · 420pp · 100,811 words

The End of Big: How the Internet Makes David the New Goliath

by Nicco Mele · 14 Apr 2013 · 270pp · 79,992 words

Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom

by Rebecca MacKinnon · 31 Jan 2012 · 390pp · 96,624 words

Twilight of the Elites: America After Meritocracy

by Chris Hayes · 11 Jun 2012 · 285pp · 86,174 words

The Secret World: A History of Intelligence

by Christopher Andrew · 27 Jun 2018

The Narcissist You Know

by Joseph Burgo · 239pp · 73,178 words

No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State

by Glenn Greenwald · 12 May 2014 · 253pp · 75,772 words

To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism

by Evgeny Morozov · 15 Nov 2013 · 606pp · 157,120 words

The Mysterious Mr. Nakamoto: A Fifteen-Year Quest to Unmask the Secret Genius Behind Crypto

by Benjamin Wallace · 18 Mar 2025 · 431pp · 116,274 words

Dangerous Ideas: A Brief History of Censorship in the West, From the Ancients to Fake News

by Eric Berkowitz · 3 May 2021 · 412pp · 115,048 words

Dragnet Nation: A Quest for Privacy, Security, and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance

by Julia Angwin · 25 Feb 2014 · 422pp · 104,457 words

Countdown to Zero Day: Stuxnet and the Launch of the World's First Digital Weapon

by Kim Zetter · 11 Nov 2014 · 492pp · 153,565 words

We Are Bellingcat: Global Crime, Online Sleuths, and the Bold Future of News

by Eliot Higgins · 2 Mar 2021 · 277pp · 70,506 words

Spooked: The Trump Dossier, Black Cube, and the Rise of Private Spies

by Barry Meier · 17 May 2021 · 319pp · 89,192 words

The Hacker and the State: Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics

by Ben Buchanan · 25 Feb 2020 · 443pp · 116,832 words

Permanent Record

by Edward Snowden · 16 Sep 2019 · 324pp · 106,699 words

Data and Goliath: The Hidden Battles to Collect Your Data and Control Your World

by Bruce Schneier · 2 Mar 2015 · 598pp · 134,339 words

Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up

by Philip N. Howard · 27 Apr 2015 · 322pp · 84,752 words

There's a War Going on but No One Can See It

by Huib Modderkolk · 1 Sep 2021 · 295pp · 84,843 words

Other Pandemic: How QAnon Contaminated the World

by James Ball · 19 Jul 2023 · 317pp · 87,048 words

Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet Against Democracy

by Robert W. McChesney · 5 Mar 2013 · 476pp · 125,219 words

The Fifth Domain: Defending Our Country, Our Companies, and Ourselves in the Age of Cyber Threats

by Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake · 15 Jul 2019 · 409pp · 112,055 words

Hiding in Plain Sight: The Invention of Donald Trump and the Erosion of America

by Sarah Kendzior · 6 Apr 2020

Your Face Belongs to Us: A Secretive Startup's Quest to End Privacy as We Know It

by Kashmir Hill · 19 Sep 2023 · 487pp · 124,008 words

Epic Win for Anonymous: How 4chan's Army Conquered the Web

by Cole Stryker · 14 Jun 2011 · 226pp · 71,540 words

The Dark Net

by Jamie Bartlett · 20 Aug 2014 · 267pp · 82,580 words

New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future

by James Bridle · 18 Jun 2018 · 301pp · 85,263 words

The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age

by Astra Taylor · 4 Mar 2014 · 283pp · 85,824 words

Sandworm: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers

by Andy Greenberg · 5 Nov 2019 · 363pp · 105,039 words

The Controlled Demolition of the American Empire

by Jeff Berwick and Charlie Robinson · 14 Apr 2020 · 491pp · 141,690 words

@War: The Rise of the Military-Internet Complex

by Shane Harris · 14 Sep 2014 · 340pp · 96,149 words

Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent

by Harvey Silverglate · 6 Jun 2011 · 389pp · 136,320 words

The Pay Off: How Changing the Way We Pay Changes Everything

by Gottfried Leibbrandt and Natasha de Teran · 14 Jul 2021 · 326pp · 91,532 words

Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto, and the War for Our Wallets

by Brett Scott · 4 Jul 2022 · 308pp · 85,850 words

With Liberty and Justice for Some: How the Law Is Used to Destroy Equality and Protect the Powerful

by Glenn Greenwald · 11 Nov 2011 · 283pp · 77,272 words

Silk Road

by Eileen Ormsby · 1 Nov 2014 · 269pp · 79,285 words

The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being in Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be

by Moises Naim · 5 Mar 2013 · 474pp · 120,801 words

Common Knowledge?: An Ethnography of Wikipedia

by Dariusz Jemielniak · 13 May 2014 · 312pp · 93,504 words

The Data Journalism Handbook

by Jonathan Gray, Lucy Chambers and Liliana Bounegru · 9 May 2012

Siege: Trump Under Fire

by Michael Wolff · 3 Jun 2019 · 359pp · 113,847 words

Every Nation for Itself: Winners and Losers in a G-Zero World

by Ian Bremmer · 30 Apr 2012 · 234pp · 63,149 words

Animal: The Autobiography of a Female Body

by Sara Pascoe · 18 Apr 2016 · 276pp · 93,430 words

Because We Say So

by Noam Chomsky

The Black Box Society: The Secret Algorithms That Control Money and Information

by Frank Pasquale · 17 Nov 2014 · 320pp · 87,853 words

Revolution in the Age of Social Media: The Egyptian Popular Insurrection and the Internet

by Linda Herrera · 14 Apr 2014 · 186pp · 49,595 words

The Problem of Political Authority: An Examination of the Right to Coerce and the Duty to Obey

by Michael Huemer · 29 Oct 2012 · 577pp · 149,554 words

Kleptopia: How Dirty Money Is Conquering the World

by Tom Burgis · 7 Sep 2020 · 476pp · 139,761 words

Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire

by Noam Chomsky and David Barsamian · 1 Nov 2012

Digital Gold: Bitcoin and the Inside Story of the Misfits and Millionaires Trying to Reinvent Money

by Nathaniel Popper · 18 May 2015 · 387pp · 112,868 words

Thinking About It Only Makes It Worse: And Other Lessons From Modern Life

by David Mitchell · 4 Nov 2014 · 354pp · 99,690 words

Life After Google: The Fall of Big Data and the Rise of the Blockchain Economy

by George Gilder · 16 Jul 2018 · 332pp · 93,672 words

The Alchemists: Three Central Bankers and a World on Fire

by Neil Irwin · 4 Apr 2013 · 597pp · 172,130 words

Homeland: The War on Terror in American Life

by Richard Beck · 2 Sep 2024 · 715pp · 212,449 words

Liars and Outliers: How Security Holds Society Together

by Bruce Schneier · 14 Feb 2012 · 503pp · 131,064 words

The Way of the Gun: A Bloody Journey Into the World of Firearms

by Iain Overton · 15 Apr 2015 · 436pp · 125,809 words

The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehood in the Age of Trump

by Michiko Kakutani · 17 Jul 2018 · 137pp · 38,925 words

The People vs Tech: How the Internet Is Killing Democracy (And How We Save It)

by Jamie Bartlett · 4 Apr 2018 · 170pp · 49,193 words

Top Secret America: The Rise of the New American Security State

by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin · 5 Sep 2011 · 328pp · 100,381 words

Free Ride

by Robert Levine · 25 Oct 2011 · 465pp · 109,653 words

ZeroZeroZero

by Roberto Saviano · 4 Apr 2013 · 442pp · 135,006 words

Seriously Curious: The Facts and Figures That Turn Our World Upside Down

by Tom Standage · 27 Nov 2018 · 215pp · 59,188 words

Hate Inc.: Why Today’s Media Makes Us Despise One Another

by Matt Taibbi · 7 Oct 2019 · 357pp · 99,456 words

Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations

by Ronen Bergman · 30 Jan 2018 · 1,071pp · 295,220 words

Butler to the World: How Britain Became the Servant of Tycoons, Tax Dodgers, Kleptocrats and Criminals

by Oliver Bullough · 10 Mar 2022 · 257pp · 80,698 words

Tracers in the Dark: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency

by Andy Greenberg · 15 Nov 2022 · 494pp · 121,217 words

The Internet Is Not the Answer

by Andrew Keen · 5 Jan 2015 · 361pp · 81,068 words

Pegasus: How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy

by Laurent Richard and Sandrine Rigaud · 17 Jan 2023 · 350pp · 115,802 words

The Age of Cryptocurrency: How Bitcoin and Digital Money Are Challenging the Global Economic Order

by Paul Vigna and Michael J. Casey · 27 Jan 2015 · 457pp · 128,838 words

DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You

by Misha Glenny · 3 Oct 2011 · 274pp · 85,557 words

The System: Who Owns the Internet, and How It Owns Us

by James Ball · 19 Aug 2020 · 268pp · 76,702 words

The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze

by Laura Shin · 22 Feb 2022 · 506pp · 151,753 words

Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors

by Matt Parker · 7 Mar 2019

The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World

by Max Fisher · 5 Sep 2022 · 439pp · 131,081 words

MacroWikinomics: Rebooting Business and the World

by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams · 28 Sep 2010 · 552pp · 168,518 words

The Zero Marginal Cost Society: The Internet of Things, the Collaborative Commons, and the Eclipse of Capitalism

by Jeremy Rifkin · 31 Mar 2014 · 565pp · 151,129 words

Your Computer Is on Fire

by Thomas S. Mullaney, Benjamin Peters, Mar Hicks and Kavita Philip · 9 Mar 2021 · 661pp · 156,009 words

The Optimist: Sam Altman, OpenAI, and the Race to Invent the Future

by Keach Hagey · 19 May 2025 · 439pp · 125,379 words

Liberalism at Large: The World According to the Economist

by Alex Zevin · 12 Nov 2019 · 767pp · 208,933 words

The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier

by Ian Urbina · 19 Aug 2019

Reaganland: America's Right Turn 1976-1980

by Rick Perlstein · 17 Aug 2020

CIOs at Work

by Ed Yourdon · 19 Jul 2011 · 525pp · 142,027 words

Hacking Politics: How Geeks, Progressives, the Tea Party, Gamers, Anarchists and Suits Teamed Up to Defeat SOPA and Save the Internet

by David Moon, Patrick Ruffini, David Segal, Aaron Swartz, Lawrence Lessig, Cory Doctorow, Zoe Lofgren, Jamie Laurie, Ron Paul, Mike Masnick, Kim Dotcom, Tiffiniy Cheng, Alexis Ohanian, Nicole Powers and Josh Levy · 30 Apr 2013 · 452pp · 134,502 words