Open Secrecy : How Technology Empowers the Digital Underworld.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Ladegaard, Isak.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Black market.

Computer crimes.

Dark Web.

Data encryption (Computer science).

Information technology.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (304 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, 2025.

Summary:

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.

Contents:

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Contents

List of Illustrations

Introduction

1. Invisible Forces of Liberation and Control

2. The Three Acts of the Information Age

I. Drug Trade on the Darknet

3. Illegal Markets Step Out of the Shadows

4. Crackdowns and Adaptations in the Digital Underworld

II. Fighting Censorship

5. Climbing the Great Firewall of China

6. Black Markets for Censorship Circumvention

III. The Digital Far Right

7. Deplatforming the Digital Far Right

8. The Digital Far Right's "Hate Focus

9. Hyggelig Hate and the Mainstreaming of the Digital Far Right

Outro

10. Resisting Social Change

11. Embracing Ambiguity

Epilogue: The Digital Public Square Is Dead

Acknowledgments

Appendix: Case Selection and Data

Notes

Bibliography

Index.

Notes:

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

0-520-39730-4

9780520397309

OCLC:

1584462554