Open Secrecy: How Technology Empowers the Digital UnderworldExamines 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
Invisible Forces of Liberation and Control | 7 |
2 | 19 |
Illegal Markets Step Out of the Shadows | 39 |
4 | 54 |
Illustrations | 67 |
Climbing the Great Firewall of China | 77 |
Ladder developer activity 20182023 | 83 |
Black Markets for Censorship Circumvention | 94 |
8 | 140 |
Information distrust | 156 |
Hyggelig Hate and the Mainstreaming ofthe Digital Far Right | 161 |
Changes in conspiratorial keywords per post y axis of highly | 174 |
Resisting Social Change | 183 |
Embracing Ambiguity | 204 |
The Digital Public Square Is Dead | 227 |
Notes | 243 |
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Open Secrecy: How Technology Empowers the Digital Underworld Isak Ladegaard No preview available - 2025 |
Common terms and phrases
Accessed December 2024 Accessed May 2024 activity actors airport Anglin attack banned Bitcoin Black chapter China Clowwindy collective crackdown crime cryptocurrency cultural Daily Stormer darknet economy darknet markets digital far right discussed DoctorX Donald Trump donations drug e-commerce drug markets e-commerce Elon Musk emoji enabled encryption example Facebook far-right fentanyl figures Firewall GitHub global Google Trends hate ideas illegal information hub Iranian Jewish Jews K-pop killed ladder community ladder developers ladder technology Ladegaard law enforcement live mainstream mass surveillance MDMA ment million networks open internet open secrecy openly secret participants percent Pew Research Center police political posts prosocial pseudonymous Quoted sellers servers Shadowsocks shadowy groups Silk Road social control social media society Stormfront Stormfront and Gab surveillance talk thread tion Torba Trump Ulbricht United University Press users V2Ray white supremacist