Surveillance Valley

Any computer nerd worth their salt knows that the Internet was the successor to the ARPANET, a government project dedicated to sharing information freely among universities and businesses. This was a universal force for good, a place where ideas could be freely exchanged. It was supposed to eliminate the need for governments, the military and many power structures of the day. With such noble ambitions, many people today are disappointed when they hear narratives of “surveillance capitalism” or an “Orwellian police state” online. In investigative journalist Yasha Levine’s Surveillance Valley, all naive ideas about technological utopia are shattered. This entertaining and informative read changed the way I see the relationship between the Silicon Valley and the government.

I picked this book up at my local library without any prior research, and immediately found myself having a blast delving into the history of the Internet. Many topics covered in the book were already familiar to me, but it was nice to fill in some of my knowledge gaps. Each chapter proved to be a staggering wake-up call. I had no idea that ARPA’s purpose in making a network of computers was not to share information freely. It was to gather information on large amounts of people and predict their future actions. From Vietnam War counterinsurgency efforts, to Google Ads, surveillance was built into computer networking from the start.

This is one of the crucial themes in the book. During the final few chapters, Wikileaks, Edward Snowden and the Dark Net are discussed in detail. Many people think that since Snowden recommends the TOR browser and Signal, that it must be inherently safe. Yasha Levine points out that TOR got massive amounts of funding from the federal government, and although it can help citizens of totalitarian regimes access the Internet, there are still many hidden elements that we have no clue of.

The author argues that true Internet anonymity is not real. While he may share some personal bias in his views (many people dislike him for not believing in the security of TOR and so on), I think it’s a valid assessment. I walked away from this book not only confirming some of my own beliefs about privacy, but discovering that there was really no hope in the first place.

I rate this book 7 out of 10 Ethernet cables. Until next time!