This Machine Kills Secrets: How WikiLeakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information

By Andy Greenberg

This  book is shaping up wonderfully. I just love the title and the tribute to Woody Guthrie. It starts with a general history of privacy on the internet.

One of the first characters we meet is Phil Zimmerman, who explored the idea of the "one-time pad" and took it digital and named it PGP.

So Zimmrman is called.to testify for.Congress on cryptagraphy also indicted for hos PGP. And on the heels.pf all this we get the clipper chip. The chip.offer good encryption but the catch is there is a baxk door cor.the gov to check.anything encrypted with. It lead a group of cypherpunks to put "big brother inside"  stickers on the offending computers. That is until Intel got sue happy

The author meets with an early cryto-geek with the archives to a listserve for his friends. Anonynously posted to this group is a leak about the Australian government selling information to help people track down debtors. They figure.out is Julian Assange.pre-wikileaks. Riot huh?

So here we learn about TOR (stands for the onion router). Its that super-secret program that you can.use to gain anonymity on the internet. They say it really works but personally I would not trust it.

251 We travel next to Iceland where some of the worlds most controversial websites are hosted, including WikiLeaks and PiratesBay. And when the greedy global bankimg elite crashed this economy, the people took to the internet. The author quotes Robert Marshall,"The first facebook revolution didn't happen in Tunisia or Egypt." It happened right there in Iceland. The irate Icelanders fprcex.put the currupt and inept government and replaced it. One of.the main objectives was a law to permanently ban the "so called" International Monetary Fund from the country. Just a bit a advice here in general if the IMF shows up in your country to make you rich beyond your wildest dreams, quickly put your hand on your wallet and keep walking. JS, just saying.

Pg268 Icelandic activist Jonsdottir, who, fed up with American requests for her private Twitter feed says,"The United States could also repeal the Patriot Act and try [a little] democracy instead of tyranny." This person is commenting on the.complete.disregard for privacy that the corpratocracy has inflicted on us here in America. In case there is still any doubt, nothing you do, say or write on the internet is private. Your information is bought, sold and traded all without your say so. Remember when we were free in America? Were we ever?

The author finally has a little chat with Evgeny Morrozov, whose book .Net Delusion argues that instead of the creating revolutions, it's creating a more effective surveillance system. When asked what he thinks of Wiki Leaks he says that yes they post embarrasing things about the rulers but so what. Then nothing happens, nothing changes.  Most people already know how corrupt their leaders are, they still support them. How do you fight that?

We finish up with all the excruciatong details of the breakup of Assange and Domscheit-Berg. The.subkect was covered beautifully in Bergs' memoir.