Surveillance Valley

Just How Smart Are Those Guys?

I don’t own a tinfoil hat. I am fairly sure there is no black vans parked outside my driveway, and I sleep without worry that someone is sneaking into my house to plant bugs. On the other hand, I have little doubt that anything I do online is vacuumed up by the NSA and probably stored in some database.

But there is a whole section of the web known as the “dark web” that is supposedly immune to this sort of monitoring. All the transactions are encrypted, and user’s identities, and their IP addresses are cleverly hidden behind a convoluted web of proxy servers that route traffic around the world a few times to disguise its true sender and receiver.

Yasha Levine makes the case that the various security agencies of the Federal Government, and their allies, are the true owners of this “dark web”, and have built into it the capability to monitor it at will. So the question really becomes one of the capabilities of “The Feds”. Just how smart are those guys?

We may not ever unearth the definitive answer, but let’s not forget that the founder of Silk Road (the trading site for illicit materials on the dark web) now sits in jail with a life term, and the Iranians have a couple hundred melted centrifuges sitting in the scrap pile.

=== The Good Stuff ===

* Levine makes some startling claims, and it would be very easy to dismiss her arguments as the work of some conspiracy buff. But at the end of the day, I had to admit she made a convincing and logical case for her viewpoint, and supported it with enough facts to make it credible.

* While much of the material is technical, the author avoids overly complicated jargon. If you have even a basic idea of what being “online” truly means, you will comprehend enough of the technology to appreciate the author’s views.

* Levine includes technical, business and tactical arguments in her discussion. For example, she spends quite a bit of time describing the Tor browser, which is sort of the gateway to the dark web. Levine tracks down the origins and developers behind this piece of software, and it turns out that many Fortune 500 companies (such as Google) perform work on this browser under the direction and funding of the US government. A strange source of funding for a browser nominally dedicated to criminals, spies and anarchists.


=== The Not-So-Good Stuff ===

* No matter how complete and dedicated an effort is made to research this topic, you will never get concrete proof and ironclad references on secret government programs. The best you can hope for is “leaks” from people like Edward Snowden, and his exposures figure prominently in the text. So now the question is “do we believe Snowden”?

* The work is what I consider an essay- an attempt by an author to convince the reader of a particular viewpoint. While Levine does give some consideration to other explanations, the main focus of the text is on her argument that the dark web is a massive government operation designed to make it easier to identify and track the communications of enemies. As an example, she does offer the alternative explanation that the Tor browser offers an excellent means for US intelligence operatives to communicate with each other.


=== Summary ===

I found the book fascinating. I don’t know that I am completely ready to believe everything that was in it, but after a shaky start, I found myself thinking more and more that this was certainly possible, and perhaps plausible. There are some well supported facts (Google taking government contracts), some well-founded supposition, and some less supported speculation.

The book was well written, kept moving without getting tied down in detail, and drew on a breadth of information from a number of sources and disciplines. I’d recommend the book to anyone with an interest in intelligence, network security and technology.


=== Disclaimer ===

I was able to read an advance copy through the courtesy of NetGalley and the publisher.