The author explains how technology was used for the military in the sixties and then how now it is being used to gather information on we the consumer on what sites we get on. why do you think you receive specific news articles, or ads for products amongst other things? a very good book.

I'm afraid that the book became archived before I'd had a chance to read it properly, and I can't find it in my KIndle either. Such a shame, because it looks really interesting, and just right for readers of my blog and newsletter. The one star review is because I had to add a star rating, and is no reflection on the book.

I must admit I am more than a little ambivalent about this book. Yes, I think Levine says things that need to be said. Yes, I think we need to be concerned about & actively discussing questions of privacy, data mining, and surveillance. Even so as someone who has been on the Internet since the bad old days of NSFNet and someone deeply involved in extending the Internet and with working with many of those universities which created it, I have to say I think his book is tilted at best, and one-sided.

I just can't buy his contention, repeated often throughout the book, that the connections between government, intelligence agencies, and the military on one hand and the schools, companies, and people who created and run the Internet is bad and dangerous. Maybe I have drunk the Kool-aid, but I know these people, I've worked with them, and I've seen the way the world of Internet, data mining, and AI changes things for the better.

I'm not one of the Internet utopians he skewers in the book, although I've read many of them. But neither am I as gloomy about this new world as he is. Maybe it's because I don't expect otherwise from government and business, or maybe it's because I distrust both utopias and dystopias. But I did not think he presented a balanced view. But then maybe that wasn't his intent.

Levine's book is meticulously researched and I think he's taken risks to write it, but I'm just unconvinced that his premise that linkage = danger is correct.

He didn't convince me and I was there.

Wow, Surveillance Valley is one of those books I had to read and digest a little at a time. Yasha Levine has certainly piqued my interest and the desire to read more about the subject. I wished that I had a reading buddy to discuss and debate the information contained in this book. It would be an excellent selection for a book discussion group, simply based on my own wishes. The book is organized well and the references are explained in a conversational manner. My paranoia has definitely been triggered by this riveting book.

I went into this book expecting a quick read, but this isn't that type of book. It starts off with a lengthy history of the internet, beginning at its very infancy as a tool to help census counters collect and sort information, all the way up to the present day. This background was necessary to lay the foundation for the rest of the book, but while interesting, it could be a bit dense at times.

Surveillance Valley picks up speed about halfway through, when the author behind detailing how basically all the big names -Google, etc- are in bed with the government and in fact being paid by them to spy on us. The most shocking part to me was learning that Tor was basically funded and created more or less by the government and not by anti government hackers as I've always been led to believe. Oh - and it's not secure in the slightest.

This is a scary read that will have you thinking twice about the internet, technology, and everything you do on your phone or computer.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a copy for review.

TOR is the dark internet, where identity thieves, drug dealers and arms sellers hang out, safely hidden. It is home to Wikileaks and Silk Road. You can purchase anything from a billion stolen e-mail accounts to assassination services there. Turns out TOR is a service designed and built by the CIA, and even though TOR is now a non-profit organization, it is almost entirely funded by annual “donations” from a handful of US government agencies, mostly connected - to the CIA. The NSA sees TOR as “a honeypot”, where all kinds of people they’re after (dealers, jihadists, bombers) gather in one place. They can be tracked and found with little effort. So while the government bemoans the criminals hiding in plain sight on TOR, it also encourages their use of TOR with taxpayer money.

How can this be? It seems that CIA operatives using TOR to hide their online identities were instantly recognizable as CIA operatives because their activity showed they came from TOR. So the user base had to be broadened in order to hide the spies – in plain sight.

Yasha Levine obtained a carton full of documents from the Board of Broadcasting Governors, another offshoot of the CIA, using the Freedom Of Information Act. It is all spelled out clearly and plainly, including updates to the CIA on technical progress at the supposedly independent non-profit. Levine says TOR employees are essentially federal civil servants. This book is a warning that you never know who your friends are, and that everything can be fashioned into a weapon.

Surveillance Valley, The Secret Military History of the Internet is a totally misleading title for this book. It wanders through internet history for two hundred pages, looking at the same developments we all know about. Mostly, it is not about surveillance. And there’s nothing new.

We all know what an open sewer the internet is. And that Silicon Valley receives countless billions from the government for services gladly rendered, be they hosting, profiling or out and out spying. Also nothing new. So the book became a grating read, until quite suddenly and without warning, Levine turned to TOR. The paradox of the US government building, promoting and subsidizing the would-be secret world of the dark net is scary enough. That it is so fragile its managers attacked a university that hacked it, accusing the university of “ethical lapses“ is both laughable and shocking. (It turned out to be cheap and easy.) That anyone thinks they are safe anywhere must forever be out of the question.

Even, or similarly, Signal is a dark net product of the US government. It encrypts communications over the internet, but first requires users to upload their cellphone number and their entire phonebooks. And everyone does. Like lambs to the slaughter. Signal uses Amazon servers, so any intelligence force can watch for the pings and quickly see who is using Signal to keep their conversations secret. Both Signal and TOR are forcefully and famously recommended by Edward Snowden and Julian Assange for their “privacy and safety”. They both must know better. So what does that mean?

The CIA used its ops network to attack Levine for his investigation, in a co-ordinated campaign. He was suddenly accused of all kinds of crime and immorality, and subjected to threats including death to his family. Even Anonymous got after him as a wacko conspiracy theorist. All in an effort to discredit anything he might later publish. But Levine has the government’s own documents. He did the groundwork for the book on a Kickstarter campaign with 500 contributors. And now he is delivering - a real public service – at least in the last third of it.

David Wineberg

Yasha Levine has produced a fairly useful agglomeration of sources in this exposition about the Internet and its role in the command and control strategy of the US military and security services. The basic argument is that the situation has a history and its becoming more than ever, encroaching on all freedoms, the instrument for the government to control what we do.

Its a very useful read and I hope everyone who has at least a passing interest in the surveillance of the Internet has a chance to read it.

The draw backs are perhaps predictable. It does not take into account that the US government itself is incredibly fractured. There are 28 different secret service organizations, and even New York City has information gathering overseas. The disjointed nature of US foreign policy has also been a factor that does not create control as much as sows anarchy. The Internet and its surveillance is no different than any other aspect of US government control. What we know is that the hype over the internet has created financial disasters for business and nightmares of saturation for intelligence services. In other words giving this nightmare vision of the apocalypse a ho hum and a shrug of the shoulders is probably a good measure to keep yourself sane after reading the book.

The details in the is book is exceptional and I applaud Levine's research. Much of this material of course is not new and can be found mostly by anyone with access to Google. Levine though in his selections and style creates a value to the work that I think makes it very much worth reading.

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.