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Andy Greenberg
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This Machine Kills Secrets: How Wikileakers, Cypherpunks, and Hacktivists Aim to Free the World's Information Audio CD – CD, September 17, 2012

by Andy Greenberg (Author), Mike Chamberlain (Narrator)
4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 71 ratings
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The machine that kills secrets is a powerful cryptographic code that hides the identities of leakers and hacktivists as they spill the private files of government agencies and corporations bringing us into a new age of whistle blowing. With unrivaled access to figures like Julian Assange, Daniel Domscheit-Berg, and Jacob Applebaum, investigative journalist Andy Greenberg unveils the group that brought the world WikiLeaks, OpenLeaks, and BalkanLeaks.This powerful technology has been evolving for decades in the hands of hackers and radical activists, from the libertarian enclaves of Northern California to Berlin to the Balkans. And the secret-killing machine continues to evolve beyond WikiLeaks, as a movement of hacktivists aims to obliterate the world's institutional secrecy. Never have the seemingly powerless had so much power to disembowel big corporations and big government.
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  1. Language
    English
  2. Publisher
    Tantor Audio
  3. Publication date
    September 17, 2012
  4. Dimensions
    6.7 x 0.9 x 6.4 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    1452639906
  6. ISBN-13
    978-1452639901
  7. See all details
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The Amazon Book Review
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Editorial Reviews

Review

"With complete access to many of the key hackers and leakers, Greenberg delves eloquently into the magicians of the all-powerful technology that shatters the confidentiality of any and all state secrets while tapping into issues of personal privacy." ---Publishers Weekly

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Tantor Audio; Library - Unabridged CD edition (September 17, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1452639906
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1452639901
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.7 x 0.9 x 6.4 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.6 4.6 out of 5 stars 71 ratings

About the author

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Andy Greenberg

Andy Greenberg

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Andy Greenberg is an award-winning senior writer for WIRED, covering security, privacy, information freedom, and hacker culture. He's the author of the new book TRACERS IN THE DARK: The Global Hunt for the Crime Lords of Cryptocurrency. His previous book SANDWORM: A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers, as well as excerpts from it published in WIRED, won a Gerald Loeb Award for International Reporting, a Sigma Delta Chi Award from the Society of Professional Journalists, two Deadline Club Awards from the New York Society of Professional Journalists, and the Cornelius Ryan Citation for Excellence from the Overseas Press Club. Before coming to WIRED, Greenberg worked as a senior reporter for Forbes magazine. He lives in Brooklyn with his wife, filmmaker Malika Zouhali-Worrall.

Customer reviews

4.6 out of 5 stars
4.6 out of 5
71 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Suspense. History. Intrigue. Anger. Sadness. This book has it all!
Reviewed in the United States on April 16, 2014
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This is an amazing book that tells a story totally relevant and urgently necessary in order to understand the who-what-when-where-and-why things got to this point, here in 2014. What is even more interesting to me is that this book was published in 2012. I looked in the index the very first thing when I opened the book and there is not one reference to Edward Snowden! Everything we know about the NSA, hacking, leaking, spying and cyber warfare in the last two years isn't even included in the book because it hadn't happened yet! We are literally at the edge of it! The book has all the suspense of fiction, all the history of an encyclopedia and just enough technical background to be important without drowning in insider-jargon! A well put-together book that is a MUST READ for anyone interested in this subject. And the point of the book seems to be, whether you're interested or not, you're going to want to know this stuff!
PS Now that I've finished the book completely, I'm beginning to wonder "How much is true?" "Is it disinformation?" "What is the author's real intention?" "Can I trust it?" "Can I believe it?" "Is the book meant for me to ask myself all these questions?" So, in the end, I can say I liked it. I read it quickly, couldn't get through it fast enough. It was gripping, Compelling. Worth-while reading. But given the subject matter, I have to wonder about all the rest. And so will YOU!
5 people found this helpful
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Tim O
5.0 out of 5 stars Real easy read. Feels like talking to a friend on ...
Reviewed in the United States on July 22, 2018
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I bought this book because I was interested in what the government is doing to use. The United States is backwards. The government should be transparent to it's people that pay them, and out lives should be private. Even though the book was written a while ago, I stilled learned a lot I didn't know. He actually travels and talks to people outside of the USA which I found mind opening. It's really hard to find a book at the library written by someone outside of the US. We are extremely censored. Andy opens up outside of the 4% the US occupies. What a relief to find out what's going on in the 96% of the rest of the planet. Also, his writing style is really pleasant and interesting. Real easy read. Feels like talking to a friend on the front porch sipping lemonade or ice tea. He really, really needs to write more books.
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Gordon E. Anderson
4.0 out of 5 stars A great read that borders on important.
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2013
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OK, finished THIS MACHINE KILLS SECRETS by Andy Greenberg.

First of all, let me just say that this is an excellent read. It moves along quickly, like a novel, and Greenberg discusses many of the basic technological capabilities that were invented directly or inspired by the Cypherpunks. It also gives little character portraits developed mainly by direct interaction Greenberg had with some of the key players. Greenberg describes meetings with John Young, Tim May, Julian Assange and others. And those who subscribed to the Cypherpunks mailing list will recognize the characters he has captured in book form: John Young is a (necessarily) paranoid characters who truly believes in freeing information, particularly information owned by the public. Tim May is a cranky old crank who is nonetheless brilliant and has egged on or conceived of many of the key inventions spawned by Cypherpunk thinking. Julian Assange is the self-proclaimed Cypherpunk messiah who is nevertheless hell-bent on exposing some of the worst abuses of both Governments and large corporations. In my opinion, Greenberg captures some aspects of the people without ignoring their contributions.

Where the book falls short of it's very high potential is in the last couple of chapters. Basically, Greenberg ends up spending a lot of time of the gossipy side of how Wikileaks came apart. While some coverage of this part of recent history is probably merited (and showing how Assange may have partly contributed to Wikileaks' loss of clout), Greenberg should have continued the main anti-authoritarian themes developed in the early chapters and discussed (for instance) BITCOIN. Whether Bitcoin itself survives or not isn't relevant, but Bitcoin emodies many Cypherpunkly ideals, including anonymous cash and a decentralized coining mechanism. As such, it is the first of what will certainly be a series of digital forms of cash. Greenberg should have maintained his focus on the core themes of the Cypherpunks and strong crypto and then looked towards the future and (possibly) discussed which of the themes may continue to proliferate (eg, Collapse of governments due to anonymous crypto payments? Probably unlikely. Forcing nation-states to come to terms with far higher forms of transparency? Increasingly likely.)

In my opinion this book is informative, fun-to-read, and even somewhat important. If Greenberg fixes the descent into Gossip in a second edition, then this book could become of lasting relevance.
10 people found this helpful
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Timothy C May
5.0 out of 5 stars Reads like a good novel
Reviewed in the United States on September 14, 2012
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A gripping read! Very well-told. And for the parts and personalities I am directly familiar with, accurate. (A few tiny errors, a few compressions of events, etc., but generally accurate.)

I had a copy on pre-order with Amazon, so it arrived on Sept. 13th. I took it to the County Fair with me and read big chunks of the book while sitting on a bench.

The style of telling parts of life stories (Ellsberg, Zimmerman, Assange, Manning, me, etc.) and then interleaving with the stories of others, gradually moving forward in time, was especially interesting. Almost like a novel, or a musical piece, with themes, counterpoint, fugue-like developments. It gave a panorama of the themes and (some of) the players from the 1960s to the present, with an underlying motif.

I haven't really gotten to the second half of the book, except by skipping around and peeking. It seems more disjointed. Perhaps because I wasn't active in those events, or perhaps because the outcome just hasn't been written yet. Or maybe it's those crazy kids! The level of back-stabbing in Cypherpunks was not a fraction of what seems to have happened in the Wikileaks denouement.

Well done! It reminds me of Tracy Kidder's "The Soul of a New Machine" in a lot of ways.
22 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Doom3
4.0 out of 5 stars Newer edition is out, and the trial of Dread ...
Reviewed in India on August 27, 2015
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Newer edition is out, and the trial of Dread Pirate Roberts of Silk Route is not covered. Still it is a really fascinating book about the independence of the internet which is a must for all interested.
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Mr. Paul J. Bradshaw
5.0 out of 5 stars Leaks are not just about the tools, but about people
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on January 12, 2014
Verified Purchase
There is more to leaking than Wikileaks, and a more interesting tale to be told than theirs. In This Machine Kills Secrets, Andy Greenberg looks at that story - and it's an important read for any journalist interested in working with sources in the 21st century.

The book combines a history of the leaks movement - from cryptography geeks and early document sites like Cryptome - to an overview of the proliferation of new, Wikileaks-inspired sites from Al Jazeera's leaks site to Unileaks - many of which lack basic security.

Along the way there are insights into every aspect of leaking: the technology, organisational and human factors, the politics and the culture. It's a timely book as the world embarks on a debate about privacy, security, and transparency sparked by Edward Snowden's own latest `megaleak'.

What Greenberg demonstrates throughout the book is that leaks are not just about the tools, but about people: and it is the personalities and settings which make this story both eminently readable and a great introduction to the tools being used by them, the dangers and the lessons learned.

Parts of the book should be recommended reading for journalists and journalism students. The story of cryptography pioneer David Chaum, for example, highlights the difference between encryption (masking the contents of a message) and anonymity (masking the identity of the participants).

Greenwald knows not to fetishize security technologies: sources frequently point out that no system is completely secure (the advice is that you should "still use [Tor] along with other, commercial proxy services to create extra layers of defence"), while humans will always be vulnerable to Rubber Hose Cryptanalysis (having a password beaten out of you), handing over contacts to reduce sentences, and social engineering.

Towards the end of the book Greenberg touches on a different type of leaks movement: smartphone apps like OpenWatch and Cop Recorder which allow users to invisibly record audio and video.

Videos have already led to one police officer being fined six thousand dollars. As the debate over surveillance continues, `sousveillance' - surveillance from below - could well be the next practice to face a clampdown from authorities. Meanwhile, I look forward to a second edition of This Machine Kills Secrets which tells the stories of Offshore Leaks, Edward Snowden, and the increasingly globalised nature of modern journalism.
2 people found this helpful
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anonymousse
5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible
Reviewed in France on February 7, 2013
Verified Purchase
This book will become important for kids of the 20's
Like Steven Levy's Hackers was for kids of the 80's
Extraordinary clever people doing extraordinary things of their life.
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Luis
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 14, 2015
Verified Purchase
Good book
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Deran
5.0 out of 5 stars the dilemma of information freedom
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 9, 2012
Verified Purchase
This is a fantastic book from a historical point of view and the author presents the book in a way that allows the reader to form some views on the rights and wrongs of publishing secrets. You may or may not agree with what Assange had done or what the Chaos Computer Club does, but it puts the argument forwards to discuss information freedom. The reader can then look at the issues that the ITU are trying to resolve in terms of Internet management and look at this issue in an objective manner... I for one want the Internet to be free to all who want to use it and Government around the world should not regulate it...hands off I say to the ITU...
2 people found this helpful
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