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Open Secrecy: How Technology Empowers the Digital Underworld
Uncovering how a diverse digital underground has been liberated by "open secrecy"—and how police crackdowns are making it stronger.
Advances in information technology have made it easier for shadowy groups to organize collective action. Using military-grade encryption, rerouting software, and cryptocurrencies, they move through cyberspace like digital nomads, often with law enforcement and other powerful actors on their tails. This book reveals how the same technology enables these groups to communicate and collaborate in public and semipublic spaces, making them both open and secret at the same time—and efforts to stop these groups provoke countermeasures with unintended, far-reaching consequences.
Isak Ladegaard begins by taking listeners inside a digital economy for banned drugs that has survived numerous police crackdowns and is still thriving, nearly fifteen years after its genesis. He then examines how, in roughly the same time period, a community of activist software developers in China and other countries has been able to maintain paths to the open internet, again despite police interventions. Finally, he explains how the American far right uses the same tools to build movements based on paranoia and hate. Timely and perceptive, Open Secrecy helps listeners understand how information technology, for better and worse, undermines state control.
Advances in information technology have made it easier for shadowy groups to organize collective action. Using military-grade encryption, rerouting software, and cryptocurrencies, they move through cyberspace like digital nomads, often with law enforcement and other powerful actors on their tails. This book reveals how the same technology enables these groups to communicate and collaborate in public and semipublic spaces, making them both open and secret at the same time—and efforts to stop these groups provoke countermeasures with unintended, far-reaching consequences.
Isak Ladegaard begins by taking listeners inside a digital economy for banned drugs that has survived numerous police crackdowns and is still thriving, nearly fifteen years after its genesis. He then examines how, in roughly the same time period, a community of activist software developers in China and other countries has been able to maintain paths to the open internet, again despite police interventions. Finally, he explains how the American far right uses the same tools to build movements based on paranoia and hate. Timely and perceptive, Open Secrecy helps listeners understand how information technology, for better and worse, undermines state control.
303 pages, Paperback
Published May 20, 2025
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 13, 2025
I was about to give this book 3 stars, but in the end I settled with 4. I will explain why below.
minor "spoilers" in this review...
TL;DR:
in the digital age people are fed up with surveillance capitalism as most of us want privacy. “Open Secrecy” - the ability to hide your identity and operate more or less publicly online - attracts different groups for different reasons. It can foster social change and human rights in the form of anti-censorship; bypassing totalitarian regimes that are trying to track you down and silence you. But it can also let antisocial groups such as extremists, terrorists and far-right movements operate, spread hate and encourage murder, while hiding IRL identities. It can also enable online trade of banned goods (e.g drugs) without law enforcement being able to track down the sellers or buyers.
Let me break down the book before I explain why I almost settled for a 3-star review:
First of all, Jonathan Ladegaard has obviously put in work here. Over almost a decade he has researched 3 cases of open secrecy, namely the ones in the TL;DR-section above, and gathered enormous amounts of data, shared conversations, and even talked to individuals in the respective cases (who are of course anonymous in the book).
The internet has opened up the world and has enabled people to connect more, but it has also caused echo chambers to evolve since people are more likely to connect to people that share their own values. In the presence of surveillance capitalism, oppressive governments and state interference some people have dedicated their time to innovate technologies and software that protects privacy and anonymity. The darknet (TOR network) is one of those technologies. Although all of these groups that want to protect their privacy, do not do so out of good-will.
The Darknet Drug Trade.
The data and conversations that Ladegaard shares on the darknet market “Silk Road” is fascinating. The market does not appear to be a den of junkies or criminals but more like an inclusive community for people who want the right to use drugs without the state telling them what to do. The comments and conversations that are shared in the book show a community of deep affection and care for each other. After the FBI crackdown of the site, the community gets together, reorganizes, and improves. In other words, the crackdowns proves to have an opposite effect on the darknet markets - the more the police try to track them down, punish the admins and shut down markets, the stronger the community rises, innovating better security measures and decentralizing the trade.
China's Anti-Censorship Technology
In China developers and tech-savvy individuals operate in open secrecy to spread technology that enables people to circumvent the great firewall and access the open internet. Using open source code, collaboration and anonymity they manage to escape the oppressive state and spread the technology to people who might need them. When occasionally developers get caught and “disappear”, the remaining community, much like in the darknet market case, reorganizes and carries on the work to help others. This “ladder technology” has spread to other totalitarian regimes, like Iran and Russia, and is used by a plethora of different communities - HBTQ+, gamers, feminists, journalists, video enthusiasts, political activists etc.
The Far Right
The last case Ladegaard includes in the book is one of the most dangerous online echo chambers - the far right - which has also found its way to establish online platforms in open secrecy, managing to escape domain providers and mainstream social media that bans their preaching. Operating mostly under anonymity, and hosting their own data servers, they manage to spread white nationalism where members perform mass-shootings and encourage murder on nonwhites. Here is a lot of data on activity and keywords, and a scary insight into the world of online neo-nazism, where extremist views are intertwined with ordinary every-day conversation about food and family life. Also great insights in how and why these communities emerge, and why people are drawn to them, a lot of the times using online lingo, memes, and humorous jargon to draw the attention of young, lonely and vulnerable individuals.
Why did I contemplate only giving this book 3 stars?
Well, first of all there is the repetitiveness. I feel like some chapters after the the 3 cases are just retelling the information that has already been shared, but with different words. Much of the last chapters is full of “.. as seen in chapter x and y”, and “... as mentioned in..” which makes it pretty redundant. The book could easily have been way shorter in my opinion. It feels as if Ladegaard had so many examples that he wanted to include (which I kind of understand since it is almost a decade's worth of data gathering) that it became too dense. Which brings me to the second reason: data….
Some pages were basically numbers. Okay that might be an exaggeration, but there were definitely pages where the narrative was lost, and it felt like I was just reading statistics without guidance.
Also - and maybe this is just me - the last 5 pages or so were very political. Now I absolutely agree with Ladegaard political views, but at least for me it was a weird inclusion.
Why I settled for 4 stars.
Well it’s simple: the book is packed with great research and data, and for the most part it holds a very objective and neutral tone. It simply shows the research and lets the reader draw its own conclusions (at least until the end chapter) which I appreciate. I will probably buy the book for reference in the future.
Conclusion
I thought I had good knowledge about tech and surveillance capitalism, but I learned a lot from reading this book. There is a lot to uncover, and for me the book really reinforced my own belief that oppression and punishment is never - ever - the way to go when you want to change someone's view. Antagonism and polarization is one of the most challenging topics of the digital age; agonism and discussion is crucial to move forward. If people are villainized and excluded from the mainstream dialogue, they will always find ways to group together, reinforce their “us vs them” view, and subsequently operate in open secrecy. It doesn't matter how much tech bros and intelligence agencies try to control the internet and collect data about people's personal lives - tech-savvy individuals will always find ways to enforce privacy and anonymity (which is obviously good in most cases).
“Open secrecy is a force of change, a bouquet of unknown consequences [and it] reveals some things we would rather keep in the dark, but it also brings out the truth of what is going on in the social world and can help us see ourselves.”
minor "spoilers" in this review...
TL;DR:
in the digital age people are fed up with surveillance capitalism as most of us want privacy. “Open Secrecy” - the ability to hide your identity and operate more or less publicly online - attracts different groups for different reasons. It can foster social change and human rights in the form of anti-censorship; bypassing totalitarian regimes that are trying to track you down and silence you. But it can also let antisocial groups such as extremists, terrorists and far-right movements operate, spread hate and encourage murder, while hiding IRL identities. It can also enable online trade of banned goods (e.g drugs) without law enforcement being able to track down the sellers or buyers.
Let me break down the book before I explain why I almost settled for a 3-star review:
First of all, Jonathan Ladegaard has obviously put in work here. Over almost a decade he has researched 3 cases of open secrecy, namely the ones in the TL;DR-section above, and gathered enormous amounts of data, shared conversations, and even talked to individuals in the respective cases (who are of course anonymous in the book).
The internet has opened up the world and has enabled people to connect more, but it has also caused echo chambers to evolve since people are more likely to connect to people that share their own values. In the presence of surveillance capitalism, oppressive governments and state interference some people have dedicated their time to innovate technologies and software that protects privacy and anonymity. The darknet (TOR network) is one of those technologies. Although all of these groups that want to protect their privacy, do not do so out of good-will.
The Darknet Drug Trade.
The data and conversations that Ladegaard shares on the darknet market “Silk Road” is fascinating. The market does not appear to be a den of junkies or criminals but more like an inclusive community for people who want the right to use drugs without the state telling them what to do. The comments and conversations that are shared in the book show a community of deep affection and care for each other. After the FBI crackdown of the site, the community gets together, reorganizes, and improves. In other words, the crackdowns proves to have an opposite effect on the darknet markets - the more the police try to track them down, punish the admins and shut down markets, the stronger the community rises, innovating better security measures and decentralizing the trade.
China's Anti-Censorship Technology
In China developers and tech-savvy individuals operate in open secrecy to spread technology that enables people to circumvent the great firewall and access the open internet. Using open source code, collaboration and anonymity they manage to escape the oppressive state and spread the technology to people who might need them. When occasionally developers get caught and “disappear”, the remaining community, much like in the darknet market case, reorganizes and carries on the work to help others. This “ladder technology” has spread to other totalitarian regimes, like Iran and Russia, and is used by a plethora of different communities - HBTQ+, gamers, feminists, journalists, video enthusiasts, political activists etc.
The Far Right
The last case Ladegaard includes in the book is one of the most dangerous online echo chambers - the far right - which has also found its way to establish online platforms in open secrecy, managing to escape domain providers and mainstream social media that bans their preaching. Operating mostly under anonymity, and hosting their own data servers, they manage to spread white nationalism where members perform mass-shootings and encourage murder on nonwhites. Here is a lot of data on activity and keywords, and a scary insight into the world of online neo-nazism, where extremist views are intertwined with ordinary every-day conversation about food and family life. Also great insights in how and why these communities emerge, and why people are drawn to them, a lot of the times using online lingo, memes, and humorous jargon to draw the attention of young, lonely and vulnerable individuals.
Why did I contemplate only giving this book 3 stars?
Well, first of all there is the repetitiveness. I feel like some chapters after the the 3 cases are just retelling the information that has already been shared, but with different words. Much of the last chapters is full of “.. as seen in chapter x and y”, and “... as mentioned in..” which makes it pretty redundant. The book could easily have been way shorter in my opinion. It feels as if Ladegaard had so many examples that he wanted to include (which I kind of understand since it is almost a decade's worth of data gathering) that it became too dense. Which brings me to the second reason: data….
Some pages were basically numbers. Okay that might be an exaggeration, but there were definitely pages where the narrative was lost, and it felt like I was just reading statistics without guidance.
Also - and maybe this is just me - the last 5 pages or so were very political. Now I absolutely agree with Ladegaard political views, but at least for me it was a weird inclusion.
Why I settled for 4 stars.
Well it’s simple: the book is packed with great research and data, and for the most part it holds a very objective and neutral tone. It simply shows the research and lets the reader draw its own conclusions (at least until the end chapter) which I appreciate. I will probably buy the book for reference in the future.
Conclusion
I thought I had good knowledge about tech and surveillance capitalism, but I learned a lot from reading this book. There is a lot to uncover, and for me the book really reinforced my own belief that oppression and punishment is never - ever - the way to go when you want to change someone's view. Antagonism and polarization is one of the most challenging topics of the digital age; agonism and discussion is crucial to move forward. If people are villainized and excluded from the mainstream dialogue, they will always find ways to group together, reinforce their “us vs them” view, and subsequently operate in open secrecy. It doesn't matter how much tech bros and intelligence agencies try to control the internet and collect data about people's personal lives - tech-savvy individuals will always find ways to enforce privacy and anonymity (which is obviously good in most cases).
“Open secrecy is a force of change, a bouquet of unknown consequences [and it] reveals some things we would rather keep in the dark, but it also brings out the truth of what is going on in the social world and can help us see ourselves.”
Displaying 1 of 1 review