A highly
revelatory work, Gordon Corera’s Intercept has a lot to say. Ostensibly a book
about the use of computers by the espionage agencies (while he touches on other
nations, primarily this book looks at those of the US and UK) it also has much
to add on debates concerning the balance of power between the state and the
individual, personal privacy, and economics.
An
exhaustive history of the dawn of the computer age through the lens of the
development of modern espionage, Intercept takes us from the censors tapping
telegraph cables during the First World War, through the Enigma years of the
Second, the dawn of cyber spying during the Cold War, and onto the age of
hackers, zero day exploits, Wikileaks and Edward Snowden. Throughout
revelations come thick and fast. We learn that during World War 1, Britain
severed the telegraph cables into Germany; effectively isolating the enemy from
the world and thus instigating the first ever act of sabotage against a
nation’s communications infrastructure. Later we learn that most of the world’s
telecommunications still travel via undersea cables, with most of the UK’s
traffic landing in Cornwall. This has allowed GCHQ to simply sit on the wires
collecting metadata on most of the transnational communications coming into the
UK. Or how about the facility in London whose sole purpose is to reverse
engineer all the components Hauwei plans to install in the UK’s
telecommunications infrastructure? The Chinese telecommunications giant won the
contract to modernise the system and such is the extent of the West’s paranoia concerning
Chinese cyber spying and/or sabotage, every single circuit board has to be
checked and double-checked.
Each
revelation is more startling than the last, but there are hidden depths to
Corera’s book. For example, we learn how the development of computers was pushed
and even funded in part by the espionage agencies interests in them as tools.
Would IBM have grown as large or as quickly if it weren’t for contracts from
the NSA? We’ll never know for certain but the author outlines a strong case. In
effect he argues what others have more explicitly elsewhere, namely that the
idea of a completely free market is a myth. Rather than develop in a vacuum
from the state, or worse, the state act as a hindrance, it is often state
subsidies in the form of research grants, favoured status over competitors,
intelligence passed on to aid in the winning of contracts, that has allowed
industries and companies to flourish. There is certainly enough evidence here
to demonstrate that the birth of the computer age was at least hastened by the
largess of the defence and espionage agencies.
But
perhaps the book’s greatest strength is when discussing the issues surrounding
the power of the state versus that of the citizen and issues around personal
privacy. I don’t know what Gordon Corera’s personal views on all this; he’s careful
to remain neutral. For all I know he might be mortified to learn that for me
his book acted as a reassurance. The Edward Snowdens of the world would have
you believe that the mass collection of data by the NSA and GCHQ are the thin
end of the wedge and that our civil liberties are at stake. But within the
pages of Corera’s book is a strong explanation of why this material is needed.
A strong argument is made that the agencies concerned have no interest in the
average person’s data, but merely need to scan the data passing through the
wires as a whole in order to look for the patterns criminals and terrorists
leave behind. Should the agencies be stymied in this, we might all be more at
risk. An analogy is made that in order for the security services to find the
needle in the haystack (the needle being paedophiles, organised criminals, terrorists)
they need to be able to gather and see the whole haystack.
All in
all this is a great read and one that left me far more informed about the world
we live in and the risks facing us as individuals and citizens in the digital
age.
I would
give this book 5 out of 5 stars
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