This is the story of when the FBI ran an encrypted phone company marketed to criminals. Working with Australian Federal Police and European partners, they had a glimpse into gangsters’ and drug dealers’ conversations for years before they wrapped it up with a series of worldwide arrests.

It’s a wild story that sounds like fiction but happens to be true. In fact, that’s Cory Doctorow’s blurb on the back—his recommendation on his blog is what got me to check this out. I’m also a fan of 404 Media, so it felt good to support one of its founders.

It’s a fascinating story, but it’s troubling to someone who is bothered by surveillance and is trying to be more critical of law enforcement. This was a slick move, and I don’t care to defend the criminals that it targeted. Yet, Cox does a good job in the last bit of the book of raising the troubling aspects of this kind of operation, and I had some of them in my head throughout the narrative. This scale of surveillance is worrying even if it’s directed at nasty people.

That almost led me to rate this lower, but reading Cox’s notes on how he put all of this together over a decade really impressed me. He did good work, and this subject is worth reading about.

• Dark Wire
• Joseph Cox
• privacy
• Cory Doctorow
• surveillance
• FBI