The Onion Router

Looking for a reason to stay off the internet due to privacy concerns? The last year has brought one scandal after another where data is shared, mined, sold, and used in multiple ways. Data privacy isn’t a new issue, but the ubiquitous internet cloud that provides increasing convenience comes with increasing ability to hack data. Back in the day, before I had ever heard of a modem, and was teaching myself DOS 3.0 through a book, one of the author’s maxims stuck with me: In the never-ending battle between hackers and protectors, the hackers will always eventually win. Honestly, at the time I was on the side of the hackers – trying to find out ways to circumvent protections to copy computer games.

Anyone narrating a history chooses the salient points that provide the story arc. The history of the internet has several narratives depending on what you want to emphasize. However, the ARPANET is always mentioned, at least in passing. For many, it was nerdy computer hackers, in what was to become Silicon Valley, that built the early version of the internet. The Pentagon’s involvement through its Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) is downplayed. Others note the military’s role, but emphasize that a decentralized communications network was needed in the looming specter of nuclear war.

In Surveillance Valley, subtitled The Secret Military History of the Internet, journalist Yasha Levine resurrects an old story in light of new data. “The impetus was rooted… in the dark military arts of counterinsurgency and America’s fight against the perceived global spread of communism. In the 1960s, America was a global power overseeing an increasing volatile world… These were not traditional wars that involved big armies but guerilla campaigns and local rebellions, frequently fought in regions where Americans had little experience… and some argued that the only effective way [was] to develop and leverage computer-aided information technology… a sort of early warning radar for human societies: a networked computer system that watched for social and political threats and intercepted them… hardwired to be a surveillance tool from the start. No matter what we use the network for today – dating, directions, encrypted chat, email, or just reading the news – it always had a dual-use nature rooted in intelligence gathering and war.”

Levine’s narrative is engaging and chock-full of information. I had little familiarity with early events in the ‘60s through the ‘80s, and I didn’t know about the student protests during that era against the ARPANET. I had heard of Radio Free Europe but had not pieced together how it connected to the military. I learned about the 1984 Hackers’ Conference, and individuals such as Stewart Brand and Stephen Wolff. I learned about NSFNET and how it got privatized, quietly with no fanfare. Google features prominently of course. Given its behemoth size and spread, it was interesting to learn about JigSaw, one of many pieces covered by a large ‘umbrella’ corporation.

The most interesting part of the story comes at the end. Levine traces the foundation of the Tor Network, a parallel ‘dark’ network used by dissidents, spies, black-marketers, and anyone hoping to escape being tracked on the ‘open’ internet. You’ve likely heard of Tor, thanks to now well-known names such as Edward Snowden and the Dread Pirate Roberts (founder of Silk Road). What does Tor stand for? The Onion Router. Supposedly routing yourself through layers and layers make your digital tracks difficult to trace. What does this have to do with surveillance and the U.S. military? That’s one among many questions Levine poses. There might not be a single clear ‘smoking gun’ but he has built up substantial circumstantial evidence by following a key investigate rule-of-thumb: Follow the Money. It’s uncanny and disturbing to say the least. You’ll have to read his book to draw your own conclusions from his assemblage of materials.

Coincidentally, I have just finished watching the final season of The Americans. It’s one of the few series I have watched all the way to the end. I rate it excellent overall, and that’s because it brings to light – in a very real and thoughtful way – the drama of the human condition. The backdrop of the story, assimilated Russian spies in ‘80s U.S., provides not just intrigue, but allows the exploration of the human drama. Spycraft and surveillance was very different in the ‘80s than it is today. Machine learning and A.I. strategies have become increasingly dominant as the data deluge heightens. Attempts to control the flow information today are similarly prominent, as they were during the Cold War. It might be a new cold war out here as governments today attempt to build walled ‘gardens’ to control that flow. Brave New World.