GCHQ
Centenary Edition
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GCHQ
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Narrated by:
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Peter Noble
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By:
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Richard Aldrich
About this listen
FULLY UPDATED CENTENARY EDITION
‘An important book’ Max Hastings, Sunday Times
GCHQ is the largest and most secretive intelligence organisation in the UK, and has existed for 100 years – but we still know next to nothing about it.
In this ground-breaking book – the first and most definitive history of the organisation ever published – intelligence expert Richard Aldrich traces GCHQ’s development from a wartime code-breaking operation based in the Bedfordshire countryside into one of the world leading espionage organisations.
Packed with dramatic spy stories, GCHQ also explores the organisation’s role behind the most alarming headlines of our time, from fighting ISIS to cyberterrorism, from the surveillance state to Russian hacking. Revelatory, brilliantly written and fully updated, this is the crucial missing link in Britain’s intelligence history.
©2019 Richard Aldrich (P)2019 HarperCollins Publishers LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
"Richard J. Aldrich is an outstanding analyst and historian of intelligence and he tells this story well...an important book, which will make readers think uncomfortably not only about the state’s power to monitor our lives, but also the appalling vulnerability of every society in thrall to communications technology as we are." (Max Hastings, Sunday Times)
"An intriguing history of covert surveillance...thoroughly engaging." (Daily Telegraph)
"Skilfully weaves together the personal, political, military and technological dimensions of electronic espionage" (Economist)
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 312
We live in the age of disinformation - of organized deception. Spy agencies pour vast resources into hacking, leaking, and forging data, often with the goal of weakening the very foundation of liberal democracy: trust in facts. Thomas Rid, a renowned expert on technology and national security, was one of the first to sound the alarm, even before the 2016 election. But this is not new. The story of modern disinformation begins with the clash between communism and capitalism after the Russian Revolution.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Grounding book for COVID 19 Media
- By fjness on 05-12-20
By: Thomas Rid
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Kill Chain
- The Rise of the High-Tech Assassins
- By: Andrew Cockburn
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 173
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 146
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Story4 out of 5 stars 141
This essential, pause-resister narrative on the history of drone warfare by the acclaimed author of Rumsfeld explores how this practice emerged, who made it happen, and the real consequences of targeted killing.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Introduction
- By Batman on 03-24-15
By: Andrew Cockburn
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Dark Territory
- The Secret History of Cyber War
- By: Fred Kaplan
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 9 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,254
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,971
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,960
As cyber attacks dominate front-page news, as hackers join the list of global threats, and as top generals warn of a coming cyber war, few books are more timely and enlightening than Dark Territory: The Secret History of Cyber War by Slate columnist and Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Fred Kaplan.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Best narrator - Malcolm Hillgartner
- By Greg Davis on 07-20-16
By: Fred Kaplan
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Your Government Failed You
- Breaking the Cycle of National Security Disasters
- By: Richard A. Clarke
- Narrated by: Richard A. Clarke
- Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 88
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 44
In Your Government Failed You, Clarke looks at why failures have continued and how America and the world can succeed against the terrorists. But Clarke goes beyond terrorism to examine the recurring U.S. government disasters. Despite the lessons of Vietnam, we've gotten involved in Iraq. Drawing on his 30 years in the White House, Pentagon, State Department, and Intelligence Community, Clarke discovers patterns in the failure and suggests ways to stop the cycle.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Stellar Criticism
- By Tim on 04-01-09
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Killer Elite: Completely Revised and Updated
- The Inside Story of America's Most Secret Special Operations Team
- By: Michael Smith
- Narrated by: James Cameron Stewart
- Length: 12 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 671
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 586
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 585
A top-secret US Army Special Operations unit has been running covert missions all over the world, from leading death squads to the hideout of drug baron Pablo Escobar to capturing Saddam Hussein and, in one of the greatest special operations missions of all time, helping to track down al-Qa'eda leader Osama bin Laden. "The Activity," as it became known to insiders, has achieved near-mythical status, even among the world's Special Operations elite.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Narrator is awful
- By Vinny on 09-20-17
By: Michael Smith
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Dirty Wars
- The World Is a Battlefield
- By: Jeremy Scahill
- Narrated by: Tom Weiner
- Length: 24 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 788
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 685
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 694
From Afghanistan and Pakistan to Yemen, Somalia, and beyond, Scahill speaks to the CIA agents, mercenaries, and elite Special Operations Forces operators who populate the dark side of American war-fighting. He goes deep into al Qaeda-held territory in Yemen and walks the streets of Mogadishu with CIA-backed warlords. We also meet the survivors of US night raids and drone strikes - including families of US citizens targeted for assassination by their own government - who reveal the human consequences of the dirty wars the United States struggles to keep hidden.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Non political BUT very anti-violence
- By aaron on 05-11-13
By: Jeremy Scahill
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1983
- Reagan, Andropov, and a World on the Brink
- By: Taylor Downing
- Narrated by: Ben Onwukwe
- Length: 12 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 107
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
A riveting, real-life thriller about 1983 - the year tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union nearly brought the world to the point of nuclear Armageddon. The year 1983 was an extremely dangerous one - more dangerous than 1962, the year of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the United States, President Reagan vastly increased defense spending, described the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," and launched the "Star Wars" Strategic Defense Initiative to shield the country from incoming missiles.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great story, poor narration choices.
- By John Gray on 02-11-19
By: Taylor Downing
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Black Site
- The CIA in the Post-9/11 World
- By: Philip Mudd
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 7 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 133
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 109
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 106
When the towers fell on September 11, 2001, nowhere were the reverberations more powerfully felt than at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia. Almost overnight, the intelligence organization evolved into a warfighting intelligence service, constructing what was known internally as "the Program": a web of top-secret detention facilities intended to help prevent future attacks on American soil and around the world. With Black Site, former deputy director of the CIA Counterterrorist Center Philip Mudd presents a full, never-before-told story of this now-controversial program.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A lot of insight and context
- By Syrus Tam on 05-16-22
By: Philip Mudd
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Sandworm
- A New Era of Cyberwar and the Hunt for the Kremlin's Most Dangerous Hackers
- By: Andy Greenberg
- Narrated by: Mark Bramhall
- Length: 12 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,133
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,775
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,771
In 2014, the world witnessed the start of a mysterious series of cyberattacks. Targeting American utility companies, NATO, and electric grids in Eastern Europe, the strikes grew ever more brazen. They culminated in the summer of 2017, when the malware known as NotPetya was unleashed, penetrating, disrupting, and paralyzing some of the world's largest businesses—from drug manufacturers to software developers to shipping companies. At the attack's epicenter in Ukraine, ATMs froze. The railway and postal systems shut down. Hospitals went dark.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Thru the eyes of the Sandworm's hunters and prey
- By ndru1 on 11-12-19
By: Andy Greenberg
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Twilight Warriors
- The Soldiers, Spies, and Special Agents Who Are Revolutionizing the American Way of War
- By: James Kitfield
- Narrated by: Tom Perkins
- Length: 15 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 102
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 91
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 91
In Twilight Warriors, award-winning foreign correspondent James Kitfield introduces us to the tight-knit brotherhood that strives to keep the United States safe from the dimly understood threats it now faces. Together these men have broken down the boundaries between their respective agencies to engineer a network-centric way of fighting using a seamless web of intelligence analysts, information networks, FBI forensics experts, and Special Forces units to take the fight to America's enemies as never before.
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5 out of 5 stars
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South African Perspectives
- By Bernard Remacle on 03-22-17
By: James Kitfield
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The Quiet Americans
- Four CIA Spies at the Dawn of the Cold War - a Tragedy in Three Acts
- By: Scott Anderson
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean, Scott Anderson
- Length: 22 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 434
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 377
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 371
At the end of World War II, the United States was considered the victor over tyranny and a champion of freedom. But it was clear—to some—that the Soviet Union was already seeking to expand and foment revolution around the world, and the American government’s strategy in response relied on the secret efforts of a newly formed CIA. Chronicling their fascinating lives, Scott Anderson follows the exploits of four spies. Despite their ambitions, time and again their efforts went awry, thwarted by ham-fisted politicking and ideological rigidity at the highest levels of the government.
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5 out of 5 stars
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A Tragedy for One
- By Amazon Customer on 09-23-20
By: Scott Anderson
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The Secret War
- Spies, Ciphers, and Guerrillas, 1939-1945
- By: Max Hastings
- Narrated by: Steven Crossley
- Length: 30 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 386
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 342
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 337
Spies, codes, and guerrillas played unprecedentedly critical roles in the Second World War, exploited by every nation in the struggle to gain secret knowledge of its foes, and to sow havoc behind the fronts. In The Secret War, Max Hastings presents a worldwide cast of characters and some extraordinary sagas of intelligence and resistance, to create a new perspective on the greatest conflict in history.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Better read than listened to
- By B. In -t Veld on 03-25-17
By: Max Hastings
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The Perfect Weapon
- War, Sabotage, and Fear in the Cyber Age
- By: David E. Sanger
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,459
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,276
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,267
The Perfect Weapon is the startling inside story of how the rise of cyberweapons transformed geopolitics like nothing since the invention of the atomic bomb. Cheap to acquire, easy to deny, and usable for a variety of malicious purposes, cyber is now the weapon of choice for democracies, dictators, and terrorists. Two presidents - Bush and Obama - drew first blood with Operation Olympic Games, which used malicious code to blow up Iran’s nuclear centrifuges, and yet America proved remarkably unprepared when its own weapons were stolen from its arsenal.
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1 out of 5 stars
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mix of information and propaganda
- By Inthego on 06-14-19
By: David E. Sanger
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The Hacker and the State
- Cyber Attacks and the New Normal of Geopolitics
- By: Ben Buchanan
- Narrated by: Christopher Grove
- Length: 11 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 159
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 135
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 135
Packed with insider information based on interviews, declassified files, and forensic analysis of company reports, The Hacker and the State sets aside fantasies of cyber-annihilation to explore the real geopolitical competition of the digital age. Tracing the conflict of wills and interests among modern nations, Ben Buchanan reveals little-known details of how China, Russia, North Korea, Britain, and the United States hack one another in a relentless struggle for dominance.
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4 out of 5 stars
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A good overview of hacking influence on government
- By Eric Jackson on 08-05-20
By: Ben Buchanan
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Good Hunting
- An American Spymaster's Story
- By: Jack Devine
- Narrated by: Malcolm Hillgartner
- Length: 12 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 354
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 307
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 308
Good Hunting: An American Spymaster's Story is the spellbinding memoir of Devine's time in the CIA, where he served for more than 30 years, rising to become the acting deputy director of operations, responsible for all of the agency's spying operations. This is a story of intrigue and high-stakes maneuvering - all the more gripping when the fate of our geopolitical order hangs in the balance. But this audiobook also sounds a warning to our nation's decision makers.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Fascinating, An education on spying
- By Anthony on 12-13-15
By: Jack Devine
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The Puzzle Palace
- Inside the National Security Agency, America's Most Secret Intelligence Organization
- By: James Bamford
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 20 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 63
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Story4 out of 5 stars 63
In this remarkable tour de force of investigative reporting, James Bamford exposes the inner workings of America's largest, most secretive, and arguably most intrusive intelligence agency. The NSA has long eluded public scrutiny, but The Puzzle Palace penetrates its vast network of power and unmasks the people who control it, often with shocking disregard for the law.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Great NSA genesis - but watch the publication date
- By E. M. on 12-05-18
By: James Bamford
What listeners say about GCHQ
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Darren Digby
- 04-12-23
Factual and riveting
Amazingly well researched incredibly detailed had to listen twice to catch all the information strongly recommend
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- philstopford
- 04-01-24
Absolutely fascinating
This is such a fascinating story, crisply presented. The way the history is connected together to carry the reader (listener) from the start to the current day is to be admired. It doesn't go into the technical detail of what was involved, which might be expected, largely focusing on the politics, personalities and events, but it can be frustrating to be teased (how were things compromised, how were certain devices able to capture information). It's really, though, my only wish - to have seen a bit more under the covers of the technical aspects.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Nicholas Thompson
- 04-28-22
Outstanding description
Fascinating study. The final chapters were excellent: discussing the impact of Snowden and the challenge of dealing with the explosion of communication data engendered by the internet. Dry but highly interesting book. The challenges faced and overcome by the security services continue to present huge intellectual and resource demands that if unmet will expose us to severe risk.
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