This episode of Missiles for the Masses explores the origins of the internet as a tool developed for counterinsurgency and data collection. We trace its beginnings in ARPANET and the Cambridge Project, and then move on to the modern entwinement of corporate technologies with the surveillance apparatus of the state. We discuss how projects that seemingly protect users’ privacy are funded by intelligence agencies’ capital funds like In-Q-Tel, and how programs like Tor and Signal have been used as soft power mechanisms of counterinsurgency.

It’s all about data!

Recommended reading:

Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet – Yasha Levine

The Cambridge Project: Social Science for Social Control – Students for a Democratic Society

Basic Politics for Movement Security – J Sakai

The Cybernetic Hypothesis – Tiqqun