Active Measures, Thomas Rid
Active Measures, Thomas Rid
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Active Measures
The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare

Author: Thomas Rid

Narrator: Derek Perkins

Unabridged: 13 hr 23 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/21/2020


Synopsis

This revelatory and dramatic history of disinformation traces the rise of secret organized deception operations from the interwar period to contemporary internet troll farms

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, he warned that Russian military intelligence was “carefully planning and timing a high-stakes political campaign" to disrupt the democratic process. But as crafty as such so-called active measures have become, they are not new.

The story of modern disinformation begins with the clash between communism and capitalism after the Russian Revolution, which would come to define the Cold War. In Active Measures, Rid reveals startling intelligence and security secrets from materials written in more than ten languages across several nations, and from interviews with current and former operatives. He exposes the disturbing yet colorful history of professional, organized lying, revealing for the first time some of the century’s most significant operations—many of them nearly beyond belief. A White Russian ploy backfires and brings down a New York police commissioner; a KGB-engineered, anti-Semitic hate campaign creeps back across the Berlin Wall; the CIA backs a fake publishing empire, run by a former Wehrmacht U-boat commander that produces Germany’s best jazz magazine. Rid tracks the rise of leaking, and shows how spies began to exploit emerging internet culture many years before WikiLeaks. Finally, he sheds new light on the 2016 election, especially the role of the infamous “troll farm” in St. Petersburg as well as a much more harmful attack that unfolded in the shadows.

Active Measures takes the listener on a guided tour deep into a vast hall of mirrors old and new, pointing to a future of engineered polarization, more active and less measured—but also offering the tools to cut through the game of deception.

A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux

About Thomas Rid

Thomas Rid is a professor at Johns Hopkins University. He testified on disinformation in front of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. He is also the author of Rise of the Machines: A Cybernetic History.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Ryan on May 04, 2020

This is a truly amazing summary of disinformation (especially early Soviet, US vs Soviet during the Cold War, and post-cold war Russian operations). Pretty amazing overview of everything. I was already very familiar with all the post-cold-war stuff, but learned an a lot about the earlier periods fro......more

Goodreads review by Ola on August 30, 2020

A good overview of a subset of active measures primarily between US and Soviet. However, quite frustrating to read, because it's so obvious the author has a political agenda behind everything written. It's not an obvective overview in any sense of the word - rather it's a politically slanted history......more

Goodreads review by Maćkowy on August 03, 2022

Nudna książka i właściwie w całości o komunistycznej bezpiece. Próżno szukać w Wojnie informacyjnej na przykład tematu rzekomego posiadania przez Saddama Husajna broni chemicznej, co było bezpośrednią przyczyną wybuchu drugiej wojny w zatoce. Nie ma nic o Bellingcat, walczącym od Pomarańczowej Rewol......more

Goodreads review by Dorin on July 08, 2023

This is a history of active measures from the end of the Second World War up to 2017. Active measures is a broader term than just disinformation. Although an important part of an active measure is disinformation, in the sense that we know it today, it may include other forms of political warfare: pr......more

Goodreads review by Dave on June 21, 2020

This may be one the most important book on the subject of disinformation since Ladislav Bittman's The KGB and Soviet Disinformation: An Insiders View.......more