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On the surface, it looks like yet another cyber attack, the 'usual' leak. This time, however, it is something much bigger that will change the lives of the protagonists as well, with a constant question mark: 'who can I trust?' But the answer will not be easy to find.

We are in contemporary Italy, but moved forward, into the future, by a few years. There are emergency laws, special prisons for terrorism and cyber-terrorism, a continuing economic crisis. An unlikely trio of hacktivists vandalise some government databases, taking huge amounts of confidential material. It looks like one of the usual cyber attacks, one of the usual leaks of documents, until you realise that this time it could be something much more substantial. But also something indecipherable. This is why Francesco, a 35-year-old precarious journalist, father of two, widower after his wife was killed in a strange accident, gets involved. And he in turn brings in a career woman working in a social network, with some unfinished accounts from the past. The incongruous group then begins a series of investigations to find out what is behind those documents and in particular a possible surveillance programme they seem to allude to. But the circle around the group immediately begins to tighten, albeit intangibly and elusively, as other figures come into play: politicians, policemen, service agents, artificial intelligence software entrepreneurs, Russian hackers, old and new friends. Without it ever being clear to each of them who they can trust. Amidst daring escapes, police raids, secret communications and trips to chase witnesses, piece by piece the pieces of a larger mosaic will emerge, which will also end up outlining unexpected and disturbing personal truths. As the main characters, whose lives are progressively shattered by the decision to get involved, now draw closer, now drift apart, absorbed by the need to escape the mechanisms above them.

The author: Carola Frediani

He started working as a digital and tech journalist at the Totem agency headed by Franco Carlini. With other colleagues he co-founded the Effecinque news agency. Then at La Stampa as social media editor, and later in the investigations team. In the meantime he wrote about cybersecurity, privacy, surveillance e digital rights for various national and international publications. His latest books (non-fiction) are Network Wars (Laterza) and Cybercrime (Hoepli). He currently works as cybersecurity awareness manager in an international company.

In his spare time he writes a free weekly newsletter on these topics, a thoughtful review of news from the cyber world:

https://guerredirete.substack.com/