Coding Democracy: How Hackers Are Disrupting Power, Surveillance, and Authoritarianism

Coders seeking to do good in the world will find much inspiration here.

She's building a powerful case for the fact that technology as we know it--omnipresent, flawed, world-improving--has become so entrenched and static that it really does need the hackers worrying the edges of its firewalls. In Webb's telling, hackers aren't heroes destined to bring the world to a grand new order of their own transgressive imaginings. They're agents of positive chaos.

'Coding Democracy' is a thorough, well-written work of scholarship that should be seen as a welcome addition to a growing body of work about the relationship between computing, society and government. A lawyer, Webb is able to weave the hacker narrative into various strands of thought relating to political science, history, legislation, law enforcement, regulations, civil law, politics and ethics.