event

The Red Web: The Struggle Between Russia’s Digital Dictators and the New Online Revolutionaries

Wed. October 21st, 2015
Washington, DC

The Internet in Russia is either the most efficient totalitarian tool or the device by which totalitarianism will be overthrown. Perhaps both.

Drawing from scores of interviews personally conducted with numerous prominent officials in the Russian Ministry of Communications and web-savvy activists challenging the state, Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan’s book, The Red Web peels back the history of advanced surveillance systems in Russia. From research laboratories in Soviet-era labor camps, to the legalization of government monitoring of all telephone and Internet communications in the 1990s, to the present day, their incisive and alarming investigation into the Kremlin’s massive online-surveillance state exposes just how easily a free global exchange can be coerced into becoming a tool of repression and geopolitical warfare. Dissidents, oligarchs, and some of the world’s most dangerous hackers collide in the uniquely Russian virtual world of The Red Web.

Please join us for a conversation with the book’s authors, moderated by David Hoffman.  The Red Web will be available to purchase, and a book signing and reception will take place after the event. 

Andrei Soldatov

Andrei Soldatov is an investigative journalist and editor of Agentura.Ru, an information hub on intelligence agencies. He is a columnist for Ezhednevy Journal and the Moscow Times and regularly makes comments on terrorism and intelligence issues for Vedomosti, Radio Free Europe, and the BBC. He co-authored The New Mobility (Perseus Books Group, 2010) andThe Red Web (Perseus Books Group, 2015).

Irina Borogan

Irina Borogan is an investigative journalist and deputy editor of Agentura. Ru. She regularly writes for Foreign Policy and Foreign Affairs and is a regular commentator on terrorism for Radio Free Europe and the BBC Russian service. She co-authored The New Mobility (Perseus Books Group, 2010) andThe Red Web (Perseus Books Group, 2015). 

David Hoffman

David Hoffman is a contributing editor at the Washington Post. He is the author of The Dead Hand: The Untold Story of the Cold War Arms Race, which won the Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction in 2010, and The Oligarchs: Wealth and Power in the New Russia. 

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.
event speakers

Andrei Soldatov

Irina Borogan

David Hoffman