Summary of Jacob Helberg's The Wires of War

By IRB Media

Get the Summary of Jacob Helberg's The Wires of War in 20 minutes. Please note: This is a summary & not the original book. Original book introduction: From 2016 to 2020, Jacob Helberg led Google’s global internal product policy efforts to combat disinformation and foreign interference. During this time, he found himself in the midst of what can only be described as a quickly escalating two-front technology cold war between democracy and autocracy.

On the front-end, we’re fighting to control the software—applications, news information, social media platforms, and more—of what we see on the screens of our computers, tablets, and phones, a clash which started out primarily with Russia but now increasingly includes China and Iran. Even more ominously, we’re also engaged in a hidden back-end battle—largely with China—to control the Internet’s hardware, which includes devices like cellular phones, satellites, fiber-optic cables, and 5G networks.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Dec 7, 2021
• ISBN: 9781669341925

IRB Media

With IRB books, you can get the key takeaways and analysis of a book in 15 minutes. We read every chapter, identify the key takeaways and analyze them for your convenience.

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Insights on Jacob Helberg's The Wires of War

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The author was hired by Google the day before Donald Trump was elected president. The night of November 8, he watched the election returns with a small group at the offices of a friend’s tech firm.

#2

The rise of fake news and its impact on elections prompted Google to create new algorithms to prevent such websites from ranking highly in search results.

#3

The author began to understand how the tech industry could have been manipulated by foreign powers, and how they could have missed the signs.

#4

The first version of the Internet was not designed to be global, and was instead a series of mostly unconnected regional computer networks. It was not until the birth of email in 1979 that the network began to take on its modern form.

#5

The government began developing the policies that would eventually become the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act in 1986, and the Electronic Communications Privacy Act in 1986, to try and combat hackers.

#6

The Internet and digital technology have revolutionized our lives in so many ways, from communicating with friends and family to conducting business. But these advances have also created new opportunities for criminals to exploit.

#7

The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 marked a major turning point in world history, as