// Prerequisites
What to read before À la trace
If À la trace feels too steep at beginner level, here is what to read first. Lighter books in the same topics that build the prerequisites this one assumes.
01 · 2016
Surveillance://
A lucid, accessible case for digital privacy — how mass surveillance works, why it matters, and concrete ways to take back control — by the founder of Mozilla Europe.
Beginner4/5Tristan Nitot02 · 2010
La vie privée, un problème de vieux cons ?
A provocative, well-reported take on privacy in the digital age — answering the cliché that 'young people don't care about privacy' — by an investigative journalist specialised in surveillance.
Beginner3/5Jean-Marc Manach03 · 2023
Pegasus
The inside story of the Forbidden Stories investigation into NSO Group's Pegasus spyware, told by the journalists who ran it. The best narrative account of what commercial zero-click surveillance actually does to its targets.
Beginner4/5Laurent Richard, Sandrine Rigaud04 · 2019
Permanent Record
Edward Snowden's first-person memoir: the technical work that led him into the NSA's mass-surveillance programs, his reasoning for disclosure, and the Hong Kong handoff to the journalists who broke the story.
Beginner4/5Edward Snowden05 · 2014
Anonymat sur Internet
A practical French guide to online anonymity and privacy — proxies, VPNs, Tor, secure messaging and mobile — by a Le Monde cybersecurity journalist (later one of the Pegasus reporters).
Beginner3/5Martin Untersinger06 · 2021
RGPD et droit des données personnelles
A complete French manual on data-protection law under the GDPR and the 2018 loi Informatique et Libertés — obligations, rights and how to comply — by an engineer and doctor of law.
Intermediate3/5Fabrice Mattatia07 · 2023
A Hacker's Mind
Bruce Schneier extends the security-engineering frame of "hacking" to law, finance, politics, and tax: every rule-based system has exploitable seams, and the wealthy and powerful exploit them constantly.
Beginner4/5Bruce Schneier08 · 2018
Click Here to Kill Everybody
Bruce Schneier's policy-level argument that as everything becomes a computer (cars, medical devices, infrastructure, voting), the security failures that used to merely cost us money will start costing lives — and the regulatory shape of that future is being decided now.
Beginner4/5Bruce Schneier