// Comparison
À la trace vs Pegasus: Which Should You Read?
Two cybersecurity books on Surveillance, compared honestly: who each is for, what each does best, and which to read first.
An investigative map of modern surveillance — from data brokers and facial recognition to contact-tracing — charting how continuous digital tracking became normal, by a French tech journalist.
How a Spy in Your Pocket Threatens the End of Privacy, Dignity, and Democracy
Laurent Richard, Sandrine Rigaud
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.
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Key takeaways
- A 2020 investigative cartography of the new surveillance — data brokers, facial recognition, tracing.
- Tesquet reports with specifics, making the abstract surveillance economy concrete.
- Read for the landscape and the cases; pair with Nitot/Untersinger for what to do about it.
- Zero-click exploitation removes the user from the security model entirely; there is no link not to tap and no mistake to avoid.
- A commercial vendor selling to governments launders state surveillance through a layer of plausible deniability that NSO exploits relentlessly.
- The targets were not just terrorists and criminals as advertised, but journalists, lawyers, activists, and heads of state.
How they compare
À la trace and Pegasus are both rated 4/5 in our catalog. Pick by topic preference and reading style rather than by rating.
Both books target beginner-level readers, so the choice is about topic, not difficulty.
À la trace and Pegasus both cover Surveillance, Privacy, so reading them in sequence reinforces the same material from different angles.