// Prerequisites
What to read before The Art of Invisibility
If The Art of Invisibility 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 · 2024
Hacks, Leaks, and Revelations
Micah Lee on the operational craft of working with leaked datasets: authentication, OPSEC for sources and journalists, and the Python tooling to actually parse what arrives in your dropbox.
Beginner4/5Micah Lee02 · 2024
Extreme Privacy
Michael Bazzell's defender-side companion to OSINT Techniques: a step-by-step program for removing yourself from data brokers, public records, and the everyday surveillance economy without going off-grid.
Intermediate5/5Michael Bazzell03 · 2018
Open Source Intelligence Techniques and Tools
Hassan and Hijazi's pedagogical introduction to OSINT framed inside the broader intelligence cycle (collection → processing → analysis → dissemination) rather than around a specific toolchain.
Beginner3/5Nihad A. Hassan, Rami Hijazi04 · 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 Rigaud05 · 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 Snowden06 · 2024
OSINT Techniques
Michael Bazzell's relentlessly updated technical manual for finding people, accounts, breach data, geolocation evidence, and online identifiers — the de facto reference of the modern OSINT field.
Intermediate5/5Michael Bazzell07 · 2017
American Kingpin
A propulsive account of how Ross Ulbricht built the Silk Road dark-web drug empire as Dread Pirate Roberts, and how a handful of investigators across rival agencies finally unmasked him.
Beginner5/5Nick Bilton08 · 2014
Countdown to Zero Day
Kim Zetter's investigative reconstruction of Stuxnet, the joint US/Israeli operation that physically damaged Iranian uranium-enrichment centrifuges via a worm, and what its discovery revealed about state-level cyber capability.
Beginner5/5Kim Zetter