Russian Cyberpunk: How the Kremlin and the Oligarchs Are Building a "Digital Gulag"—and Who Is Fighting Back

Russia is often portrayed as a country where a "digital Gulag" has already become reality: the state possesses its citizens' personal data, monitors their online activity, phone calls, and communications, and uses this information to control society and suppress dissent.
The reality, argues investigative journalist Andrei Zakharov, is both more complex and more unsettling. Contemporary Russia is not so much a digital dictatorship as a cyberpunk state. Widespread corruption and bureaucratic incompetence have created an environment in which highly sensitive personal data is accessible not only to security agencies, but also to corporations, scammers, journalists, and virtually anyone else. For little money—or sometimes for free—almost any database can be obtained, from airline passenger records to bank statements. Some use this information to identify Russian soldiers responsible for war crimes in Ukraine; others to stalk romantic interests or devise extortion schemes.
How did former KGB officers develop software designed to exploit stolen databases sold at Moscow's famous Gorbushka electronics market? How did the author use leaked databases to uncover Vladimir Putin's alleged secret daughter? How did a group of Moscow programmers set out to build a groundbreaking technology of the future, only to create a vast surveillance system tracking millions of city residents? And how do both security services and activists identify the authors of anonymous Telegram channels?
In Russian Cyberpunk, one of the leading Russian-language investigative journalists brings together these remarkable stories—and dozens more—into a compelling account of Russia's shadow data economy. While the book offers many reasons for alarm, it also points to a source of hope: despite years of government efforts to bring the data market under complete state control, ordinary Russians continue to resist, often successfully undermining the Kremlin's ambitions.
 

Andrei Zakharov. Russian Cyberpunk: How the Kremlin and the Oligarchs Are Building a "Digital Gulag"—and Who Is Fighting Back. — Berlin: Echo Books / StraightForward, 2025.
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