Alessandro asked me to write the foreword to this book.
I said yes without thinking too much. Then I thought about it and understood
why I had said yes without thinking too much. Because Alessandro Papini
is one of those rare people who does not need to explain who he is. You
understand it from how he looks at problems. Not from the surface but from
the architecture, not from the result but from the mechanism. He is a hacker in
the sense that really matters, the one that has nothing to do with green
screens and black hoodies that cinema sold you for thirty years.
He is someone who puts his finger on the live wire. To learn how much it hurts.
We met in that borderland where offensive security meets defensive,
where technical skills collide with legal responsibility, where those who know how things break
are called on to explain how to fix them. In that territory, the
people you can trust you count on one hand. Alessandro is among them.
I cannot tell you how we met. I cannot tell you in what
context. But I can tell you that in years of work in environments where trust
is scarce and competence is the only currency that counts, I
learned to tell authentic people from those who perform
authenticity. Alessandro is in the first category. Without question.
This book is not a technical essay. It is not a manual. It is not
even, in the strict sense, popular science. It is
something more uncomfortable. It is the honest attempt to explain to the wider
public how the digital world you live in really works, not
how you were told it works, not how you wish it worked,
but how it works. With all its mechanisms, shadows, and
grey zones the media have neither the time nor the interest to
describe with the precision they deserve.
Alessandro does so with a quality almost as rare in this field as
digital privacy itself: honesty.
He does not hide behind technical complexity to seem more
important. He does not simplify to the point of lying. He does not reassure when there is no
reason to reassure. He says things as they are and says them in a way
anyone can understand, without losing the substance. I warn you, though. If
you want a book that leaves you calm, close it now and save yourself
the time. What you find inside is not reassuring. Not
because Alessandro wants to scare you but because the reality of cyber
crime, surveillance, and systemic vulnerability in which you live every
day is not reassuring. It is a reality that demands
awareness. And awareness, as they know well in Naples, always
hurts a little before it does good.
The truth hurts, but it is the only thing that heals. (Neapolitan proverb)
That is what this book does: it gives you tools to see what you
would prefer not to see. To understand the mechanisms you would prefer to
ignore. To make decisions about your security, your
privacy, your data with your eyes open instead of shut.
It does not ask you to become experts. It asks you to stop being
blind.
And that, in the world we live in, is already an act of resistance.
Edward Snowden told you in 2013. The world listened for six
months. Then it forgot everything and downloaded TikTok.
Alessandro is telling you now. Read carefully. Because
this time you may not get a second chance to hear it.
The greatest danger is the one we refuse to see. (Neapolitan proverb)
Z0rg — Alpha Team