"Underground Empire pulls off the improbable feat of rendering the intricacies of digital plumbing not only comprehensible but also captivating. ... SWIFT is a “boring but useful organization.” Financial payments systems are “simultaneously dull and arcane.” The location centers that undergird the internet are “dull-seeming but crucial.” Yet the tedium is the point. It’s precisely because these technical arrangements have all the sexiness of the flapper valve on a toilet that no one bothered much about them, until they attained their current scale, by which time it was too late to act against them."
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