This Is How They Tell Me the World Ends: The Cyberweapons Arms Race

“Because of the sensitivities of the subject matter, many of those interviewed for this book agreed to speak only on the condition that they not be identified. Two people only spoke with me on the condition that their names be changed. Their accounts were fact-checked with others whenever possible. Many agreed to participate only to fact-check the accounts provided to me by others.”

This passage reveals some of the difficulties that Perlroth faced in securing sources, and her decision to include this information reflects both her journalistic candor and her willingness to acknowledge the inevitable flaws in her presentation. Such meta-information is typical of longer works of investigative journalism because the reliability of information is of paramount importance in this genre. Perlroth uses simple, matter-of-fact statements to present her process clearly and concisely, and her use of transparency also contributes to her overall ethos.

“It was their twenty-first-century Chernobyl. And at the old nuclear plant, some ninety miles north of Kyiv, the computers went ‘black, black, black,’ Sergei Goncharov, Chernobyl’s gruff tech administrator told me.

Goncharov was just returning from lunch when the clock struck 1:12 P.M., and twenty-five hundred computers went dark over the course of seven minutes. Calls started flooding in; everything was down.”

In this passage, Perlroth uses a barrage of facts and figures to present a precise and accurate account of the NotPetya attack. The use of numbers provides an objective account of the scale and rapidity of the attack, emphasizing its severity. This severity is also compounded by the comparison between this attack and the Chernobyl disaster, the globally infamous meltdown of a Soviet nuclear power station that spread radioactive fallout over Ukraine and other regions of Europe in 1986. The repetition in the firsthand testimony from Goncharov (“black, black, black”) creates a sense of urgency by directly conveying the powerful effect that the attack had on real individuals.