When Toronto novelist Ian Thornton drops two dollars in the cowboy hat of a mysterious panhandler, they bond and Thornton falls into a nether world through Alice’s rabbit hole. The man turns out to be legendary Anonymous hacktivist, Commander X, on the run from the FBI. Christopher Mark Doyon, a.k.a. Commander X, is one of the most iconic, divisive, and outspoken figures in the history of the international hacktivist network. The story follows the next year of Commander X plotting to escape Canada to find his freedom. Acclaimed author Ian Thornton is ready to tell his own once-in-a-lifetime real-life tale of Mister Robot and reminds us that we should never discount the human at shin-level on the sidewalk. He or she might just be about to de-throne a Middle Eastern dictator, bring the Vatican, Turkey or Israel to a standstill, propel Black Lives Matter into the consciousness or hack an American election. “It’s revolution, ma’an! Get used to it.”
“What a rollicking journey this has been! I can’t remember since reading Dostoevsky, having followed the exploits of such a conflicted character as Commander X, yet still enjoying the ride. For sheer drama, persistence, dogged loyalty and masochism, Ian Thornton’s memoir has to take the biscuit.”
– Andre Singer OBE
“All you need to be a world class hacker is a laptop and a cool pair of sunglasses. The laptop is optional.”
– Commander X
“These are the people that are not going to abide sometimes by the white lines in the street. They’re going to do their own thing. That makes them even more dangerous.”
– - Leon Panetta, Former Secretary of Defense and Director of the CIA on Commander X from Ian Thornton’s film, ‘The Face of Anonymous’
This book was made with the generous support of the Manitoba Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts.
