It’s called Hacktivist by Alyssa Milano.
In September 2013, Alyssa Milano, one of Jack Dorsey’s best friends (and godfather to her son), went on Larry King Live to promote an upcoming graphic novel she had authored called Hacktivist. According to her, the novel’s main character (Edwin Hiccox) is based on Jack Dorsey. She would go on to repeat that again in the book’s Afterward and Dorsey himself has a note embedded on the first page.
In the novel, Dorsey, played by “Edwin”, is a billionaire co-founder of a popular social network based in San Francisco (a Twitter clone called Yourlife). And business is good for the founders until the Arab Spring erupts in Tunisia which is where the book starts off. The social network’s influence on the events are noticed by the US government and the CIA approaches the founders with terms for a startling trade: ‘give us access and control over your social network and in return we won’t prosecute you over your secret.’
As it turns out Edwin and his co-founder are the masterminds behind a famous elite hacking pseudonym called .sve_urs3lf. Their exploits are supposed to parallel the hacker collective Anonymous but in Milano’s book Anonymous is really just two people that are driven mostly by Edwin (Dorsey). In the book, Edwin was developing an advanced decentralized peer-to-peer network that will bring power back to the people until he is successfully blackmailed. As a result, he disappears.
During an interview, the writers who helped Alyssa Milano tell her story said they all tried to pick a name for the main character based on Jack that wouldn’t sound like any other hacker or activist’s name. They thought “Ed” was the safest bland name. By the time Edward Snowden did his deed in June 2013, the original comic version had already been finished and it was too late to change it. The main character’s last name “Hiccox” is never explained by them, but if one follows the book, I suspect it’s supposed to be another symbol of Ed’s resistance against the Cyber Command unit of the CIA that blackmails them to begin with.
Hiccox
Hi Cyber Command, Hugs and Kisses
Alyssa had claimed leading up to the book’s release that she had spoken with members of Anonymous but when pressed could not provide any evidence of it. Instead, she theorized that Anonymous might actually just be one guy who was using his organization as a front. There are many parallels or non-parallels one can draw from this story. Alyssa said she was interested in the internet social media activism of the era and that was her inspiration for the story while Jack, her son’s godfather the inspiration for the main character.
A sequel, in which the Jack character comes back looking rugged with a beard was published in 2016.
