English Summary/英文概要： It took just 13 days after the Skripal Salisbury poisoning to reveal the identity of one of the suspects – a decorated Russian spy. This huge investigative coup was made not by an intelligence agency, nor a news organisation, but by Eliot Higgins, a citizen journalist whose website – Bellingcat – is a portal for a dozen volunteer digital detectives from all over the world. One month later, Bellingcat revealed the identity of the second Russian suspect and sealed their place at the vanguard of a burgeoning new field – open source reporting.

THE DIGITAL DETECTIVE will tell the riveting story of how Eliot Higgins went from being a high school dropout to becoming the celebrated founder of Bellingcat and the creator of a whole new category of information-gathering which lies somewhere between spying and reporting. For decades we have been dumping data online by the billions of gigabites; instagram photos, tweets and Facebook posts, leaving an open digital trail of our interests, activities and location for anyone to follow. At the same time thousands of different tools for analysing that data have been created, from geo-location software, to an app that can identify the time of a day that a photograph was taken.

Simultaneously, digital disruption of the news media has led to the contraction of the mainstream media, leaving space for conspiracy theorists, spies and extremists to undermine freedom and democracy in ways that we are only just starting to understand. It was into this vacuum that Higgins, and the other citizen journalists of the world, have entered, armed with a laptop and smart phone, curiosity and endless patience to start the fightback in the name of truth. This is their story.

Eliot Higgins will work with bestselling novelist and journalist, Tom Rachman, to explore Bellingcat’s most successful investigations – the downing of Malaysia Flight 17 over Ukraine, the sourcing of weapons in the Syrian Civil War, scoops into journalistic phone hacking – with the drama and detail of a crime novel. It will also look at how open source reporting can be used in the prosecution of war crimes, in the undermining of propaganda, corruption and crime. It will consider the digital future and how applications for virtual reality, artificial intelligence and machine learning can be commandeered in the interests of an open society rather than used in the service of the powerful. It is a triumphant personal story; a book with practical applications; and has a message of optimism and empowerment at a time when disenchantment with, even fear of, the internet is intensifying.

Chinese Summary/中文概要： 索尔兹伯里中毒事件发生仅13天后，一名被授勋的俄罗斯间谍嫌疑人的身份就浮出水面。这场巨大的调查政变不是由情报机构或新闻机构发起的，而是由公民记者艾略特·希金斯发起的。一个月后，贝铃猫网站公布了第二名俄罗斯嫌疑人的身份，并确立了他们在一个新兴领域的先锋地位——公开资源报告。

《数字侦探》将讲述艾略特·希金斯如何从一名高中辍学生成长为贝铃猫网站的著名创始人，并开创了介于间谍和报道之间的全新信息收集领域。几十年来，我们在网上倾倒了数十亿千兆字节的数据；图片集上的照片、推特和脸书上的帖子，为我们的兴趣、活动和地点留下了一个开放的数字线索，供大家关注。与此同时，成千上万种不同的分析数据的工具被开发出来，从地理定位软件到一款可以识别照片拍摄时间的应用程序。

与此同时，新闻媒体的数字化破坏导致了主流媒体的收缩，为阴谋论者、间谍和极端分子留下了空间，以我们刚刚开始理解的方式破坏自由和民主。正是在这个真空中，希金斯和世界上其他公民记者，带着笔记本电脑和智能手机，怀着好奇心和无尽的耐心，以真相的名义开始了反击。这就是他们的故事。

艾略特·希金斯将与畅销小说家、记者汤姆·拉赫曼探索贝铃猫最成功的调查——马来西亚17号航班坠落乌克兰事件，叙利亚内战，武器采购的独家新闻记者电话窃听——犯罪小说的剧情和细节。它还将研究如何在起诉战争罪、破坏宣传、腐败和犯罪时使用公开资源报告。它将考虑数字的未来，以及虚拟现实、人工智能和机器学习的应用如何被一个开放社会的利益所支配，而不是被用来为权势者服务。这是一个成功的个人故事;具有实际应用价值的书;在人们对互联网越来越不抱幻想、甚至是恐惧的时候，他却传递出乐观和赋权的信息。（WYL）

Awards/获奖情况： “A lively account…there is an awful lot to be on guard against in cyberspace but also a willing and utterly capable army of defenders against those who would disinform, misinform, and outright lie for political advantage. Those who are not allergic to facts will find this a provocative, even inspirational read.” ―Kirkus Reviews

“Recent [open-source] journalism achievements-such as Bellingcat’s investigations … are compelling not just for their findings, but for the openness with which they explain the process of discovery. This is the closest that journalism has come to a scientific method.” ―New York Review of Books

“Taking on the Kremlin from his couch . . . Eliot Higgins and Bellingcat are fighting Vladimir Putin and his ilk, using little more than computers and smartphones.” ―Foreign Policy