Human activities are becoming increasingly dependent on the Internet and, therefore, susceptible to its vulnerabilities. Between 1998 and 2002, the Brazilian government discussed and implemented the ICP-Brasil or, the Brazilian Public Key Infrastructure (Infra-estrutura de Chaves Públicas do Brasil). The aim was to minimize the uncertainty by providing a digital certification - to identify and authenticate in the Internet - that could work with the State's official structure of cryptography and digital security, with legal value. Marcello Barra's book "O Leviatã eletrônico: a trama política que colocou o Estado na internet" (The Electronic Leviathan: the political plot to the raising of electronic State) discusses the relationship between Politics, Technology and Digital Security in the analysis of the development of this infrastructure in Brazil. To identify the social conditions that enabled the effective development of the ICP-Brasil, Barra recreates the technical and political clashes that preceded this process, without losing sight of the diversity of actors who participated in the process. Published in 2009, the book articulates the sociological theory of several authors (such as Weber, Elias, Latour, Rosanvallon, Castells, Habermas) to discuss the emergence of a new manifestation of the State (the electronic State) and its implications in the debate on the transparency of the public sector, the authority of the State and the National Security.
Electronic State; Electronic government; Internet; State; ICP-Brasil