Julian Assange's new book is not a manifesto, he writes in its introduction – "There is no time for that". Instead the short volume, entitled Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet and published on Monday, is intended to be what the Wikileaks founder calls "a watchman's shout in the night", warning of an imminent threat to all civilisation from "the most dangerous facilitator of totalitarianism we have ever seen" – the web.

Assange announced in October his intention to publish the book, based largely on the transcript of an interview conducted earlier in the year with three fellow "cutting-edge thinkers" on the web, and broadcast on the Russian state-controlled TV channel RT.

But in his introduction, written from the small room in the Ecuadorean embassy in London to which he has been confined for more than five months, the Australian has described for the first time how he views the context for its publication.

It is not an upbeat assessment: thanks to the "global surveillance industry" and states that seek to control the net, he writes, "within a few years, global civilisation will be a postmodern surveillance dystopia, from which escape for all but the most skilled individuals will be impossible. In fact, we may already be there."

Assange sought political asylum from Ecuador on 19 June in order to avoid imminent extradition to Sweden, where he is wanted for questioning in connection with alleged sex offences, including rape.

He has said that he fears onward extradition to the US, where a grand jury has been convened to investigate Wikileaks over its publication in 2010 of leaked US diplomatic cables, in this newspaper and elsewhere.

His request was later granted by Ecuador, which said he could stay inside the embassy for "two centuries" if necessary. Britain has said that if he tries to leave he will be arrested and extradited to Sweden, but that it would block any onward extradition request to the US if the Australian were to face a possible death penalty.

His experiences have influenced his world view, Assange acknowledges in his introduction. "While many writers have considered what the internet means for global civilisation, they are wrong … They are wrong because they have never met the enemy … We have met the enemy."

Jeremie Zimmermann, co-founder and spokesman for the French citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net (Squaring the Net) and one of Assange's named fellow authors, told the Guardian when the book was announced that it would cover "a wide range of issues: from surveillance to data protection, from corporate influence over politics to citizen participation and action, transparency and accountability, from liberalism to anarchism, from copyright enforcement to culture, from flying killing robots (drones) to representation of crime scenes depicting abuse of children (child porn)".

Also contributing to the book are Jacob Applebaum, a US-based computer security expert, and Andy Müller-Maguhn, a leading German hacker.

Zimmermann said he had insisted on a bottle of whisky and some cigars when the four met, "to make the discussion more 'fluid' (no pun intended), cozy and friendly".