A Post-American, Enshittification-Resistant Internet
canopic jug writes:
The videos from the 39C3 are all in place, and Cory Doctorow's fast-paced talk, A post-American, enshittification-resistant Internet, is among them.
That talk is worth special mention. Don't be put off by the gratuitous cursing or the CCC's misspelling of the name Internet. And because it's often easier, and always faster, to just read text than slog through a video, Cory has also posted a transcript of his presentation:
We won that skirmish, but friends, I have bad news, news that will not surprise you. Despite wins like that one, we have been losing the war on the general purpose computer for the past 25 years.
Which is why I've come to Hamburg today. Because, after decades of throwing myself against a locked door, the door that leads to a new, good internet, one that delivers both the technological self-determination of the old, good [I]nternet, and the ease of use of Web 2.0 that let our normie friends join the party, that door has been unlocked.
Today, it is open a crack. It's open a crack!
- The Post-American Internet
His presentation is good all the way through, even to the final Q & A.
Basically, the gist is that 1) the US dollar is no longer a (semi-)neutral platform and 2) the threat of withdrawing financial support has already been played and cannot be used for leverage any more.Countries are now forced to actively work around both points, which is inconvenient and expensive, but the result is that they have been liberated from similar future threats and thus in that way have regained a bit of independence as far as software laws go. That liberation is because economic retaliation has already occurred, nations can more or less safely undo the anti-circumvention laws forced down their throats by "free" trade "agreements". The first country to do so will be able to take a very big bite out of the trillions of dollars (or euros) which Apple and the others currently collect.
What other 39C3 presentations have soylentils found interesting in a positive way?
Previously:
(2025) The 39th Chaos Communication Congress (39C3) Taking Place Now in Hamburg Through 30 Dec 2025
(2025) 38th Chaos Communication Congress (38C3) Presentations Online
(2017) 34th Chaos Communication Congress (34C3) Presentations Online
JoeMerchant writes:
So far, every country in the world has had one of two responses to the Trump tariffs. The first one is: "Give Trump everything he asks for (except Greenland) and hope he stops being mad at you." This has been an absolute failure. Give Trump an inch, he'll take a mile. He'll take fucking Greenland. Capitulation is a failure.
But so is the other tactic: retaliatory tariffs. That's what we've done in Canada (like all the best Americans, I'm Canadian). Our top move has been to levy tariffs on the stuff we import from America, making the things we buy more expensive. That's a weird way to punish America! It's like punching yourself in the face as hard as you can, and hoping the downstairs neighbor says "Ouch!"
And it's indiscriminate. Why whack some poor farmer from a state that begins and ends with a vowel with tariffs on his soybeans. That guy never did anything bad to Canada.
But there's a third possible response to tariffs, one that's just sitting there, begging to be tried: what about repealing anticircumvention law?
If you're a technologist or an investor based in a country that's repealed its anticircumvention law, you can go into business making disenshittificatory products that plug into America's defective tech exports, allowing the people who own and use those products to use them in ways that are good for them, even if those uses make the company's shareholders mad.
Simple premise, interesting ramifications - I wonder what the course corrections will look like...
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.