https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
“Many of you know that I'm an activist with the Electronic Frontier Foundation
– EFF. I'm about to start my 25th year there. I know that I'm hardly unbiased,
but as far as I'm concerned, there's no group anywhere on Earth that does the
work of defending our digital rights better than EFF.
I'm an activist there, and for the past quarter-century, I've been embroiled in
something I call "The War on General Purpose Computing."
If you were at 28C3, 14 years ago, you may have heard me give a talk with that
title. Those are the trenches I've been in since my very first day on the job
at EFF, when I flew to Los Angeles to crash the inaugural meeting of something
called the "Broadcast Protection Discussion Group," an unholy alliance of tech
companies, media companies, broadcasters and cable operators.
They'd gathered because this lavishly corrupt American congressman, Billy
Tauzin, had promised them a new regulation – a rule banning the manufacture and
sale of digital computers, unless they had been backdoored to specifications
set by that group, specifications for technical measures to block computers
from performing operations that were dispreferred by these companies'
shareholders.
That rule was called "the Broadcast Flag," and it actually passed through the
American telecoms regulator, the Federal Communications Commission. So we sued
the FCC in federal court, and overturned the rule.
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
internet, 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!”
Via Yifei.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
