"We wouldn't tolerate secrecy in the calculations used to keep our buildings upright, and we shouldn't tolerate opacity in the software that keeps our tractors, hearing aids, ventilators, pacemakers, trains, games consoles, phones, CCTVs, door locks, and government ministries working."
#CoryDoctorow, 2026
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
(4/4)
"This project is the only one that benefits from economies of scale, rather than being paralyzed by exponential crises of scale. That's because any open, free tool adopted by any public institution – like the Eurostack services – can be audited, localized, pen-tested, debugged and improved by institutions in every other country."
#CoryDoctorow, 2026
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
(2/4)
"It's a commons, more like a science than a technology, in that it is universal and international and collaborative. We don't have dueling western and Chinese principles of structural engineering. Rather, we have universal principles for making sure buildings don't fall down, adapted to local circumstances."
#CoryDoctorow, 2026
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
(3/4)
"We wouldn't tolerate secrecy in the calculations used to keep our buildings upright, and we shouldn't tolerate opacity in the software that keeps our tractors, hearing aids, ventilators, pacemakers, trains, games consoles, phones, CCTVs, door locks, and government ministries working."
#CoryDoctorow, 2026
https://pluralistic.net/2026/01/01/39c3/#the-new-coalition
(4/4)
Coda:
"... we don't need Europe to lead the charge on a post-American internet by repealing anticircumvention. Any country could do it!"
Aotearoa?
"And the country that gets there first gets to reap the profits from supplying jailbreaking tools to the rest of the world, it gets to be the Disenshittification Nation, and everyone else in the world gets to buy those tools and defend themselves from US tech companies' monetary and privacy plunder."
#CoryDoctorow, 2026
@strypey I donʼt know how to make it but Iʼd be happy to promote it!
@jackyan
> I donʼt know how to make it but Iʼd be happy to promote it!
Plenty of people in Aotearoa could make it, but first we need to decriminalise it. With a Right to Repair bill that protects technological circumvention - for otherwise legal purposes - as a basic right in a democratic society.
I mean, computer scientists being allowed to publish and speak about circumvention is part of basic academic freedom, which is violated by current anti-circumvention laws.
