The Post‑American Internet: Unlocking a New Digital Frontier

Cory Doctorow, longtime activist at the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and a vocal critic of the United States’ restrictive technology policies, delivered a scathing critique of the “war on general‑purpose computing” at the 39th Chaos Communications Congress in Hamburg on 28 December 2023. ### The Battle Over General‑Purpose Computing Doctorow’s career has been defined by the fight against legislation and industry practices that deny users the ability to fully use the devices they buy. The cornerstone of this battle is the Digital Millennium Copyright Act’s Section 1201—commonly known as the anticircumvention provision—which criminalises modifications to software or firmware unless the manufacturer authorises the change. By treating the ability to troubleshoot, repair or customise devices as a potential crime, the law has transformed everyday consumer electronics into lock‑in‑mechanisms that profit firms and undermine competition. The EFF’s 25‑year history has included court victories such as the 1997 repeal of a proposed “Broadcast Flag” that would have required digital cameras to incorporate back‑doors for broadcasters. Still, as Doctorow remarks, these wins have come at the cost of a persistent regime that “has lost the war on the general‑purpose computer” for the past quarter‑century. ### Trump’s Accidental Unlock Doctorow posits that the Trump administration’s broad‑scale tariffs, trade‑policy renegotiations and the resulting erosion of American economic influence have inadvertently weakened the United States’ leverage over global technology supply chains. By forcing nations to re‑evaluate their dependency on U.S. infrastructure, trade agreements and legal norms—most notably anticircumvention law—other countries are now in a position to assert technological sovereignty. He characterises the door to a post‑American internet as one that has “been unlocked” by a coalition of actors far beyond the American tech giants: activists, entrepreneurs, small‑country governments, and national‑security officials who have long opposed the monopolistic practices of firms like Apple, Microsoft and Amazon. ### Building a Post‑American Internet Doctorow lays out a practical roadmap for this new digital paradigm: 1. **Repeal anticircumvention law** in at least one jurisdiction, creating a model that unlocks interoperability for critical hardware and software across the globe. 2. **Open‑source, auditable codebases** for everything from firmware to cloud services, ensuring that anyone can inspect, extend or repair their devices without corporate gate‑keeping. 3. **International standard‑setting bodies** that replace the U.S.‑centric model, promoting the principle that “nothing critical should be a black box.” 4. **Co‑ordinated, cross‑border lobbying** for antitrust enforcement that cuts the profit channels of firms that profit from data hoarding and back‑door access. He notes how the European Union’s existing Article 6 of the Copyright Directive, which mirrors U.S. anticircumvention, has already been applied in a variety of contexts—from manufacturing to automotive and healthcare devices—often to the detriment of consumers and smaller manufacturers. ### The New Coalition Doctorow stresses that the coalition he envisions is not limited to “rights activists.” It includes: - **Technology entrepreneurs** who see the untapped profit in creating interoperable tools. - **Policy makers** in countries like Canada, Australia, and the EU who can use the absence of U.S. legal pressure as a lever for enforcement. - **Security experts** wary of a future where national systems can be bricked by U.S. firms. - **Grassroots organisations** that have for years fought against monopolies—those behind the European antitrust movements, the Australian consumer‑rights groups, and the burgeoning digital‑rights movements in Asia. The speech concludes on an optimistic but cautionary note: the door is open a crack, and the wind is blowing in the right direction, but it will take coordinated action from this diverse coalition to translate that fracture into a functioning, open infrastructure that is both “technologically self‑determined” and “easy to use.” Doctorow’s talk, captured in the 29‑minute video available at Archive.org, is a clarion call to the technology community and policymakers alike: the time for incremental reform has passed—now is the moment to create a truly post‑American internet that can serve a global, open‑sourced future.