Jan Wildeboer 😷
:krulorange:New blog post: OCT – My Framework for Digital Sovereignty, Part 1
https://jan.wildeboer.net/2025/12/OCT-1-My-Framework-For-Digital-Sovereignty/
Replies to this post will show up as comments under the blog post. I am looking forward to a constructive discussion.
#DigitalSovereignty #OCT
Giacomo Tesio@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
Way too overcomplicated and loosey defined.
#DigitalSovereignty is quite simple to define when you understand few #cybernetic concepts and #sovereignty itself.
First, the use value of data (and #personalData in particular) grows (at least) exponentially, doubling with each new bit you collect on a person, a community and so on.
Second, the copying data leaves no evidence.
By these simple postulates, it follows that no nation can claim digital sovereignty if any person or corporation that responds to external laws can access (directly or indarectly) or prevent access to data about their citizens, companies or organization.
That's it.
This is the basic building block of any real sovereignty, since without it, people cannot be citizens or sudite, just users.
On top of "digital sovereignty" we can then build a democratic national cyberspace, or a oppressive one.
To make it democratic we should also add a political priciple: "No data access without representation".
But as long as, say, #Google and #Apple can access any data on any smartphone by simply pushing a #backdoor in a system update of a specific user or group, and #Microsoft can do the same with most pc and laptop... as long both Google, Microsoft, #Cloudflare, #IBM and #Amazon can access data they host and elaborate "in the cloud", there is no ownership, no control and for sure there can be no #trust in them.
Sure #opensource is not enough: if #RedHat can technically uploas a backdoored opensource #Linux kernel image (or whatever), to a #EU organization that enabled automatic updates on their data centers, talking about trust and "digital sovereignty" is just smoke in the eyes, even if they send the backdoor's sources along with the kernel image to comply with #GPL.
In other terms, there is no way that the #GMAFIA can provide #DigitalSovereigntyAsAService to #EuropeanUnion.
Giacomo Tesiono nation can claim digital sovereignty if any person or corporation that responds to external laws can access (directly or indarectly) or prevent access to data about their citizens, companies or organization.This doesn't make such data "unprotected", obviously. But the protection applied to such publicly available data (be them contents created by citizens or their personal data) is unrelated to a Nation's sovereignty.
Obviously, except data that people, companies and organizations intentionally make public for anyone.
Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:@giacomo@snac.tesio.it "if any person or corporation that responds to external laws can access (directly or indarectly) or prevent access to data about their citizens" is already impossible to implement even in a pure paper based society. It only needs one corrupt person and the papers get copied to outside players. As I said, I try to find a pragmatic way, not a utopian approach.
Giacomo Tesio@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
Bullshit.
In a paper society, the scale of demage one corrupt person can do to the sovereignty of a nation approach zero. As such, you can handle exceptional case of espionage in exceptional ways.
We are not talking about that either.
And yes, what I wrote is perfectly doable right now, with no more and no less than existing open source software.
It just remove most of #USA ties over #EU sovereignty, so I'm not surprised it's going to be defined as impractical by US corporations and lobbists.
BUT I can ensure you that there are thousands of European corporations that could provide all the service currently provided by US #BigTech if we managed to get rid for their unfair competition.
And in a couple of years, we would become competitive with US hyper-scalers too.
Giacomo Tesio@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
Bullshit.
In a paper society, the scale of demage one corrupt person can do to the sovereignty of a nation approach zero. As such, you can handle exceptional case of espionage in exceptional ways.
We are not talking about that either.
And yes, what I wrote is perfectly doable right now, with no more and no less than existing open source software.
It just remove most of #USA ties over #EU sovereignty, so I'm not surprised it's going to be defined as impractical by US corporations and lobbists.
BUT I can ensure you that there are thousands of European corporations that could provide all the service currently provided by US #BigTech if we managed to get rid for their unfair competition.
And in a couple of years, we would become competitive with US hyper-scalers too.
Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:@giacomo@snac.tesio.it I asked in my blog post for respectful discussion, yet you throw around terms like bullshit. End of discussion for me. Thank you for your input, I will take it into account. But as you seem to prefer aggressive and discriminating language here, I refuse to continue to discuss.
Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:@giacomo@snac.tesio.it I asked in my blog post for respectful discussion, yet you throw around terms like bullshit. End of discussion for me. Thank you for your input, I will take it into account. But as you seem to prefer aggressive and discriminating language here, I refuse to continue to discuss.
Giacomo Tesio@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
Ok, sorry.
Let's replace "Bullshit." with "What you wrote is so obviously false and so much misleading that it doesn't seem written in good faith. Yet let's assume you have just been fooled by BigTech marketing and propaganda, and let's try to show you the issues in your reasoning."
Giacomo Tesio@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
Ok, sorry.
Let's replace "Bullshit." with "What you wrote is so obviously false and so much misleading that it doesn't seem written in good faith. Yet let's assume you have just been fooled by BigTech marketing and propaganda, and let's try to show you the issues in your reasoning."
Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:@giacomo@snac.tesio.it And now you are accusing me of having a hidden agenda? OK. For the sake of clarity, I have added the working definition for Digital Sovereignty I use in my blog post. It's from https://policyreview.info/concepts/digital-sovereignty
Jan Wildeboer 😷:krulorange:@giacomo@snac.tesio.it And now you are accusing me of having a hidden agenda? OK. For the sake of clarity, I have added the working definition for Digital Sovereignty I use in my blog post. It's from https://policyreview.info/concepts/digital-sovereignty
Giacomo Tesio@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
Where did I mentioned any "hidden agenda"?
Tbh, I don't even care if you have one. I was just commenting on your misguided overconplicated framework.
You tried to argue that actual digital sovereignty is impractical with a reduction to absurdum "in a pure paper based society".
Such a comparison is wrong on so many levels, and so obviously wrong, that it doesn't seem in good faith.
Also, the whole #OCT construction seems designed to blend the very concept digital sovereignty so that it doesn't exclude it's opposite, allowing digital #colonialism from #USA #BigTech to endure.
Obviously you might intend something completely different, but if the outcome of your resoning is compatible with any #BigTech to keep accessing data not generated in the #USA, it's in steer contraddiction with #DigitalSovereignty.
Unless, obviously, the whole world is just a US colony, as #Trump might in fact argue.
Giacomo Tesio@jwildeboer@social.wildeboer.net
Where did I mentioned any "hidden agenda"?
Tbh, I don't even care if you have one. I was just commenting on your misguided overconplicated framework.
You tried to argue that actual digital sovereignty is impractical with a reduction to absurdum "in a pure paper based society".
Such a comparison is wrong on so many levels, and so obviously wrong, that it doesn't seem in good faith.
Also, the whole #OCT construction seems designed to blend the very concept digital sovereignty so that it doesn't exclude it's opposite, allowing digital #colonialism from #USA #BigTech to endure.
Obviously you might intend something completely different, but if the outcome of your resoning is compatible with any #BigTech to keep accessing data not generated in the #USA, it's in steer contraddiction with #DigitalSovereignty.
Unless, obviously, the whole world is just a US colony, as #Trump might in fact argue.