Across most of the developing world, the story of the last two decades has been a hopeful one: as people come online, the digital economy grows, services expand, new businesses take root, people make more money and lift themselves by their bootstraps. Tanzania was supposed to follow that script, but...
Back in 2023, the Future of Life Institute issued a open letter calling to “pause giant AI experiments” before runaway AI destroyed humanity. Three years later, machine learning applications have expanded in use and capability, yet humans are still around. Most AI doomers have retreated from saying that AI...
Congress has introduced another law tightening export controls on additional segments of the semiconductor industry (the MATCH Act). Like all the others, it is based on the premise that US technological leadership and national security is advanced by looking backwards and throwing obstacles at trailing China rather than running faster...
On April 7, Anthropic published a 244-page system card for a model that will not be made generally available for now. Claude Mythos Preview, the company's newest frontier model, is “capable of identifying and then exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser when directed...
Sections 69A and 79 of the Information Technology Act, 2000, empower the indian government to issue blocking orders to ISPs and intermediaries. The licensing agreement for ISPs explicitly requires that they “block Internet sites […] as identified and directed by the Licensor from time to time.” ISPs are confidentially bound...
On March 23, 2026, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) issued a Memorandum and Order banning the import of “covered” consumer-grade networking hardware. The decision demonstrates once again how the Trump administration's economic nationalism and its use of “national security” claims as a basis for arbitrary executive-branch actions are having disastrous...
On February 27th, President Trump directed all federal agencies to cease using Anthropic's technology after the company refused the Pentagon's demand to allow lawful use of its AI models for mass domestic surveillance and fully autonomous weapons. Much of the current media coverage frames this dispute as a straightforward ethical...
In mid-January 2026, the Chinese government allegedly announced a sweeping ban on cybersecurity software from more than a dozen U.S. and Israeli firms, including industry giants like Palo Alto Networks, CrowdStrike, and Check Point. The stated reason: concerns that foreign software could collect and transmit confidential information abroad. This move...
There is a battle over the reputation of advanced AI applications going on in the news. Two worldviews conflict: Are we unleashing dangerous forces that threaten humanity? Or are we just making computers and software do a lot of new things? Two Wall Street Journal reporters fired a shot in...
Operation “Metro Surge” in Minneapolis-St. Paul, USA, has now attracted national and worldwide attention. Both sides in this conflict see it as a showdown. It is a showdown, and it matters who wins. In this blog, we try to focus on digital media; that is, on public narratives, propaganda, the polarization of...
Declaring Independence in Cyberspace tells the story of the struggle between governments and the global Internet community over control of the Internet registries (IANA). It offers new insights into a pressing question with profound implications: is state sovereignty the immutable foundation of global governance, or can new technological capabilities change the model?
“This is a book that needed to be written, and no one is better placed to write it than Milton Mueller. This full, rigorous account provides researchers and policymakers with a precious resource on global internet governance.”
