Technology is not neutral infrastructure. It is shaped by national interest, trade policy, intelligence doctrine, and regulatory philosophy. These notes examine the points where computer science meets statecraft - where a chip fabrication plant becomes a strategic asset, where a routing protocol becomes a tool of censorship, and where a machine-learning model becomes a subject of treaty negotiation.
Cyber Sovereignty & Governance
How nation-states assert control over their digital territory, from network-level censorship to data localization mandates.
- Cyber Sovereignty - national digital control, the Great Firewall, data localization, and the splinternet
Semiconductor Geopolitics
The physical chokepoints of the information age: lithography machines, advanced fabs, and the export controls that weaponize them.
- Semiconductor Supply Chains - TSMC, ASML, chokepoints, export controls, and the CHIPS Act
Surveillance & Privacy
The tension between state security apparatus and individual liberty, played out through signals intelligence, commercial spyware, and privacy regulation.
- Surveillance & Privacy - Five Eyes, Pegasus, Section 702, GDPR, and the security-liberty tension
Digital Infrastructure & Power
How control over undersea cables, cloud regions, DNS roots, and internet exchange points translates into geopolitical leverage, and how anonymity networks let people route around that control.
- The Physical Layer of the Internet - submarine cables, internet exchange points, anycast root servers, and the chokepoints they create
- Onion Routing & Anonymity Networks - Tor, layered encryption, the traffic-confirmation limit, and the censorship arms race
- DNS - hierarchical naming, the root-server system, and DNS-level filtering
AI Governance
The emerging regulatory landscape around artificial intelligence - who writes the rules, who they apply to, and what they optimize for.
- AI Governance - EU AI Act, US executive orders, China’s approach, open vs. closed models
- Compute as a Governable Resource - FLOP thresholds, why compute concentrates, and export controls as enforcement
- Open Model Weights & Proliferation - weights as the diffusible artifact, and the mirror image of compute governance
The full file listing follows below, generated automatically by Quartz.