We Love USA

Cybershow visited the USA, had the most amazing time and met the most wonderful people. It is heartbreaking to see the United States of America are now an ally in distress. As Brits, multiple generations are in a sense, all Americans too. We grew up on US Television, on Cheers, Friends, and Happy Days. We bought into the dream as much as our cousins.

In 1944 The US joined 11 other nations freeing Europe of Nazism, committing nearly 100,000 men and women to the largest combined air, land and sea operation in history. The UK and US have a "special relationship" that transcends the parochialism of government and politics.

If someone is suffering from infection, do we beat the person with sticks like medieval savages hoping to drive out evil spirits? Or do we treat the disease by caring for the person with soothing medicine? Medicine attacks the invader, not the patient.

Sometimes the best medicine for those we really love is honesty, and to call out and correct behaviours we find intolerable. It's the only way to preserve and enjoy long-term relationships.

America is sick. Millions of protesters in the US are flying the Stars and Stripes upside-down, a signal of distress and a call for help. Here, many people are expressing fear and anger at the US. Instead of getting angry at Americans for becoming victims of fascism - a disease that can happen to any nation when vigilance and reason slip - we should be thinking about how to come to the aid of a friend in need.

When I heard a suggestion to "Join the anti-Trump" protests and march in London, my question was "What would that achieve?". As if the UK government are not already shitting bricks and bewildered by the sudden collapse of liberal democracy in the US and the loss of a major global ally.

Since the kinetic military supremacy of the US is beyond dispute, and the disapproval of the world is not with US military but a small number of anti-democratic usurpers, we consider the ways that British and European friends can come more directly to the aid of people who need our support.

A serious question now arises; What is the European and UK strategy to remove the Trump government? How will we aid protest, influence, cyber operations and other non-violent action against a regime run amok? We want to see legitimate democratic government restored. We also need to affect political change to make ourselves safer. Today as tyranny grips America let's pledge to return those "hands across the Atlantic".

Firstly, we can reach out to those facing persecution. Seventy five percent of scientists and engineers in the US want to leave. Most likely they will emigrate to other anglophone nations like Australia or Canada. From the Enlightenment to Industrial Revolution, in Britain we've always supported science and technology as pillars of civilisation. Many towns around Britain are sprawling with science parks and research facilities waiting for refugees from the US. Perhaps like those from NIH who were fired the same day as making a momentous cancer breakthrough.

Some tech facilities we've visited are Adastral in Ipswitch and the vast science estates around Eddington Cambridge where they've built an entire new town of housing facilities adjacent to laboratories. As in 1938 for the Jewish intellectual exodus, we hope the British government might announce immediate "special refugee status" to US intellectuals and scientists, not just those cherry picked from hard-STEM. We can offer fast-track immigration and help with family relocation.

What can we do by way of meaningful action at home? Not only does the US rely on its technology service exports, those same companies were the first to align with the Trump administration, swearing fealty and donating millions of dollars of support. Indeed, the sickness in America started long, long before people like Trump and Musk were even around, with giant ruthless monopolies that bought laws by lobbying and corruption, destroying other US businesses and trying to dominate the world. We think of these as friendly, with their bright colourful logos, offering us free email and search.

Simply put, US BigTech companies are treacherous and part of the problem. They spy on Americans and Europeans alike and are as much of a curse on the American people as anyone. Arguably US BigTech were pivotal in allowing the US coup to happen.

We should recognise that if US BigTech and the Silicon Valley technofascists who aided Trump are part of the threat to our friends in America then they're a threat to UK citizens too. All existing US tech products from companies like Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Meta etc, should now be considered unsafe - both for their data harvesting and disinformation spreading.

As for IBM in WW2, they will play the "disinterested amoral businessman" card, just "helping people connect" (or somesuch witless abstract nothingburger). But who are they kidding? Everyone in business, computing and IT should consider abandoning US BigTech. Not only is this a meaningful and deserved response to the sponsors of Trump's regime, it is now essential for our own cybersecurity.

At this point many IT workers will feel their heart drop a beat. "But we are totally dependent on products like Microsoft 365" they say. This is the last wake-up call. Now we see clear evidence of extreme vulnerability and addiction to monopoly ecosystems, lock-in to single suppliers, poor interoperability and the terrible resilience posture that comes from a lack of long term security thinking based on owned capability.

System architects, CISOs and CTOs who have been living in a white bread world, a cosy circle of regulatory capture, chumminess with vendors, compliance as a service and enshitified official support, must now reckon with the truth; that all of this is actually antithetical to real security. It's not your security if, out of fear/duress you let powerful but untrustworthy entities is do it all for you. That is a protection racket. Now is the time to grow a pair and resolve to change. The switching risk is now outweighed by the risk of inaction.

Everyone in IT with experience already knows these services have never been very safe. They're just defaults, cheap or even free. They won't be any of those things for much longer. It's positively party time for migration, de-googling, de-clouding and on-prem revival! It's never been a better time for building a UK and European cloud, separate from the US, and it will be an enormous economic stimulus as well as liberation from a morally questionable alignment.

So for everyone, if you love USA, stop using big US based digital services. That only amplifies the problem.

Instead of posting protest memes on Facebook or Twitter, withdraw entirely from those forums. Participation only fuels the beast. If you have a gmail or hotmail/live account. it's time to tell your colleagues, friends and family you're deleting it and switch as soon as you can to a British or European provider (there are many). Choose a real end-to-end encrypted solution. Stop sending communications to people who still have US based accounts or through US owned companies.

Indeed this aligns with policy in Europe anyway. Even before this year we've been moving toward Strategic Autonomy. That's not just a defence posture, but covers much of civic cybersecurity, trade and financial affairs. It's not that nobody saw a hostile US regime coming. Unfortunately in the UK we've enmeshed ourselves too far up Americas backside, with government and military having made "preferred status" of companies like Google, Amazon and Microsoft for much too long, raising serious questions around corruption.

At home, if you have US products that send your data abroad, like a Ring doorbell, home assistant or Tesla car, get rid of it and find a less intrusive and hostile alternative that obeys European privacy regulation.

If your child's school uses Google Chromebooks or Microsoft Office, that's putting your kids at risk and you should tell the school you'll only accept Free Software from European sources that respect European privacy laws. Purchase a proper computer, laptop or tablet, that runs Linux so that your child's security and privacy comes first, not the finance and convenience of the school or their understaffed IT department (if they even have one).

Where possible use cash or European based e-payment services. If you use Visa, MasterCard, ApplePay or any US based payment service you are taking money out our own economy and sending it to the USA. Banks and financial services that are all too happy to drop environmental, diversity and equity commitments do not deserve your support.

Start looking to migrate your digital estates to friendlier nation hosted alternatives. There are thousands of European, British, Canadian, Australian and Commonwealth candidates. Any data hosted on US controlled assets should be treated as unsafe and one should execute an accelerated plan to extricate from it.

For everyone, especially in America, look for alternative, smaller US companies to provide solutions. Though so many have been destroyed (crushed or acquired) by BigTech monopoly, those that remain are more likely representative of liberal democratic values. They would do well to double-down on those values and place privacy, proper encryption and non-cooperation with fascists and authoritarians high on their USP list.

The American people need us. We love Americans. We've always been partners in sharing intelligence, knowledge and building technology to facilitate liberal democracy and fight fascism. Let's continue that partnership, against the rotten administration, by whatever lawful means the situation today requires. Migration is not as difficult as you think. It brings you more security in the long term, and it sends a signal to unreliable allies that they need to clean their room.

Alternatives (not so ironically hosted by Microsoft) https://github.com/anitwek/alternatives-to-us

Alternative alternatives https://european-alternatives.eu/