Big Tech Colonialism, Undersea Chokepoints, and Expanding Surveillance
May 15, 2026
Big tech's colonial expansion is crystallizing into geopolitical chokepoints and physical surveillance, exemplified by Iranian threats to undersea cables and ICE's deployment of smart glasses linked to biometric databases. This materialization of algorithmic authority depends on opaque infrastructure—from data centers masking fossil fuel use to Android's predictive behavior tracking—and an escalating security race among frontier models, while tech capital's political capture and internal labor resistance highlight the deepening fractures in this centralized order.
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Iran is threatening undersea cables. The world’s ‘digital chokepoints’ have never been more vulnerable
imaginima / Getty Images Early this week, Iranian state-linked media floated a plan to charge the operators of undersea internet cables in the Strait of Hormuz for access to what they say is Iran’s offshore territory. The suggestion comes after Iranian warnings that several important cables in the s…
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‘The world is sounding an alarm’: Why big tech is the new colonist
Power is no longer exercised through military force alone, but via technology, finance and control over information.
- geopolitics
- structural power
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Smart Glasses for the Authorities
ICE is developing its own version of smart glasses, with facial recognition tied to various databases.
- Cybersecurity
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The murky mechanics of data centers’ green electricity
The German Energy Efficiency Act is under review. The government should change the rules for data centers. As they stand, a data center can be labeled “green” even if it runs entirely on fossil gas.
- AI governance
- structural power
- media and technology
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An Engineer’s Post Protesting Laptop Surveillance Is Going Viral Inside Meta
Meta employees in the US and UK are organizing against corporate software that tracks workers’ keystrokes and mouse activity.
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Hacking Polymarket
Polymarket is a platform where people can bet on real-world events, political and otherwise. Leaving the ethical considerations of this aside (for one, it facilitates assassination), one of the issues with making this work is the verification of these real-world events. Polymarket gamblers have thre…
- Cybersecurity
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Scott Wiener Opposes a California Billionaire Tax. So Do His Tech CEO Backers.
Crypto executive Chris Larsen has spent millions fighting billionaire tax measures, and he’s the largest individual donor to a PAC backing Wiener. The post Scott Wiener Opposes a California Billionaire Tax. So Do His Tech CEO Backers. appeared first on The Intercept.
- structural power
- geopolitics
- OSINT methodology
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Mira Murati Wants Her AI to ‘Keep Humans in the Loop’
The Thinking Machines Lab founder and former CTO of OpenAI tells WIRED she isn’t interested in automating people out of jobs. Instead, she’s building AI that can collaborate.
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OpenAI’s GPT-5.5 is as Good as Mythos at Finding Security Vulnerabilities
The UK’s AI Security Institute evaluated GPT-5.5’s ability to find security vulnerabilities, and found that it is comparable to Claude Mythos. Note that the OpenAI model is generally available. Here is the Institute’s evaluation of Mythos. And here is an analysis of a smaller, cheaper model. It requ…
- Cybersecurity
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Android’s latest AI feature predicts what you’ll do next
The contextual suggestions feature has started appearing on some Pixel 10 series devices. | Photo: Allison Johnson / The Verge Google is rolling out a new AI-powered "contextual suggestions" feature to Android users that recommends actions based on your daily habits, Android Authority reports. The f…