THE NEW IRON CURTAIN: THE SPLINTERNET AND THE DEATH OF UNIVERSAL PRIVACY
ᴺᵃᵛⁱᵍᵃᵗⁱⁿᵍ ᵗʰᵉ ᴱʳᵃ ᵒᶠ ᴰⁱᵍⁱᵗᵃˡ ᴵᵈᵉⁿᵗⁱᵗʸ
Digital identity is the foundation of the modern technocracy; without it, effective control is impossible.
I believe this change will trigger a geopolitical fragmentation of the network between nations with and without mandatory identity schemes.
For reasons of "national security," countries will not allow internet access from jurisdictions without traffic identification.
We are witnessing the birth of a new Cold War: the Iron Curtain v2.0.
Phase 1 (Discourse): Mandatory identity on social networks to protect minors, punish hate speech, and prevent the spread of disinformation by AI bots (monitor and regulate public opinion).
Phase 2 (Finance & Access): Mandatory interoperability, for the modernization of public procedures, where a single state-issued digital ID becomes the "master key" for all social and financial platforms.
Phase 3 (Infrastructure): Total enclosure, to combat illegal trafficking, terrorism, and the drug trade, requiring digital identity at the ISP level just to access the internet, effectively turning providers into state gatekeepers.
If you are not a recognizable "someone" to the system, it renders you invisible and excludes you by default.
Some countries will not allow connections without KYC, while others will.
We are entering an era of deep fragmentation. A single "cloud" no longer exists; instead, we have jurisdictions in conflict.
This is where the old paradigm fails. Tools like VPN or Tor lose operational effectiveness. Not due to technical flaws, but because of structural exclusion: without a validated identity at the gateway, encryption is irrelevant because traffic is not permitted.
Access to the privacy coin blockchain will be complicated.
Digital sovereignty today is about understanding the board. The challenge is no longer purely technical but strategic: anticipating where connection will be allowed, where it will be blocked, and what forms of communication will remain possible.
In a world of increasingly closed and monitored networks, the key for the sovereign individual is the ability to navigate between these islands of control without becoming trapped in the surveillance architecture of a single jurisdiction.
This content is included in the next chapter (#4) of my book -published periodically- UNDERSTANDING THE INFORMATION AGE. THE SOVEREIGN INDIVIDUAL.
https://medium.com/@liberlion/understanding-the-information-age-the-sovereign-individual-index-eea277fe6bef
