This is a concept still in the making. I came across a few people discussing it, and I found next to nothing about it online. I thought it is important and I post it here to give it some traction.

The core idea that appealed to me is that it extends the idea that the processing power and bandwidth of modern devices is not used for our own sake, but to better funnel behavioral data to corporations.

So it is not just “so stupid design” that “we don’t even feel devices are 10x faster than 15 years ago”, but deliberate design to use the hardware capabilities for the sake of other people’s computers.

The countercomputing philosophy asks, down to the chipset, what is the most repairable, reusable component, that can help the user fortify their computing and harness it as independently as possible.

It is obviously a thought that resonates with the right-to-repair movement, privacy, and other politics related with renewable energy, but with a particular focus in selecting each and every component so that we own the hardware and we can use it as we see fit. Other links can be drawn to the smallnet initiatives such as gemini protocol, alternative nets like Reticulum, and of course open hardware.

The retro angle can offer flexibility to movements to rely on simpler components and adjust their needs, something that will also lead to greater independence from Nvidia and the like.

As I said, there are very few people discussing this idea right now, and you can’t find much online, but it is worth to “look out for” possible developments in the future.

Edit: Here is a discussion on mastodon about it

  • wakko@lemmy.world
    20·
    9 days ago

    Oh good. Next wave counter-culture is starting to name itself. This is a fun period in any movement.

    I was present for the early copyleft era that corporate software development exploited then squashed with more “business-friendly” OSS licenses. Now we’re seeing the mega-scale tech companies enshittifying their products necessitating a new wave of open-information counter-culture to fight the Big Tech birthed from the post-dot-com OSS movement.

    History doesn’t repeat itself. It often rhymes.

  • GlenRambo@jlai.luEnglish
    8·
    9 days ago

    Not shitting on the idea but I bought a FairPhone5 that includes to what this suggests. Each main component (so not chipset) can be unscrewed and replaced easily, chsrgrt port, camera, speaker, removable battery.

    As of next month every major telco that owns infrastructure in the contrary will have blocked the IMEI (the first part identifies the phone and model) and will be unusable. Even unusable with a data only sim.

    It will only work on WiFi.

    Guess im just venting but id love to see how this concept could help in the situation.

    • SuspciousCarrot78@lemmy.world
      1·
      9 days ago

      That sucks but it sounds familiar. And not even a data only sim works for pure data? Are you in Oz?

      The only thing that I can think of is a mobile / pocket wifi…but then you’re carrying two devices.

      If you are in Oz, I can suggest a reasonable, local, cheap and not terrible dumphone-with-tethering that could suit that use case (plus you know, be an actual phone lol). Suprisingly decent for under $170. Might even be able to forward calls from it to your FairPhone (as it runs Android 8.1)

      Once my main phone (2019 Samsung) bites the dust, it might actually become my main daily driver again (with small tabet as OTG compute)

  • utopiah@lemmy.ml
    2·
    8 days ago

    Bought a 2nd-hand Pixel 8 to put GrapheneOS on it, not sure if that counts. Feels old, more ecological, cheaper and more private. Not sure how repairable it is but in theory I can use it for up 7 years so hopefully by the time I need to repair it I wouldn’t even want to.

  • sobchak@programming.dev
    2·
    9 days ago

    I’ve been noticing a lot of counter-surveillance projects lately too. I.e. Flock-You, Chasing-You-Tail-NG, drone trackers. Most using ESP dev boards or rPis. The cardputer looks pretty cool too. Dunno if that stuff fits or not.