New Delhi, June 11 -- In its nascent decades, the internet was envisioned as an infinite, borderless territory, a global village connected together by open protocols, common information spaces, and a participatory spirit of the digital commons. However, this cyber-utopian scheme has been gradually undermined or rather eroded by great power competition. The new digital world is in a radical process of enclosure, morphing from a space of collaboration to a space of high-stakes strategic competition.

Its recent manifestation is the militarization of the digital commons, that is the use of open-source code by state actors, global infrastructure and common information environments for surveillance and systemic sabotage. The internet has becom...