The Uncomfortable Truth Nobody Really Talks About
Let me start with something uncomfortable: most of us who code in democratic countries have never seriously considered what it means to write software under an authoritarian regime. We complain about GDPR compliance, we argue about telemetry in our apps, we debate whether we should add analytics to our side projects. Meanwhile, developers in certain parts of the world are making decisions that could literally land them in prison. This isn’t abstract philosophy. This is about real people—talented engineers, architects, DevOps specialists—who wake up every morning knowing that the code they write exists in an ecosystem designed to monitor, control, and suppress. The search for “how to build features” becomes intertwined with “how to stay alive.”
The Infrastructure They’re Stuck With
First, let’s talk about the elephant in the room: the technical environment itself is hostile by design. In authoritarian regimes, the internet isn’t just a network—it’s a surveillance apparatus wearing a network’s clothes. Internet Service Providers are legally required to provide access logs to the government, sometimes without warrants. In many cases, there’s no legal recourse because the legal system itself isn’t independent. This means that every API call your application makes, every database query, every webhook you ping could potentially be logged, analyzed, and flagged. Some regimes go further. Kazakhstan, for instance, attempted to force all internet users to install a government browser certificate that would allow the state to read all unencrypted traffic between your device and any website. Imagine being a backend developer who suddenly realizes that middle-man attacks are now government policy. Here’s what this means in practice for developers: The Fundamental Dilemma
┌─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Your Company's Feature Request: │
│ "Add user tracking to optimize UX" │
└────────────────────┬────────────────────┘
│
┌────────────┴────────────┐
│ │
▼ ▼
┌──────────────────┐ ┌──────────────────┐
│ User privacy │ │ Government can │
│ completely │ │ access this data │
│ compromised │ │ without limits │
└──────────────────┘ └──────────────────┘
│ │
└────────────┬────────────┘
│
┌───────────▼───────────┐
│ You can't win here │
└───────────────────────┘
The cruel joke is that developers don’t get to choose the “lesser evil” because there often isn’t one. If your company refuses to build surveillance features, you lose your job. If your company builds them, you become complicit in the apparatus of oppression.
Practical Coding Considerations (The Ones You Won’t Find in Documentation)
Let’s get concrete. Here are actual technical challenges developers face:
1. VPN and Encryption Are Suddenly Risky
In many authoritarian regimes, using a VPN or accessing encrypted services can trigger automated flags in the system. The regime’s algorithms are specifically designed to detect and analyze encrypted traffic patterns. If you’re writing code that uses encryption, you need to think about:
# DON'T do this without understanding the risks
import requests
import urllib3
# Disabling SSL verification to "work around" network issues
# is a common "solution" that developers are pressured into
urllib3.disable_warnings(urllib3.exceptions.InsecureRequestWarning)
session = requests.Session()
session.verify = False # THIS IS A TERRIBLE IDEA
# But in some regimes, developers feel they have no choice
# because legitimate SSL traffic is being intercepted anyway
The ethical problem here is staggering. You know this code is insecure. You’re compromising security not because of technical limitations, but because the technical environment itself is compromised at the governmental level.
2. Data Residency Becomes a Political Prison
Many authoritarian regimes require data localization—all user data must be stored within national borders and is subject to government access. This sounds bureaucratic until you realize what it means: you’re not just storing data, you’re storing it in a jurisdiction where “privacy” is a word without meaning.
// Configuration that would be normal anywhere else
const config = {
database: {
host: 'db.ourcompany.com',
region: 'local', // Must stay in-country by law
backups: 'local_government_approved_provider',
encryption: true, // But government has the keys
}
};
// The terrible truth: encryption at rest doesn't matter
// if the government controls the key management system
Developers in these situations report that they’re often forced to use specific hosting providers—ones that are either state-owned or have government representatives with physical access to the servers.
3. Social Media Integration and Surveillance Bots
Here’s where it gets particularly dystopian. Authoritarian regimes use sophisticated algorithms and social media bots to detect critical content, identify dissidents, and flag dangerous users. If you’re building a social media application or any platform where users share content, you’re potentially building infrastructure that will be weaponized.
# Typical content moderation might look like this
def moderate_content(post):
"""
In democratic countries, this filters spam and harassment.
In authoritarian regimes, this is the first layer of
the surveillance system.
"""
problematic_keywords = [
'censorship',
'corruption',
'freedom',
'democracy',
'rights'
]
if any(keyword in post.lower() for keyword in problematic_keywords):
# In a dictatorship, this doesn't just remove the post
# The system logs the user, flags them, potentially alerts authorities
flag_for_government_review(post)
remove_post(post)
alert_user_is_being_monitored(post.user)
return False
return True
The developer writing this code faces an impossible choice: refuse and lose your job, or comply and become part of the apparatus of oppression.
The Psychological Toll Nobody Measures
There’s a reason we need to talk about this differently than we talk about, say, GDPR compliance in Berlin. The stress of being a developer under authoritarianism involves constant cognitive dissonance:
- You’re told to “innovate” but your innovation will be used to suppress innovation
- You’re told to “build secure systems” in an environment where security is actively undermined by the state
- You’re told to “follow the law” when the law is designed to benefit those in power
- You’re told to “be ethical” while your employment depends on unethical acts Mental health support for developers in these situations is practically nonexistent. You can’t exactly go to your company’s HR department and say, “I’m having anxiety about being complicit in mass surveillance.”
Resistance Strategies (What Some Developers Actually Do)
Not all developers simply comply. Some try to find ways to resist, though the risks are genuinely severe. The Deliberate Bug Some developers intentionally write bugs or leave security vulnerabilities as a form of quiet resistance. This is an act of profound ethical courage and also profound risk.
# A developer might intentionally leave a security flaw
# that allows users to access encrypted messaging features
# that bypass the approved channels
def encrypt_user_message(message):
"""
Supposed to use the government-approved encryption,
but careful crafting might leave room for users
to implement their own encryption instead.
"""
# The "approved" method that logs everything
result = government_encryption_library.encrypt(message)
# But if you structure the code carefully,
# a security researcher might notice that
# the encryption is optional in certain edge cases
return result
The problem? If caught, this isn’t a mistake—it’s treason in many regimes. The Slow Quit Other developers practice what might be called “the slow quit”—doing their job technically competently but mentally checked out, waiting for any opportunity to leave the country. They write code that passes code review, but they’re already emotionally gone. The Secret Network Some developers are part of underground networks that try to maintain spaces for free software development, anonymous communication, and resistance infrastructure. This is incredibly risky and goes beyond just coding—it becomes activism.
The Complicity Question That Won’t Go Away
Here’s what keeps me up at night: if you’re a developer reading this from a democratic country, and you work for a tech company that operates in authoritarian regimes, you might be benefiting from the code that developers under dictatorship were forced to write. Your company might be using surveillance algorithms that were tested on dissidents. Your infrastructure might be built on data collected from populations that had no choice about surveillance. Your team might be using libraries written by developers who were under pressure.
┌─────────────────────────────────────┐
│ The Global Tech Supply Chain │
├─────────────────────────────────────┤
│ │
│ You (Western Developer) │
│ │ │
│ ├─ Uses open-source library │
│ │ │
│ └─ Written by (Coerced │
│ Developer in │
│ Authoritarian Regime) │
│ │
│ Result: Your company profits │
│ from surveillance infrastructure │
│ you didn't directly build │
│ │
└─────────────────────────────────────┘
This is the uncomfortable truth about globalized tech development. We’re all connected in ways we don’t fully acknowledge.
What Can You Actually Do About This?
If you’re reading this from a position of relative freedom, here are some non-naive suggestions: 1. Understand the Tools Your Company Builds Know what your company’s software is used for. Ask questions. Not in an annoying way, but genuinely try to understand the real-world implications of your code. 2. Support Developers Under Pressure Organizations like Freedom of the Press Foundation, Committee to Protect Journalists, and others specifically work to support journalists and developers in dangerous regimes. Consider supporting them. 3. Build Privacy-First by Default If you’re building products that could theoretically operate globally, build them with privacy by default. Don’t wait for regulation to force you.
# Good practice: privacy-first design
class User:
def __init__(self, email, name):
# Minimize data collection from the start
self.email = email
self.name = name
# Don't collect "just in case"
self.metadata = {}
def to_storage(self):
# Only store what's necessary
return {
'email': self.email,
'name': self.name
}
def to_audit_log(self):
# If you must log, log minimally
return {
'timestamp': datetime.now(),
'action': 'user_created'
# NOT the user's data
}
4. Think About Open Source Implications If you maintain open source projects, consider:
- Can this be used for surveillance?
- Are there reasonable safeguards?
- Should there be license restrictions? This isn’t theoretical—it’s why some projects now include “responsible disclosure” clauses specifically mentioning surveillance risks. 5. Support VPN and Circumvention Tools The Tor Project, Signal, Proton VPN—these aren’t just nice-to-have privacy tools. They’re survival tools for developers and activists in dangerous regimes. Consider financially supporting them.
The Uncomfortable Conclusion
The reality is that coding under dictatorship is fundamentally different from coding anywhere else. It’s not just technical challenges—it’s ethical, psychological, and existential. For developers in authoritarian regimes: I won’t pretend I have solutions. I know that leaving might not be possible. I know that resistance carries real risks. But know that people are watching, people care, and there are communities working to support you, even if it doesn’t always feel that way. For developers in free countries: we have responsibilities we often ignore. The code we write, the companies we work for, the tools we build—they have global implications. We can’t pretend we’re neutral when we’re building infrastructure that can be used for oppression. The uncomfortable truth is that tech is political, whether we acknowledge it or not. And for developers under dictatorship, it’s not a philosophical debate—it’s their daily reality.