Brazil was not bluffing last year, when it said that it wanted to disconnect from the United States-controlled internet due to the NSA's obscenely invasive surveillance tactics. The country is about to stretch a cable from the northern city of Fortaleza all the way to Portugal, and they've vowed not to use a single U.S. vendor to do it.
At first glance, Brazil's plan to disconnect from the U.S. internet just seemed silly. The country was not happy when news emerged that the NSA's tentacles stretched all the way down to Brazil. And the country was especially not happy when news emerged that the NSA had been spying on the Brazilian government's email for years. But really, what are you gonna do?
Brazil made a bunch of bold promises, ranging in severity from forcing companies like Facebook and Google to move their servers inside Brazilian borders, to building a new all-Brazilian email system—which they've already done. But the first actionable opportunity the country was presented with is this transatlantic cable, which had been in the works since 2012 but is only just now seeing construction begin. And with news that the cable plan will not include American vendors, it looks like Brazil is serious; it's investing $185 million on the cable project alone. And not a penny of that sum will go to an American company.
http://gizmodo.com/brazils-keeping-its-promise-to-disconnect-from-the-u-s-1652771021
[Additional Coverage]: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-10-30/brazil-to-portugal-cable-shapes-up-as-anti-nsa-case-study.html
(Score: 2, Interesting) by jmorris on Friday October 31 2014, @02:41AM
And the NSA will spy on em anyway. You can make them actually work at doing it at great expense to yourself or lean back and think of England; exact same result either way. The NSA is a spy agency and spies gonna spy.
And guess what, bet they too have an intelligence agency or two and they spy as hard as they can. And if they don't their citizens should be asking why not? Everybody spies. Everybody. And if they say they don't then good on them because spying is like _Fight Club_ and ya shouldn't talk about it. But they are spying too.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Gravis on Friday October 31 2014, @02:51AM
Everybody spies. Everybody.
how does that make it ok? is Brazil an enemy of the US? should the US be spying on it's allies?
the truth is that all this spying and hacking is bullshit behavior that needs to stop.
(Score: 1) by hopdevil on Friday October 31 2014, @02:58AM
Or, because it is a reality of the world.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @06:38AM
That can change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @06:14PM
That can change.
Sure it can, sparky.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @02:59AM
A lot of problems go away if people stop having sex too, but good luck getting that to happen either.
(Score: 1) by yarp on Friday October 31 2014, @09:27AM
If people stopped having sex there would be less to spy on!
(Score: 2) by Geezer on Friday October 31 2014, @10:25AM
And less spies. Wait...
(Score: 2) by isostatic on Friday October 31 2014, @04:16PM
Fewer
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday October 31 2014, @09:22PM
Actually, as you will no doubt learn from direct experience, everybody will stop having sex sooner or later.
Remember: a kid believes his prick will be useful through his whole life only for pissing. An old wise man is sure of it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2, Insightful) by jmorris on Friday October 31 2014, @03:04AM
We do spy on our friends with a few exceptions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UKUSA_Agreement). And it makes for a better world. A world where secrets are always in doubt is one where there are fewer attempts to pull off outages and one with fewer surprises. It should be kept secret though and that is the problem here. Snowden can be argued to have performed a service by revealing the extent to which the NSA was going outside of their mandate and spying on Americans. But he is without question a villain for revealing the quite normal, moral and routine spying that every country with the capability engages in to keep everyone honest.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by frojack on Friday October 31 2014, @05:15AM
Actually, Snowden has stated that he hasn't revealed the most damaging military secrets.
You don't need to tap the phone of a friendly head of state. If your data sources are THAT bad that you have
to resort to that they the NSA/CIA have failed at their job, because nothing of really secret is going to happen on
the phone.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by http on Friday October 31 2014, @06:49AM
Funny definition of 'friend' you have there.
I browse at -1 when I have mod points. It's unsettling.
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Friday October 31 2014, @01:02PM
Enemies with benefits?
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 5, Insightful) by mojo chan on Friday October 31 2014, @08:29AM
A world where secrets are always in doubt is one where there are fewer attempts to pull off outages and one with fewer surprises.
Except that in practice the USA helps the UK keep things secret, and vice-versa. We would have more transparency and fewer outrages like rendition and torture if the UK cut its ties with the US. Instead we have the NSA spying on UK citizens on behalf of GCHQ in order to sidestep the law.
Also, it isn't moral to spy on the leaders of friendly nations. Bugging Merkel's phone can't be justified. It was done purely for political and economic gain, nothing to do with keeping her "honest".
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @08:24PM
"Gentlemen do not read each other's mail."
--Henry Lewis Stimson, US Secretary of State 1929 - 1933
Since Merkel isn't a guy, obviously she doesn't count.
-- gewg_
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hoochiecoochieman on Friday October 31 2014, @12:35PM
Worldwide industrial espionage performed by a small group of extremely dishonest and treacherous nations for the benefit of their own elites is "keeping everyone honest"???
Are you fucking kidding?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @06:38PM
Just a few?
Here's a list of the intelligence agencies belonging to 114 countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_intelligence_agencies [wikipedia.org] .
Not cheerleading for the concept and/or use of these agencies, or what they do, but in the real world, each and every one of these agencies aspires to be just like those in the US- If they had the resources and skill sets, they would be. It would be nice if the world wasn't like that, but the hard fact is that it is.
The 10% of the high-functioning sociopaths in this world have risen to power, and in corporations and government (is there a difference?) is where you'll find them.
You're not a sociopath, so this concept is offensive to you, and rightly so. There is too much power tied up in these institutions for anything less than the collapse of society, world-wide, to remove them, so I would suggest that putting idealism, moral outrage, and wishful thinking aside for a while would allow you to deal with the consequences of their existence and behaviors more to your benefit.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 02 2014, @11:58PM
b- b- but the stasi were just trying to prevent germans from renazifying and that worked! ha ha... "The Stasi didn't try to arrest every dissident. It preferred to paralyze them, and it could do so because it had access to so much personal information and to so many institutions."(wikipedia) This is about meme suppression and controlling freedom of expression through self censorship; not honesty or morality.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @01:47PM
How does it taste sucking down all that authoritarian cock?
(Score: 5, Insightful) by gman003 on Friday October 31 2014, @04:49AM
Doesn't mean Brazil needs to make it easy on them. If they can spend $100M to make the NSA spend $1B to continue spying, that's Brazilian money well spent IMO.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Friday October 31 2014, @02:27PM
What an attitude -- "They're going to be evil so just give up and let them."
Can I say, Fuck you and the horse you're too lazy to get up on because, you know, you'd probably fall off any way.
As for Brazil -- awesome. We know the only way change comes to the Federal government is through megacorps. If enough countries did this and US business really started to suffer, then change just might happen.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @04:54PM
Your defeatist attitude is sad. :( When people spy on me I take reasonable efforts to prevent it, or at least make it more costly to be spied upon. For Brazil to change vendors in a cabling project that existed before the Snowden revelations, is a very reasonable response. They are strengthening their domestic control and expertise, which is good regardless of spying.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @05:58PM
Stop comparing mass surveillance with spying. And you stand by while the constitution and other laws are violated a billion times a day. Well done to excuse criminals. You deserve to be fucked up the ass twice.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday October 31 2014, @03:41AM
I'm hoping the next step they take is to extract themselves from Microsoft. If you're a non-US government concerned in any way out security, you shouldn't be using Microsoft products. They play *way* too well with the NSA.
(Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @04:58AM
500,000 seats in Brazil's public school system. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [lwn.net]
That was 2011. I suspect it's even larger now.
The closest things I've heard is IBM's 300,000 and Panasonic's 300,000 (a client of IBM).
Here's a Brazilian corporation with 53,000 employees running on Linux. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [mrpogson.com]
Brick & mortar retailers were Linux-friendly in Brazil earlier than their counterparts elsewhere. [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [mrpogson.com]
(I like the additional comment by Agent Smith.)
Brazil is pretty awesome in a lot of ways.
Some Radical Approaches That Have Worked in a Country Almost the Size of USA [googleusercontent.com] (orig) [organizingupgrade.com]
-- gewg_
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @05:32AM
Gifts for the US of A...
(Score: 5, Insightful) by wonkey_monkey on Friday October 31 2014, @10:37AM
At first glance, Brazil's plan to disconnect from the U.S. internet just seemed silly.
Did it?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk
(Score: 2) by MozeeToby on Friday October 31 2014, @01:48PM
Yes, because even with this line in place a significant fraction of traffic will be routed through servers the US controls anyway, either abroad or yes indeed within the continental US. Just because a more direct connection exists doesn't mean that it will necessarily be used. And a significant portion of the internet is hosted within the US. And if the NSA gets really pissy, they can and will tap your undersea cable. They had the expertise to do it during the cold war, I doubt they're any less skilled now.
(Score: 2) by HiThere on Friday October 31 2014, @07:12PM
But you can set things up so that the name servers you control prefer the links you specify. (Actually, they *could* set up a "great firewall", but they don't seem to be going in that direction. Merely in the direction of avoiding the US, which means com links will probably go through the us, but Brazilian government links (and registrar links?) will avoid it...until it gets to Portugal, of course.
For some reason lots of groups seem to think that undersea cables pay for themselves over time, so perhaps this one will too, just on an economic basis.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by deimtee on Friday October 31 2014, @12:11PM
I wonder how long before a ship "accidentally" drops an "anchor" on the cable and severs it for long enough to splice in a tap.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @12:58PM
Read up on it, according to at least one book, they don't even have to sever the cable so as to be able to tap it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_Man's_Bluff:_The_Untold_Story_of_American_Submarine_Espionage [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @04:33PM
Way to blame the messenger. The fault lies with rampant US overreach, not the whistleblower who brought it to light.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday October 31 2014, @04:51PM
To everyone who's saying this is a waste because they'll be spied on anyway, understand that this cable was planned before ANY revelations came forward. They are not building the cable to work around the spying, they are building the cable to increase their carrying capacity to Europe. This was already in the works. The only change is they're punishing the US economically as much as they can, and spending more money domestically as much as possible, to increase their domestic expertise and help local businesses as much as possible, then going to Europe/Asia for vendor support. This is a good thing for Brazil. Even ignoring the spying issues entirely, this is a good thing for Brazil.