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(Reuters) Brazil and the European Union agreed on Monday to lay an undersea communications cable from Lisbon to Fortaleza to reduce Brazil's reliance on the United States after Washington spied on Brasilia.
At a summit in Brussels, Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff said the $185 million cable project was central to "guarantee the neutrality" of the Internet, signaling her desire to shield Brazil's Internet traffic from U.S. surveillance. According to other sources, the construction is scheduled to begin in July.
A joint venture between Brazilian telecoms provider Telebras and Spain's IslaLink Submarine Cables would lay the communications link. Telebras would have a 35 percent stake, IslaLink would have a 45 percent interest and European and Brazilian pension funds could put up the remainder.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Tuesday February 25 2014, @10:44AM
Fair point. However, forcing the US to go to the expense and trouble of tapping the cable does at least mean we're no longer just handing them data for free, we're making them work for it.
Also, if the US do tap the cable and the EU/Brazilians can prove it, then it gives them another political/ public opinion card in their deck to use against the US should the need ever arise. Listening in on other peoples' data over cables you own is bad, and the US gov is reaping the bad press of that at home and abroad right now. Going out of your way to tap into someone else's is far worse, in the eyes of the public if nothing else. Kicking up a fuss about this (or threatening to) could be useful when negotiating with the US and/or influencing public opinion at some time in the future.
Finally, couldn't they just put a big fat crypto box at either end of the cable, so that any data collected mid-Atlantic is useless / would require brazilians of hours of processing time to break?