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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) 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.