BRAZIL plans to divorce itself from
the US-centric internet over Washington's widespread online spying in a
move that may fracture the global network.
Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff ordered a series of measures
aimed at greater Brazilian online independence and security following
revelations that the US National Security Agency intercepted her
communications, hacked into the state-owned Petrobras oil company's
network and spied on Brazilians who entrusted their personal data to US
tech companies such as Facebook and Google.
The leader is so
angered by the espionage that she's considering cancelling a trip to
Washington next month where she's scheduled to be honoured with a state
dinner.
Internet security and policy experts say the Brazilian
government's reaction to information leaked by former NSA contractor
Edward Snowden is understandable, but warn it could set the Internet on a
course of Balkanization.
"The global backlash is only beginning and will get far more severe
in coming months," said Sascha Meinrath, director of the Open Technology
Institute at the Washington-based New America Foundation think tank.
"This notion of national privacy sovereignty is going to be an
increasingly salient issue around the globe."
While Brazil isn't
proposing to bar its citizens from US-based Web services, it wants their
data to be stored locally as the nation assumes greater control over
Brazilians' internet use to protect them from NSA snooping.
The danger of mandating that kind of geographic isolation, Mr
Meinrath said, is that it could render inoperable popular software
applications and services and endanger the internet's open,
interconnected structure.
The effort by Latin America's biggest
economy to digitally isolate itself from US spying not only could be
costly and difficult, it could encourage repressive governments to seek
greater technical control over the internet to crush free expression at
home, experts say.
In December, countries advocating greater
"cyber-sovereignty" pushed for such control at an International
Telecommunications Union meeting in Dubai, with Western democracies led
by the United States and the European Union in opposition.
US
digital security expert Bruce Schneier says that while Brazil's response
is a rational reaction to NSA spying, it is likely to embolden "some of
the worst countries out there to seek more control over their citizens'
Internet. That's Russia, China, Iran and Syria."
Ms Rousseff says
she intends to push for international rules on privacy and security in
hardware and software during the UN General Assembly meeting later this
month. Among Snowden revelations: the NSA has created backdoors in
software and web-based services.
Brazil is now pushing more
aggressively than any other nation to end US commercial hegemony on the
Internet. More than 80 per cent of online search, for example, is
controlled by US-based companies.
Most of Brazil's global Internet
traffic passes through the United States, so Rousseff's government
plans to lay underwater fiber optic cable directly to Europe and also
link to all South American nations to create what it hopes will be a
network free of US eavesdropping.
More communications integrity
protection is expected when Telebras, the state-run telecom company,
works with partners to oversee the launch in 2016 of Brazil's first
communications satellite, for military and public Internet traffic.
Brazil's military currently relies on a satellite run by Embratel, which
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim controls.
Ms Rousseff is urging
Brazil's Congress to compel Facebook, Google and all companies to store
data generated by Brazilians on servers physically located inside Brazil
in order to shield it from the NSA.
If that happens, and other
nations follow suit, Silicon Valley's bottom line could be hit by lost
business and higher operating costs: Brazilians rank No. 3 on Facebook
and No. 2 on Twitter and YouTube. An August study by a respected US
technology policy nonprofit estimated the fallout from the NSA spying
scandal could cost the US cloud computing industry, which stores data
remotely to give users easy access from any device, as much as $US35
billion ($37 billion) by 2016 in lost business.
Brazil also plans
to build more internet exchange points, places where vast amounts of
data are relayed, in order to route Brazilians' traffic away from
potential interception.
And its postal service plans by next year
to create an encrypted email service that could serve as an alternative
to Gmail and Yahoo!, which according to Snowden-leaked documents are
among US tech giants that have collaborated closely with the NSA.
"Brazil intends to increase its independent internet connections with other countries," Ms Rousseff's office said.
It
cited a "common understanding" between Brazil and the European Union on
data privacy, and said "negotiations are underway in South America for
the deployment of land connections between all nations." It said Brazil
plans to boost investment in home-grown technology and buy only software
and hardware that meet government data privacy specifications.
While
the plans' technical details are pending, experts say they will be
costly for Brazil and ultimately can be circumvented. Just as people in
China and Iran defeat government censors with tools such as "proxy
servers," so could Brazilians bypass their government's controls.
International
spies, not just from the United States, also will adjust, experts said.
Laying cable to Europe won't make Brazil safer, they say. The NSA has
reportedly tapped into undersea telecoms cables for decades.
Mr
Meinrath and others argue that what's needed instead are strong
international laws that hold nations accountable for guaranteeing online
privacy.
"There's nothing viable that Brazil can really do to protect its citizenry without changing what the US is doing," he said.
Matthew
Green, a Johns Hopkins computer security expert, said Brazil won't
protect itself from intrusion by isolating itself digitally. It will
also be discouraging technological innovation, he said, by encouraging
the entire nation to use a state-sponsored encrypted email service.
"It's sort of like a Soviet socialism of computing," he said, adding that the US "free-for-all model works better."
news.com.au 18 Sep 2013
As part of the global agenda to monitor all communications by the 'enemy of the state' (read the people), the United States of America will continue these operations irrespective of what the masses say or do.
As part of this 'conspiracy' all patents (read people's Intellectual Property) are stored in the United States.
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