Brazil Announces Secure Email To Counter US Spying 165
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "Phys Org reports that Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff has announced her government is creating a secure email system to try and shield official communications from spying by the United States and other countries. 'We need more security on our messages to prevent possible espionage,' Rousseff said on Twitter, ordering the Federal Data Processing Service, or SERPRO, to implement a safe email system throughout the federal government. The move came after Rousseff publicly condemned spying against Brazilian government agencies attributed to the United States and Canada. 'This is the first step toward extending the privacy and inviolability of official posts,' Rousseff said. After bringing her complaints against U.S. intelligence agencies to the United Nations General Assembly last month and canceling a state visit to Washington, Rousseff announced that the country will host an international conference on Internet governance in April."
Re:Who wants email hosted by Federal Government? (Score:5, Informative)
The same federal government? And at least tries to provide an alternative to the email controlled by the US federal government (i.e. all the ones of companies that are US based or have their servers there).
At least for braziians, is the lesser evil, else they will be empowerign the federal government [wikipedia.org] behind overthrowing democratically elected governments all around the world since last century, including the brazilian one [wikipedia.org], of course.
Re:Who wants email hosted by Federal Government? (Score:3, Informative)
You're right it's a PR stunt, but it's not aimed at the US. The Brazilian Government is not so stupid as to think that it's even possible to create an email system that is secure from NSA spying; no networked system is 100% secure and certainly not from the NSA, who's budget is probably 10X SERPROs. Even if they did, they wouldn't coomunicate it through Twitter, they'd do it through their official channels through their embassy in DC or to our embassy in Rio.
This was released on Twitter, though, which means the target audience was Dilma Rousseff's followers. The Brazilian populace sees Rousseff as a problem, who can't protect Brazil from outside interference like the US. This when Brazil by all rights should be the dominant player in South America, but they're eclipsed by the US's superior position as the dominant power on the entire Western Hemisphere. So her popularity has crumbled, and Brazil just entered the campaign cycle as elections are in October 2014. There's already a strong coalition formed to unseat her in the election. So this is simply Brazilian campaign fluff as the election cycle heats up; it's targeted at Brazilian voters to make her appear tough on foreign interference.