Brazil Divorcing the American Controlled Internet

[The Minsky Moment]

See let's say as a country you want to prevent contractors from surreptitiously cooperating with foreign Intel agencies.  What you do is pass laws that require contractors to disclose any such arrangements and applies severe criminal and civil penalties for violations.  If you are really paranoid, you can give it extra teeth by requiring foreign contractors for certain size/type contracts to establish domestic subs with required levels of assets and staff.

Now let's say as a country you want to give domestic contractors a leg up on the competition.  Then you do something like this.

[Jacob]

Okay that's a fairly convincing argument.

[sbr]

Good, too many goddamned Brazilians with their pidgin Portuguese on the Playstation network as it is.  Good luck with MangoNet.

No shit, it will be a better place without all those BRs.

huehuehue

[Martinus]

Hey Brasil, how about doing something about crushing poverty and extrajudicial killings of children first, and then worrying about personal data protection?

[Barrister]

See let's say as a country you want to prevent contractors from surreptitiously cooperating with foreign Intel agencies.  What you do is pass laws that require contractors to disclose any such arrangements and applies severe criminal and civil penalties for violations.  If you are really paranoid, you can give it extra teeth by requiring foreign contractors for certain size/type contracts to establish domestic subs with required levels of assets and staff.

Now let's say as a country you want to give domestic contractors a leg up on the competition.  Then you do something like this.

Lets say Brazil had such laws in place.  And then the Snowden disclosure hits.

We don't actually even know which US companies were involved in tapping the fibre cables.  We just know that it happened.

Who exactly would Brazil prosecute?  Aren't any and all suspects living in the US?  Is the US going to co-operate with extradition requests?  I know there's an independent judiciary, but the alleged Brazillian criminal actyivity was all done at the request of the US government.

[Barrister]

Now that being said, I made the mistake of accepting a couple of Facebook friend requests from some of my brothers in-laws, and now my inbox is full of portuguese election posts...

[Tamas]

I've not heard of this before. I've only heard of the potential trouble with Russia's moaning about the data of Russian citizens only being on Russian servers (its a good time to invest in the hosting business in Russia).
The separate email system in particular is interesting.

But still, good news, lets hope the  internet decentralises even more.

They will still be on the Internet. They will still be spied upon.

[Tamas]

It would not surprise me if the "point" turned out to be 'well-connected bidders on planned Brazillian cable work find politically acceptable way to exclude cheaper and better American competitors from bidding against them, by tapping into current controversy'.

Ding, ding, ding!  We have a winner!

Yeah.

[Malthus]

See let's say as a country you want to prevent contractors from surreptitiously cooperating with foreign Intel agencies.  What you do is pass laws that require contractors to disclose any such arrangements and applies severe criminal and civil penalties for violations.  If you are really paranoid, you can give it extra teeth by requiring foreign contractors for certain size/type contracts to establish domestic subs with required levels of assets and staff.

Now let's say as a country you want to give domestic contractors a leg up on the competition.  Then you do something like this.

Lets say Brazil had such laws in place.  And then the Snowden disclosure hits.

We don't actually even know which US companies were involved in tapping the fibre cables.  We just know that it happened.

Who exactly would Brazil prosecute?  Aren't any and all suspects living in the US?  Is the US going to co-operate with extradition requests?  I know there's an independent judiciary, but the alleged Brazillian criminal actyivity was all done at the request of the US government.

The idea is to hammer the company with big fines, not necessarily put execs into prision cells.

If they are involved in Brazillian enterprises, they have assets in Brazil; even if the US won't cooperate with recognition and enforcement of Brazillian judgments, those assets - being actually physically present in Brazil - are available for seizure.

As to which company - well, presumably it will not be *that* difficult to figure out, after a big leak. There can't be a plethora of companies involved.

[Barrister]

See let's say as a country you want to prevent contractors from surreptitiously cooperating with foreign Intel agencies.  What you do is pass laws that require contractors to disclose any such arrangements and applies severe criminal and civil penalties for violations.  If you are really paranoid, you can give it extra teeth by requiring foreign contractors for certain size/type contracts to establish domestic subs with required levels of assets and staff.

Now let's say as a country you want to give domestic contractors a leg up on the competition.  Then you do something like this.

Lets say Brazil had such laws in place.  And then the Snowden disclosure hits.

We don't actually even know which US companies were involved in tapping the fibre cables.  We just know that it happened.

Who exactly would Brazil prosecute?  Aren't any and all suspects living in the US?  Is the US going to co-operate with extradition requests?  I know there's an independent judiciary, but the alleged Brazillian criminal actyivity was all done at the request of the US government.

The idea is to hammer the company with big fines, not necessarily put execs into prision cells.

If they are involved in Brazillian enterprises, they have assets in Brazil; even if the US won't cooperate with recognition and enforcement of Brazillian judgments, those assets - being actually physically present in Brazil - are available for seizure.

As to which company - well, presumably it will not be *that* difficult to figure out, after a big leak. There can't be a plethora of companies involved.

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is the standard.  "Figuring it out" isn't going to be good enough.  Besides what are you going to do - subpoena Snowden to give evidence?

Look criminal law is an awesome thing  but it's not the be all and end all.  We have laws against theft and B&E.  If someone breaks into your house and steals your stuff we'll probably catch him.  But I'd still recommend locking your doors and putting in a security system so your stuff doesn't get stolen in the first place.

[Malthus]

See let's say as a country you want to prevent contractors from surreptitiously cooperating with foreign Intel agencies.  What you do is pass laws that require contractors to disclose any such arrangements and applies severe criminal and civil penalties for violations.  If you are really paranoid, you can give it extra teeth by requiring foreign contractors for certain size/type contracts to establish domestic subs with required levels of assets and staff.

Now let's say as a country you want to give domestic contractors a leg up on the competition.  Then you do something like this.

Lets say Brazil had such laws in place.  And then the Snowden disclosure hits.

We don't actually even know which US companies were involved in tapping the fibre cables.  We just know that it happened.

Who exactly would Brazil prosecute?  Aren't any and all suspects living in the US?  Is the US going to co-operate with extradition requests?  I know there's an independent judiciary, but the alleged Brazillian criminal actyivity was all done at the request of the US government.

The idea is to hammer the company with big fines, not necessarily put execs into prision cells.

If they are involved in Brazillian enterprises, they have assets in Brazil; even if the US won't cooperate with recognition and enforcement of Brazillian judgments, those assets - being actually physically present in Brazil - are available for seizure.

As to which company - well, presumably it will not be *that* difficult to figure out, after a big leak. There can't be a plethora of companies involved.

Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is the standard.  "Figuring it out" isn't going to be good enough.  Besides what are you going to do - subpoena Snowden to give evidence?

Look criminal law is an awesome thing  but it's not the be all and end all.  We have laws against theft and B&E.  If someone breaks into your house and steals your stuff we'll probably catch him.  But I'd still recommend locking your doors and putting in a security system so your stuff doesn't get stolen in the first place.

This sort of law is reasonably common though - look at the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

Not sure that simply not using US firms is good "security". That's sort of like holding that you were once robbed by a Jamacan employee, so you won't hire any more Jamacans, thus guaranteeing you will not be robbed in future. Doesn't that just mean that the next time you will be robbed it will be by a non-Jamacan employee?

[The Minsky Moment]

This sort of law is reasonably common though - look at the US Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.

From which there has sprung a vast compliance industry, and a huge infrastructure of in house legal and compliance resources.

That's what makes this kind of amusing - if US-based multinats can be relied on for something comparatively it is having in place an internal compliance culture and resource allocation that actually focuses on complying with domestic regs.

That's not saying it is 100% bulletproof.  But is opting for say a Chinese or Russian competitor really a lot safer?

For that matter if the NSA is really as powerful as the Snwodenites claim, what stops it from bribing a coercing a domestic Brazilian contractor to carry out its nefarious deeds?

[Ed Anger]

Stop giving out our spying secrets there Minsky.

That is DG's job.

[CountDeMoney]

Good, too many goddamned Brazilians with their pidgin Portuguese on the Playstation network as it is.  Good luck with MangoNet.

That was my first thouht too. 

You know it's bad when custom BF4 servers say "NO TKING NO BASERAPING NO BRAZILIANS"

[Ed Anger]

Lolz