[bestbits] OPED: Brazil: the New Internet Freedom Champion?

Wed Oct 16 08:29:23 EDT 2013

Grande Shahzad,

Behind the misinformed headlines on this: no big deal and I was taken a
bit by surprise as I understand they should have done this a while ago.

Serpro, the state company in charge of data processing and data
transmission for all federal government services, hosts most federal
e-gov services in Brazil. This is a large company which, among other
activities, led the deployment of free and open source software systems
in e-gov here. That our adoption of FOSS was not as extensive as we
expected is not the fault of Serpro.

They are preparing to replace all gov email systems with a large secure
email service entirely based on FOSS. This will mean, among other
things, dropping all Microsoft Exchange contracts several gov agencies
have been using, and saving millions in licensing. The system of course
will be encrypted (Serpro is one of the authorized e-certificate issuers
for the Brazilian Public Key Infrastructure system).

As I said, no big deal -- except that the system will be indeed a big
one due to our size, and one of the challenges in my view is training of
public servants in the use of encrypted email.

As to the gov "taking control of all comm channels", and again behind
the misinformed headlines: there is another state company, Telebras,
running fiber throughout Brazil and associating itself with
international partners in launching sub cables to Europe, Africa and
Asia, in order to reduce dependency on international Internet traffic
going through the USA (nearly 90% of our BR-Europe traffic goes through
Uncle Sam now, for example), as well as launching a satellite (currently
even our military have to use foreign-owned satellites) jointly
developed by Telebras and Embraer. Telebras is central to the National
Broadband Plan (PNBL) and is suffering from lack of funds -- in part due
to pressure from the "quintet" of transnational telcos who control
nearly all the backbones in Brazil (TIM, Telefónica, GVT/Vivendi,
Oi/Portugal Telecom, Claro). The Telebras fiber backbone has two
objectives: providing points of presence in the municipalities which the
"market" (the quintet) is not interested in (we have 5.565
municipalities), and provide secure communications infrastructure for
gov services.

Interesting times indeed! :)

fraternal regards

--c.a.

On 10/16/2013 02:13 AM, Shahzad Ahmad wrote:
> Media reporting a new "safe" email service being developed by Brazilians. 
> 
> Is it a step towards further balkanization of the Internet? Each county
> concerned about their cyber safety will be introducing such services?
> 
> Will government then in any case take control of communication channels?
> 
> Interesting times :)
> 
> Best wishes and regards
> Shahzad
> 
> From: Jeremy Malcolm <jeremy at ciroap.org <mailto:jeremy at ciroap.org>>
> Organization: Consumers International
> Date: Wednesday, October 16, 2013 7:27 AM
> To: <bestbits at lists.bestbits.net <mailto:bestbits at lists.bestbits.net>>
> Subject: Re: [bestbits] OPED: Brazil: the New Internet Freedom Champion?
> 
> On 16/10/13 08:49, Eduardo Bertoni wrote:
>>
>> For instance, if Brazil were to join the Freedom Online Coalition
>> <http://www.freedomonline.tn/Fr/home_46_4>, a group of governments
>> committed to advance Internet freedom, it would send a positive
>> message to the international community. Countries that join the
>> coalition endorse a statement supporting the principle that all people
>> enjoy the same human rights online as they do offline. From Latin
>> America, only Costa Rica and Mexico are part of the coalition. On the
>> other hand, other countries that are not members of the coalition,
>> such as Russia, China and India, have taken steps in the wrong
>> direction. For example, in the past, they have presented draft
>> resolutions to the UN General assembly, which would have put in risk
>> Internet governance. For Brazil, joining the Freedom Online Coalition
>> would be a turning point and a step in the opposite direction,
>> demonstrating that it takes some distance from its partners in groups
>> such as the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) and IBSA (India,
>> Brazil and South Africa).
>>
> 
> It would be very interesting to read a reply from the perspective of
> India.  We can't overlook that the United States is also a member of the
> Freedom Online Coalition.  Not to mention say Tunisia, which is ranked a
> full point lower than India in the Freedom House survey.  Given that the
> "Internet freedom" slogan has suffered a serious blow from the NSA
> revelations, it is quite debatable what was the "wrong direction" to
> take in opposition to the status-quoist position on Internet governance
> taken by the FOC states.  Hmm.
> 
> -- 
> 
> *Dr Jeremy Malcolm
> Senior Policy Officer
> Consumers International | the global campaigning voice for consumers*
> Office for Asia-Pacific and the Middle East
> Lot 5-1 Wisma WIM, 7 Jalan Abang Haji Openg, TTDI, 60000 Kuala Lumpur,
> Malaysia
> Tel: +60 3 7726 1599
> 
> Explore our new Resource Zone - the global consumer movement knowledge
> hub | http://www.consumersinternational.org/news-and-media/resource-zone
> 
> @Consumers_Int | www.consumersinternational.org
> <http://www.consumersinternational.org> |
> www.facebook.com/consumersinternational
> <http://www.facebook.com/consumersinternational>
> 
> Read our email confidentiality notice
> <http://www.consumersinternational.org/email-confidentiality>. Don't
> print this email unless necessary.
> 
> *WARNING*: This email has not been encrypted. You are strongly
> recommended to enable PGP or S/MIME encryption at your end. For
> instructions, see http://jere.my/l/8m.
> 