
Brazil, Europe plan undersea cable to skirt U.S. spying - lelf
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/02/24/us-eu-brazil-idUSBREA1N0PL20140224
======
brudgers
It's a feel good.

The US has the most sophisticated undersea capability of any nation state.
Tapping transatlantic cables is something at which its intelligence organs are
experienced.

[http://www.zdnet.com/news/spy-agency-taps-into-undersea-
cabl...](http://www.zdnet.com/news/spy-agency-taps-into-undersea-cable/115877)

It is but one of a long string of sea bottom operations which include Project
Azorian, the Thresher and Scorpion investigations, Palomares and probably much
that remains classified.

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Azorian)

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_(SSN-593)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Thresher_\(SSN-593\))

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_(SSN-589)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Scorpion_\(SSN-589\))

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1966_Palomares_B-52_crash)

~~~
alan_cx
Not at all.

If the EU and Brazil are using US cables, the US is just interfering with its
own cable. Fair enough. Entirely different if the US attacks a cable it does
not own. It changes the game. It could be considered a hostile act against
allies.

~~~
mercurial
> It could be considered a hostile act against allies.

Come on. Nine EU countries are complicit in the warrantless wiretap/metadata
collection scheme GHCQ is running here on behalf of the NSA. If the US is
tapping an EU cable, it's just more data going in the same fetid pool. You can
see how outraged the various EU governments are by how loud they have been
about it. The only one who seems genuinely upset is Merkel, and mostly because
the German secret services don't have the same technical abilities.

I don't know how genuinely angry Brazil is, but I would be extremely surprised
if Brazilian intelligence didn't have a similar setup at home.

~~~
erichurkman
At _least_ nine EU countries are complicit. With as widespread as spying is, I
don't think we could safely rule out the other 19 member states.

~~~
mercurial
Unfortunately, you are probably right.

------
alisson
I think this is great! As a Brazilian developer I would love to be able to use
european datacenters, today the latency makes it almost impossible, they're
way cheaper than Brazilian ones and travel to EU is easier than to the US
because of the visa.

This isn't the solution to privacy but solves a lot of other problems.

~~~
Ihmahr
And hopefully traffic in Brazil will also become cheaper :)

~~~
HugoDias
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1tVzEs9zoM](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1tVzEs9zoM)
:)

~~~
Ihmahr
Sorry, I don't speak Portuguese. Are you implying you do not understand the
relation between internet connectivity and the price of renting a server?

~~~
speeder
The guy in the video is saying "mais ou menos", that means "more or less"

------
tokenadult
Key paragraph: "Brazil and the European Union agreed on Monday to lay an
undersea communications cable from Lisbon to Fortaleza to reduce Brazil's
reliance on the United States after Washington spied on Brasilia."

It's probably a good idea to add to the existing network of transoceanic
cables

[http://www.submarinecablemap.com/](http://www.submarinecablemap.com/)

but the technical means of monitoring international signal traffic include a
lot of other methods besides just having a listening post at the cable landing
point, so probably more helpful for worldwide communication privacy is
building privacy by design

[http://www.privacybydesign.ca/](http://www.privacybydesign.ca/)

into every device and every network (and every legal system) all around the
world.

~~~
ghostDancer
You are completely right, but that doesn't make a good headline either for the
politicians or the press.

~~~
wbracken
And, not that "well, everyone is doing it" makes it right, etc. etc., but to
think that only the US is spying on these communications is a bit naive.

~~~
Amezarak
Indeed, the idea that routing your connections through other countries will
help you is beyond naive. Nearly every industrialized country, including EU
member nations, is documented conducting surveillance on comparable scales,
and most of them (including Portugal) work closely with the NSA. Schemes like
this, especially when government-sponsored, need to be looked at a lot more
skeptically. They aren't doing it for privacy-conscious reasons.

As Der Spiegel put it, the BND spies on everyone but Germans, shares that data
with the other collaborating countries, and then gets data on Germans in
return. (And the Germans didn't call France the "evil empire" of industrial
espionage for no reason.)

------
nemesisj
My previous employer collocated in a Terremark facility called "NAP of the
Americas" located in downtown Miami. ([http://www.terremark.com/data-
centers/north-america/nap-amer...](http://www.terremark.com/data-
centers/north-america/nap-americas/)) It's a pretty decent facility. One of
the most interesting things about it is that at the time (2-3 years ago) they
liked to boast that more than 2/3rds of all communications traffic to South
America (voice and data) passed through the building. You can bet the NSA has
a nice cozy relationship with them. It was always a bit surprising to me that
South America had that much of a single point of failure, so it's not
surprising they might want to bolster their connectivity a bit.

------
astrodust
Headline two years in the future: "US plans submarine mission to tap into
undersea cable."

~~~
DasIch
Which brings up the interesting question: What happens if someone is bold
enough to blow up a US submarine that's spying?

~~~
saraid216
Depends. Is the submarine manned?

~~~
mpyne
Yes.

The submarine also contains a fully-operational nuclear reactor.

------
ericcumbee
Reading things like this as an American. I think I know how eastern Europeans
felt watching the Iron Curtain go up.

~~~
bas
Talking to or knowing someone from Eastern Europe may disabuse you of this
notion.

~~~
ericcumbee
What I mean is that it feels like, the US is starting down the road of becomes
economically & socially isolated from the rest of the world in some regards.
More or less like eastern Europe at the start of the cold war.

~~~
happyscrappy
That is pretty tepid compared to what you said before.

------
ChuckMcM
So we all get how this isn't a "real" thing (having your own undersea cable
won't help at all in preventing someone from listening in on that cable's
traffic), but it is interesting from the point of view of "Why this headline?
Why this story?" It seems targeted at making unsophisticated readers
uncomfortable with the NSA's activities and how it reflects on the US in the
rest of the world. I have no idea how successful it will be, but its a nice
counter balance to the various "Our illegal activities had some benefit for
you" stories we've been seeing.

~~~
brudgers
The same reason that everyone is reporting that Facebook is paying 16 billion
dollars for WhatsApp [1] - these stories write themselves so why work hard
performing proper analysis?

[1] Facebook would have to provide significantly more shares to sell another
$12-15 billlion dollars worth of stock because the increase in supply would
drive the current price down. Likewise, WhatsApp couldn't dump that much and
maintain current valuation. But placing a reasonable value on the stock
requires thinking and thinking makes people's brains hurt...Hell, all
financial reporting is that way. The Dow Jones Industrial average keeps going
up because the losers are taken off the list and replaced by winners.[2]

[2] Yes the footnote is longer than the post. That's what happens when one is
driven to explain. Not that the low standards for journalism require
explaining to you.

------
HugoDias
Most important issues in brazil this days: World Cup and NSA surveillance .
Oh, how i hate this government.

~~~
gcb0
so open you window and see all the popular movements being beaten daily by the
police.

i think you are more part of the problem if that is all the news you care for

~~~
railsdude
The only people "being beaten up" are the black blocs and rightfully, IMHO.
And it's not daily.

~~~
oscargrouch
and people with cameras, and everybody protesting.. the status quo dont want
people protesting.. or fighting for their rights... the midia show only "black
blocks", wich is always a minority, to criminalize the movement, and make
people hate protests.. mostly of course.. brainwashed people manipulated by
the corporate media...

Your comment are really uninformed, or probably very bad informed.. i think
you dont have a clue of whats really going on behind the curtains of power..

------
jstalin
As though the EU doesn't work with US intelligence.

------
ubercore
Too bad U.S. citizens can't get in on it, to skirt U.S. spying.

~~~
dragonwriter
I am amused by the idea that putting something outside of the USA (where US
intelligence organizations aren't even in principle restricted from spying on
it) will somehow protect it from US spying. Sure, there have been lots of
stories recently about US _domestic_ surveillance, but those have been news
specifically because there are, in theory, _restrictions_ on the agencies
involved spying within the US, which create expectations and that domestic
spying violates, whereas the _official purpose_ of the NSA is spying on
electronic communications _outside_ of the US.

~~~
thrownaway2424
Yes, the superficiality of commentary in this thread is pretty disappointing.
An undersea cable between two countries neither of which is the USA is going
to be the VERY FIRST THING that the NSA taps. That is the PURPOSE of the
agency.

------
rogerthis
I don't trust Brazil at all. The government is a bunch of communists, friends
of dictators (Maduro, Castro bros, african 'kings', iran ayatolah, etc). If
you don't know, brazilians are ones of the most monitorated people in the
globe. We are this time passing through a biometric registration, which soon
will be compulsory. Illegal phone wiretapping is very common, and even the
legal ones always end in the media, being used to character assassination.
There are passed laws that will make long-range RFID obligatory in cars.

How can the grazilian state be trusted?

~~~
xj9
Oh great, another dumbass who doesn't now what a communist is. I know the Cold
War has turned y'all off from learning anything real about leftist ideologies,
but c'mon, you know that Marx et al would be totally opposed to the
totalitarian regimes that claim to espose their political theories.

~~~
rogerthis
And another commy who has never read Karl Marx.

~~~
_delirium
I've read some Marx, though I wouldn't say I'm an expert scholar. But I'm
having trouble understanding how Brazil even remotely resembles something Marx
would like. It has even larger income and wealth inequality than the USA! And
large portions of the economy are controlled by finance capital, multinational
companies like Banco do Brasil, Santander, Telefônica, Cosan, etc., often in
an incestuous relationship with political elites. Where is the equal
distribution of resources, the control of the economy by workers, or any of
the rest of the Marxist programme? I mean, Sweden looks more communist than
Brazil to me, and Sweden is not actually communist (it's a capitalist welfare
state).

~~~
dragonwriter
> I mean, Sweden looks more communist than Brazil to me, and Sweden is not
> actually communist (it's a capitalist welfare state).

A welfare state like Sweden's is about what you get when you start with
capitalism (under its original definition), and apply about half of the
program in the Communist Manifesto to it.

Western European and Scandinavian "welfare states" are the closest thing in
the real world to applying the Marxist program to the kind of economies that
it was designed to address what Marx saw as problems with.

"Capitalist welfare state" is something that people are able to say with a
straight face only as a result of the Cold War idea (mostly, ironically,
originating from the side that ended up _losing_ ) that whatever stands in
opposition to Leninism and its descendants is fairly described as
"capitalism".

~~~
_delirium
True, it was initially quite a Marxist program, though at the time it was
Marxist it was also considerably more ambitious: at one time the Scandinavian
social-democratic parties included among their goals the eventual ownership
and democratic management of the means of production by the workers. Their
main difference with the Communist Party was that they believed it could be
accomplished through incremental, non-revolutionary, Parliamentary means.

Today's Scandinavian Social-Democratic parties have jettisoned that part of
their ideological history and no longer mention it much, though, and nowadays
the idea of workers owning the means of production is not so popular, and even
the state doing so is less popular than it was, with many privatizations
taking place over the past 30 years. Today's dominant ideology is probably
something more like Poul Nyrup Rasmussen's "flexicurity"
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity)),
which is the idea that in terms of economic organization and control, the
society should be fully market-based, not worker-owned, with things allocated
by supply and demand, hiring and firing being easy, etc. But then there should
also be taxation to provide for a safety net so the lower end of society
doesn't fall too far. There are a few exceptions, for example health-care is
still mostly non-market-based.

I think I agree that the Cold War cemented some of this, but afaik the idea of
a capitalist welfare state originated considerably earlier, some of it in
Marx's writing itself. He argued that one way capitalism would defend itself
would be to institute reformist measures to ameliorate the worst conditions of
the working class, in order to keep them from revolting (Otto von Bismarck
pioneered the "right-wing welfare state" in the 1880s for precisely this
reason). Thus the argument among many Communist parties of the late 19th and
earthly 20th centuries that the Social Democratic parties were just helping
capitalists to delay revolution, and not fundamentally leftist parties. And
then later, capitalist theorists like F.A. Hayek were in favor of a kind of
capitalist welfare state (basic income, free hospital care, etc.).

------
brianbarker
With so much focus on the NSA, the other nations will continue increasing
their spying capabilities and the game continues with more adversaries.

------
jobu
Once again, the internet routes around failure.

------
AutoCorrect
submarine, cable tap, plan is a waste of time and money if anti-spying is the
reason.

------
scurvy
What does this accomplish other than a press op for Dilma? The US will just
tap and spy on this cable, too. This is nothing more than a politically
motivated PR stunt so that Dilma can appear to be "talking tough" with the US
to the Brazilian public.

------
ccanassa
This is just a populist political move in order to gain votes.

~~~
lispm
Politicians listening to their voters? What a strange concept...

------
brianbreslin
How soon before we see efforts like this and in the RFQ/RFP it disallows US
companies to bid because they are afraid of us companies not being
trustworthy.

------
outside1234
Like cables can only be tapped at endpoints. Hilarious!

~~~
fit2rule
Its going to be encrypted. And there will be submarine intrusion detection
systems. Whats not to like?

~~~
rblatz
I'm sure they'll just tap it and screw the submarine intrusion detection. What
are they going to do? Stop using it and route it through other cables that are
also tapped?

And if they can't access the data due to it being encrypted end to end on that
link they will either sabotage the line over and over until it's given up on.
Or they will hack into the endpoints (physically or electronically) to
retrieve the encryption keys.

~~~
fit2rule
And yet the world will fight on against the tyranny and oppression of the
powers. This is how it always has been with humans, and it won't be any
different in this case.

~~~
alexeisadeski3
This plan is not an example of a fight against tyranny.

~~~
fit2rule
Oh - but yes it is! Indeed there is much tyranny to be had in the undermining
of foreign economies with espionage and injected turmoil, and the nation of
the USA has invested _much_ in its ability to tyrannise other nations through
economic means. If you cannot see the tyranny, perhaps you are standing too
close.

~~~
alexeisadeski3
This plan is about increasing the amount of tyranny in the world.

~~~
fit2rule
The cable will increase tyranny? I think you mean "decrease American
hegemony"..

~~~
alexeisadeski3
As explained multiple times throughout this page, it'll do no such thing.

~~~
fit2rule
Every little bit counts. I for one welcome the demise of American hegemony -
and I don't see why this isn't a step in the right direction. Just because a
bunch of Americans say "nu-uh .. we'll just hax0r your cables" doesn't mean
the rest of the world needs to bend over and prepare for a greasin' ..

~~~
alexeisadeski3
If the country planning the private cable had a better human rights record
than the US, I'd agree.

Unfortunately, that's not the case.

~~~
fit2rule
You might want to think about Americas' Prisons. The secret ones, as well as
the ones being used to enslave 1/3rd of the population..

------
gtirloni
This is good network management. The NSA datacenters are too overloaded, let's
divert the traffic to the GCHQ ones to load balance this thing.

------
grecy
I look forward to the headline:

"The European Union and countries x, y, z agree to stop using the US dollar
for all transactions due to spying..."

~~~
rosser
Yeah, let's _actually_ break the global economy, because NSA.

~~~
DasIch
It wouldn't break the global economy at all. It would definitely have
catastrophic consequences on the US economy though.

~~~
rosser
With the dollar still serving as the global reserve currency, it would have
implications for _everyone_.

With the US economy still driving the majority of global consumption (though
this is admittedly changing), it would have implications for _everyone_.

"Break" is, perhaps, mildly overstating the case. But, unless you live
somewhere that doesn't interact with the outside world in any meaningful way,
you would without doubt feel the pain of a sudden shift away from USD like
that.

~~~
mark_l_watson
I don't disagree with you. Some time in the future, other tax jurisdictions
will decide it is worth the short term pain to get off of the US$. I wouldn't
be surprised if this happens slowly with end to end credit swaps, a few
countries getting together to trade with alternative currencies, etc. It is in
no one's best interest for this to happen very quickly. My personal bet is
that in about 5 years, about half of world trade will be done in currencies
other than the US$.

------
jpkeisala
This is really great! We are getting better speed to South-America from Europe
and maybe it's not even being spied.

------
ptaffs
GCHQ is in Europe (UK), maybe they should specifically route to mainland
Europe. (Since GCHQ is working with the NSA).

~~~
outside1234
Right, because France or Germany aren't spying on anyone.

~~~
nraynaud
it's more like they are not as big, paranoid, weaponized and violent than the
US, so basically they spy less and kill less people as a result of the spying.

And also they have those pesky European Court of Human Rights and
International Court of Justice overseeing them.

(Not everything if pink tho, some EU countries don't want GMO and Brasil and
Argentina bet big on it)

~~~
gnerd
Explain to me, a European citizen, sitting in Europe how I am protected
against any of the same measures in the US? Forget GCHQ for a second, lets
pick say... the Swedish FRA law, the Swedish Titan Traffic Database, the
Denmark/Sweden DNS filter (some of the systems I mention have had little or
delayed scrutiny from the outside). So how does any European court prevent
that from happening in practise? How do these systems throw a spanner in the
works?

It seems to me, perhaps I am a pessimist, that these EU systems mean about as
much as the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in principle it should
mean everything but in practise it means sweet fuck all. Trade treaties might
have more weight but I think the US holds more cards than we do as far as that
is concerned.

~~~
nraynaud
[http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Cases_list_2013_ENG.pdf](http://www.echr.coe.int/Documents/Cases_list_2013_ENG.pdf)

you are welcome.

~~~
gnerd
Thanks very much but I was asking about how any systems we have prevent these
things from happening, they don't seems to be your answer. No preventions,
just consequences... sometimes, assuming the parties aren't too big for
consequences or the issues touch on trade factors. Great, but that's the same
deal everyone in a moderately free country has all over the world. Show me the
case law for Sweden, the UK, NL, Germany, France being taken to court for
collecting and processing information, because some of those countries have
been doing this in a public fashion for years.

You don't think handing over EU citizen data to the US is a violation of EU
policy? Tell me again about how I'm protected again?

I am protected when it comes to local issues, perhaps, but if Germany, Sweden,
France, NL, UK etc. decide they are going to keep tabs on things I do online
if my traffic enters their territories then European protections are just
fluff. At least that's how it seems to me seeing as none of these things are
going to change and there are clear violations with respect to privacy in
existing European Law (and I'm not just talking about GCHQ here).

It's a bit like slavery being illegal in just about every single country on
earth. What an amazing achievement to have everyone on the same page on
something important, except on the ground we have more slaves right now than
ever before. Every second chocolate bar you've ever bought was probably
tainted in slavery. Those protections don't mean anything unless the
stakeholders care and the law is enforced. If it is not enforced, its not
really a law.

------
caiob
Because internet spying is Brazil's biggest issue at the moment. Talk about
priorities, Eh?1

~~~
fidotron
Unfortunately priority #1 needs to be abolishing the counter productive import
tax on any electronics, which has led to a mix of company closures and
Brazilian brain drain in favour of a relative handful of less skilled factory
workers.

Sad, since there is a lot of talent in Brazil and this prevents making the
most of it.

~~~
dcarmo
Lol at you thinking that being able to import your PS4 is priority #1. I too
hate the import tax, but this priority is way down the list of what the
government should be tackling.

------
aubergene
This article by Neal Stephenson on cable laying from around 1994 is a long but
still a very good read

[http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html](http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/4.12/ffglass_pr.html)

------
batmansbelt
Would it stop over in Africa first? It looks like that's along the way.

~~~
amitparikh
The Great Circle route looks like it just skirts past the Canary Islands:

[http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=FOR-LIS](http://www.gcmap.com/mapui?P=FOR-LIS)

~~~
nly
You're correct, it's going to land in Tenerife according to this:

[http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/brazil-
sp...](http://www.submarinecablemap.com/#/submarine-cable/brazil-spain)

This seems to have been a popular route for telecommunications cables 'for a
while'

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1901_Eas...](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a5/1901_Eastern_Telegraph_cables.png)

------
falconfunction
There is also BRICS cable, and I don't know how it relates to this.

[http://www.bricscable.com/](http://www.bricscable.com/)

------
acd
I feels like this cable will be cheddar cheese to a uboat and some skilled
divers. Encryption is probably better as is opensource and open hardware.

------
kumarski
Does anyone else see the inherent issue and irony in trying to monitor and
protect an extremely long undersea cable across the Atlantic?

------
contingencies
China should get in on this game... it borders half the planet.

------
cpncrunch
Wouldn't it be simpler just to use encryption?

------
igl
Says the non-democratic European muppet government? Hahaha. This cable goes
directly into obamas laptop.

