Towards a Brazil 2.0

In the new context of the Brazilian internet and in the fight against cyber espionage from the United States and other Anglo-Saxon countries, as has now been discovered in the case of Canada, it is necessary to be careful about what is being said, done, and proposed.

If Brazil intends to play an active role in establishing an international framework for the internet, it cannot – through haste or misinformation – adopt or present ineffective proposals, such as making it mandatory for international companies to host the data of Brazilian citizens on servers located within the national territory.

Wherever they are located, the servers will continue to be operated by the companies themselves – unless the government starts co-administering Google, Facebook, or Microsoft in Brazil, which is as unlikely as it is illegal. If the company wants to (or one of its directors, or a simple employee), it will only need to pass on the required data to the US government, after collecting it on its servers located in Brazilian territory.

Furthermore, because whether inside or outside Brazil, theoretically any server can be hacked. Proof of this is that even Pentagon and US government servers have been "taken down," including by Brazilian hackers, who attacked NASA servers (because it was – believe it or not! – confused with the NSA) a few days ago.

Furthermore, thousands of companies appear (and disappear) on the internet every day, including social networks, which, in one way or another, will have access to Brazilians' information, personal or otherwise, right from the registration process. How can we know if they have contact with the US government or not? Or if they weren't created by US security agencies? How can we monitor their emergence and force them to transfer their servers to Brazil?

Building an internet network, whether for home, corporate, national, or global use, is theoretically simple.

With determination and money, any nation, or an alliance of countries, such as BRICS – we discussed the possibility of a BRICSNET a few days ago – can buy, or develop if they have the time, the servers, backbones, routers, fiber optic cables, satellites, antennas, computers, tablets, iPhones, etc., necessary for this.

Although physical control of a network, or part of it – we are ordering satellites, installing UNASUR fiber optic cables, and discussing the BRICS Cable project – is important, it will be of no use if we do not have software that is also relatively secure for that network, or subnetwork, to function.

These "open source" software programs do exist. Because they have open code and are routinely improved voluntarily and collaboratively by people all over the world, it is more difficult to equip them with "traps" and clandestine "doors"—as happens with software from large internet companies—to spy on users.

The Brazilian government already uses free software in programs linked to the state, as well as software developed by the government itself. It must start using them exclusively and mandatorily, equipping them with encryption, in official communications, in addition to installing systems that block the use of emails, social networks, and private websites from public administration computers.

But none of this will matter if this software cannot be multiplied, disseminated, and used, through applications, in the daily lives of ordinary citizens, which leads us to a crucial factor – marketing – that has not been given the importance it deserves in this discussion so far.

Citizens around the world don't have their data violated simply because the US is manipulative and "evil." They are spied on because they prefer to remain so, rather than stop using sites like Google, YouTube, Skype, Instagram, or Facebook.

If these companies were banned from operating in Brazil, Brazilian citizens would still have – voluntarily – access to them and their services, simply by connecting to their computers located in the US or other countries. This is unless Brazilian citizens were censored and prohibited from doing so, and even then – in that absurd scenario – they could circumvent the government through proxies, VPNs, and much more.

As they have done before with film and television, when they sit down to decide which script to write and produce, on the internet – when choosing which startup to support, what type of application to develop, where to install a virus or malware – Americans also act like the character from the Pied Piper of Hamelin fairy tale.

From a very young age, our children are fascinated by their games, communicate through their messaging services, interact on their social networks, and chat via their online chat rooms and video chats.

If – alone or with BRICS – we fail to invest in education and innovation, in marketing and entertainment, to capture the attention of our youth, Brazilian society will continue to be spied on – even if the president starts using the new postal service email, or one day stops tweeting altogether.

Do Mauro Santayanna's blog