

Brazilian government studying the creation of a free encrypted email service - aoldoni
http://translate.google.com/translate?sl=pt&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fg1.globo.com%2Ftecnologia%2Fnoticia%2F2013%2F09%2Fcorreios-podem-ter-email-gratuito-e-criptografado-diz-ministerio.html

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nefasti
Too see how much our Government understands the problem, the Minister of
Communication asked the "Correios" to build the secure email system,
"Correios" is the Brazilian equivalent of USPS.

There are dozen more qualified departments to work on this, and the incredible
idea is to build an encryption and certification for email text, they never
heard of OpenPGP.

It looks like he really thinks because it´s email(electronic mail) _gasp_ the
postal services should handle this.

~~~
freehunter
After reading Cuckoo's Egg, I was surprised to find out that the German
Bundespost (German USPS) used to control their national networking
infrastructure. Brazil's decision is not without precedent.

~~~
annnnd
There is a difference between networking infrastructure and e-mail services. I
wouldn't call it a precedent as it is not similar enough.

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zorked
Built by the people who can't even keep the president's emails safe with the
help of US ad networks. Sure that's going to work.

The Brazilian government's reaction to all this has been amazingly incompetent
even by Brazilian-government standards.

~~~
d0100
Correios was tasked with this some time ago, but as with many things, it was
put on the back burner. But now it has more attention and support.

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noarchy
So after these revelations of government spying, the idea is to trust email to
a government? There is a potential user of such a system born every minute, I
suppose.

~~~
reycharles
> So after these revelations of _a foreign_ government spying, the idea is to
> trust email to _the national_ government?

I changed your statement. I don't think it's entirely unreasonable to trust
the local government over a foreign country's government. Of course, you could
see this as a sign as "all governments are rotten".

~~~
noarchy
We know the US isn't the only country engaged in widespread spying. I'd be
surprised if Brazil isn't doing it. We're all probably better off assuming
that any country that can spy, _is_ doing it. Of course, people can call me
paranoid for saying this, but I suspect the tide is turning in favour of such
paranoia.

~~~
bilbo0s
The thing is ...

for your average upper class Brazilian, having Brazil spy on you is less
detrimental than having the US spy on you.

For instance, the US can, unilaterally, SEVERELY curtail your ability to
travel. If your name lands on one of the lists the US keeps, it won't matter
what airport in the world you are in... those lists will follow you. In
Brazil, by way of contrast, that upper middle class Brazilian will actually
have some rights that will be respected. He/She has NO rights that an American
court needs to respect in the US.

That's an extreme, and somewhat contrived, example. But I think it illustrates
how many non Americans are thinking about the implications of the whole
"..Non-Americans have no rights.." thing.

------
byoogle
> State may finance the project through ad sales.

We'll just go ahead and let these advertisers spy on you instead.

~~~
galaktor
Government-controlled email service financed through adverts... not very
trust-inspiring.

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unhammer
The Norwegian postal service already has an encrypted email service, DigiPost.
The selling point is that companies and the government should be able to send
you email securely. Good intentions, but I have not tried it yet since it
requires putting Java in your browser, and I don't know anyone who has
([https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digipost](https://no.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digipost)
says they have at least 230.000 users, ~5% of the population).

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rslonik
The BR Gov said the brazillian equivalent of USPS can do the job because they
delivered letters for 350 yrs and everybody trust then (maybe it's because
only them can do it by law).

~~~
PauloManrique
Yeah, this is how we trust then:

[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO_-
KSuhOHs](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bO_-KSuhOHs)

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eksith
Maybe that will work for privacy which we can also work with here, but doesn't
solve the anonymity problem.

This reminds me... Anonymous remailers have been around for quite a while. The
idea being, you get your mail through a forwarding service that wraps the
package to the final destination (or another anonymous forwarder) so the
sender doesn't know where the final destination is actually.

I don't know of something similar can be implemented with email because you
still need headers to be visible. Unless email too can be wrapped in multiple
layers of encryption, headers and all, that each subsequent relay must decrypt
before finding the destination.

~~~
vidarh
> I don't know of something similar can be implemented with email because you
> still need headers to be visible.

Anon.penet.fi - the first well known anonymising e-mail remailer - is 20 years
this year:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penet_remailer](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penet_remailer)
\- it's not only possible, it's trivially easy as you can rewrite the headers
as you please.

For just anonymity from someone without ability to eavesdrop you don't need
much - just strip out the headers from the sender, and replace the sender and
recipient addresses.

For protection against eavesdropping you need at a minimum encryption between
sender and the relay, and the relay and the recipient (which could be another
relay). EDIT: against a dedicated opponent you want more, including end to end
encryption as well, of course.

There are lots of e-mail remailer designs around (most substantially more
advanced than the Penet remailer)

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ramon
So, Correios will probaly hire some Brazilian IT to build this service.. okay,
it's safe! :)

Should be built by National Security Agency instead if you're looking for
security, right?

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kbart
The last place I would trust my private data is ANY government. They would
better spend that money on PGP promotion and public education to get some real
privacy.

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PauloManrique
We are one step away from a communist takeover in Brazil and now they talk
about a "safe e-mail"? Yeah right.

~~~
vidarh
And which one of your many fragmented communist or socialist parties that
combined has ~5% of the votes for your national congress is it that'd
supposedly be strong enough to carry out such a takeover?

None of your big parties are anywhere near being communist, despite the
history of some of their elements.

EDIT: Not that you should trust your government to run a "safe email service"
regardless. See it for what it is: A way of showing how annoyed they are about
the NSA revelations.

~~~
PauloManrique
The president party is socialist and got much more than 5%. Deals with cuba,
bringing doctors (which is almost slavery since they receive only 7% of the
price, everything else goes to Cuba), teachers, the marxist brainwashing that
teachers are doing on schools and colleges, "Foro de Sao Paulo", which is a
reunion of the current party of the president, presidents of Venezuela,
Bolivia and the colombian Farc, the list goes on and on.

~~~
vidarh
PT is centre-left. It is no more "socialist" than most mainstream European
"socialist" parties, none of which are socialist in anything but name.

PT might have _been_ socialist some years back, just like many of the European
socialist parties used to be (many even used to be communist).

------
swah
What's the problem with PGP?

~~~
dudus
None. Gov is just too proud to seek professional guidance over the issue and
is planning to reinvent the wheel.

Probably we'll see millions being spent into something nobody will use.

~~~
hobs
Dont forget, those millions will likely go to some crony who gets to spend all
the money on their new yacht.

------
batemanesque
if the Brazilian government is so concerned w/ civil liberties, maybe they
should focus their attention on addressing rampant police brutality &
overreach rather than geek-pandering gimmicks like this.

~~~
vidarh
This has nothing to do with "geek pandering" and everything to do with
expressing their dislike for the NSA revelations.

------
anxiousest
I'm getting fed up with these nonsense notions and governments feigning
victimhood to route citizen to their honeypot schemes.

Brazil is a country that wants sovereignty over its citizens' digital lives,
mainly to spy on them:
[http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2013/08/11/act...](http://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2013/08/11/actualidad/1376172139_847597.html)

Being spied upon by (wait for it) a _spy agency_ does not change the fact that
a government run email service is the last place you want to host your email
to keep it away from the government.

It’s something that Iran would do (and did).

