"It will probably cost more in the long run." "The NSA will just crack it and spy anyway."
So many people with the attitude that countries that find out their tech partners are actually performing espionage on behalf of the US government (and US security partners) should just tolerate it rather than do something about it.
Migrating the government to Linux and using a free mail infrastructure would be cheaper (saving money in the long term, instead of costing), easier, and way more effective than using a non-standard internal email protocol and keep using Windows everywhere. Why bother when Microsoft still has access to all your data?
About using that proprietary protocol AND migrating to a free software environment, that could be better than just migrating, or worse, depends of the actual quality* of the protocol. But while the government frames it as a XOR option, migrating to an open stack is the only sane option.
* The fact that the protocol isn't public isn't good, the fact that it's Serpro creating it makes this worse - they've already done quite a few bad decisions about security.
Disclaimer: I work at Microsoft, so eh.
The tech industries reaction to the Snowden seems to the outside very lukewarm. Sure, they are giving all sorts of "trust us" statements, but truth is we don't have the slightest clue if this is their honest opinion or just an opinion that a secret court forces them to uphold. Reality might be much more nuanced, but to the outside there is very little reason to give anyone any longer the benefit of the doubt.
I was a bit amused to read that "The Expresso platform will also be used as the base of the Hotmail-like system that the government is also planning to offer to citizens." Are Brazil's citizens that trusting of its government? I certainly can't imagine Americans trusting their email to the government even before Snowden-gate.
I mean to say this appears to be primarily a political reaction with nice governmental side-benefits.
And from a security perspective (sorry linux fanbois and microsft haters) the choice of MTA/MUA isn't as important as the rest of the security.
Would be interesting if due to this that OSI and X.400 makes a comeback for more secure email - though presumably with all the security enhancement proposed for the later standards - hmm I wonder if you could use quantum networking with x.400/500
If I were a spy agency and an open source project was being spun up that several countries would use, I'd get at least a dozen devs on it. And if I'm thinking that, then you know they all must be...