Oh c'mon. The Gmail of 2013 is not that different from the Gmail of 2004 (unless you count Priority Inbox as an advancement).
There's really nothing complex or fancy in developing a bare bones secure email system. And keep in mind these poor souls are using Lotus Notes (!), so it can't get much worse than that.
Also, it's not that it has to be built entirely from scratch. They will likely re-use existing ideas from other systems, and even (licenses permitting) other open source solutions as a starting point.
All in all, I wish we had more governments stepping up against this whole US spying mess. The real long term solution is not to have each government developing their own proprietary email systems, but for the US to be more transparent and stop the illegal spying.
Sadly, this will have to get worse before it gets better. We'll probably watch a few years of increasing distrust and strained relationships, before governments start to come to terms with the US again.
There's really nothing complex or fancy in developing a bare bones secure email system. And keep in mind these poor souls are using Lotus Notes (!), so it can't get much worse than that.
Also, it's not that it has to be built entirely from scratch. They will likely re-use existing ideas from other systems, and even (licenses permitting) other open source solutions as a starting point.
All in all, I wish we had more governments stepping up against this whole US spying mess. The real long term solution is not to have each government developing their own proprietary email systems, but for the US to be more transparent and stop the illegal spying.
Sadly, this will have to get worse before it gets better. We'll probably watch a few years of increasing distrust and strained relationships, before governments start to come to terms with the US again.