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I sometimes feel like the smartest move is to use a product coming from a country ruled by a hostile government. Like, if you're in the US, sign up for Chinese services, but if you're in China sign up for American ones.

(yeah the relationship is more complicated than "hostile" but you get my drift)



If this is your perspective, maybe it would be better if everyone bought phones from Finland.


I believe his point with 'hostile' is to choose nations where they would be both likely and able to say 'no' should the host nation of an individual request sensitive information on the individual in question.

For instance Switzerland had some of the most secure and private banking in the world. It was actually a criminal act in Switzerland to reveal the name of an account holder - to anybody, including governments. And so if the US were to request information on a possible US account holder, they would be likely to say no. But given the influence of the US on both Switzerland and on the nations it most heavily depends upon, they've proven themselves unable to say no, and ended up passing all sorts of special laws, just to bend over to US requests that infringed their nation laws and more generally their sovereignty.

Another interesting example with Switzerland is Champagne. Champagne, Switzerland has been making a local wine known as Champagne since the 9th century. Many centuries before the champagne of France even existed. In 2004 the EU told them to stop using the name. And again even if they were likely to say no, they would be unable to do so. As another interesting aside Champagne, using the ubiquitous méthode champenoise, was not invented in France. It was created by an Englishman. What a sordid tale that little drink has!

Would Finland be likely to say no? I don't know - I have very little knowledge of the security arrangements between Finland and the US. Would they be able to say no to the US? Not a chance.


Maybe not. https://www.militarytimes.com/news/pentagon-congress/2016/10...

I'd think China, Russia, or Iran would be your best bets if you were seeking countries unlikely to cooperate with US intelligence services.


Is Finland hostile to anyone?




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