Major Setback for Corporate Surveillance in Cars and Phones

Summary: The demise of privacy-infringing operating systems from Microsoft and the growth of Linux in tracked devices such as phones and cars

LARGE OEMs long ago signalled their departure from a Windows-only strategy. Companies, unlike some governments, are not in the business of providing welfare or subsidies to Microsoft. When doing business with Microsoft stops making sense, then assuming there are no bribes or extortion, they do have a solid, industrially-recognised alternative to turn to. It's GNU/Linux and Android/Linux (Apple does not work with partners as such).

Microsoft's biggest and perhaps only supporter when it comes to automobiles (also a surveillance-leaning company) is reportedly going to ditch Microsoft for a Canadian platform. As one Canadian put it: "When Ford figures out that BB is not much better in the user-interface department they may come to their sense and use FLOSS."

Yes, they can also turn to Linux, which has several initiatives specificially for automobiles. There is plenty of momentum there. "I guess from a sales perspective it makes sense," one added. "Anyone would run far far away from a Windows Car. Blackberry, not so much. It's Unix-like, so it should be hackable," Chris wrote.

Will Hill said: "That's not a far jump from Microsoft but it's better than nothing. [...] People need to realize that all non free software is malicious. My brother tried to watch one of my videos, html 5 video tag pointing to theora, and it crashed his blackberry. Barfed it so hard he had to cold start it."

Not only cars are ejecting Windows. A Nokia expert says that "Windows Phone is dead" just a few years after Windows Mobile quietly died. iophk from Finland wrote: "Despite what other articles may say or imply, Nokia phone are not Finnish, at least not after a few weeks from now. The sale to Microsoft will be final then."

Yes, Microsoft Nokia remains a huge problem and its so-called 'Android' phones are surveillance devices on steroids (don't believe the spin the media). Microsoft is a very creepy corporate surveillance company, or as one new article puts it [1], "Microsoft turns bosses into the NSA" (and informs on bosses to the NSA). Microsoft is going to do spying on users of Google's Android, based on what it did with Lumia, leaking Finnish information to its close espionage partners at the NSA. ⬆

Related/contextual items from the news:

1. Microsoft turns bosses into the NSA

   Software giant Microsoft has invented tools which can turn control-freak bosses into the NSA.
   
   For a while now there has been a hole in the market for autocratic bosses who love to spy on their employees. After all they have looked at the US government looked at how they can check everything that their citizens do and said "I want some of that".
   
   Now the friendly software maker Microsoft is allowing such bosses to set up a NSA spy network in their own companies.