VW has always been one of the biggest and most serious car manufacturer in the world. Now they have proven an important point with the "Dieselgate" software.
It was closed source
If it had been open source the scandal would have been discovered after a few cars.So even in the internet of things (Big things) it is extremely important that the software is open source and can be seen by thousands of eyes.
Having software do secret things that are damaging to us - we can't have that.
There is this sneaking feeling that not only VW produces software that does secret damaging things behind our backs...
It would be expensive if Microsoft with partners had to call back all computers on earth due to secret NSA backdoors in the software...
How is that different?
Could the fact that the Germans revealed backdoors in Windows 8 have something to do with it? Backdoors that prevented them from using Windows 8 in the government?
The Germans have even questioned the trustworthiness of Microsoft.
The backdoors were found in the Trusted Platform Module. The Trusted Computing concept was standardised by the Trusted Computing Group (TCG) 10 years ago by these companies:
Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, AMD, and Hewlett-Packard.
They standardized how the TPM chip should cowork with the software. This was to prevent Trojans and Backdoors and implement DRM.
Ironically it was the Trusted Platform Module that contained the discovered NSA backdoors....
So is "Dieselgate" a deflection (to make those bothersome Germans shut up)?
Näh.. talk about vivid imagination and conspiracy theories!
Open source would have re-established the necessary trust one way or another though.
VW would have a few cars to fix and that would be it; so the car industry take the quality issues seriously - It is more uncertain how the computer and software industry treat these issues....
And it would be healthy - in the future - that not all companies that are making the standard are from one and the same country and even valley.
Trusted Computing has turned in to a way of Microsoft remotely controlling your computer. So the Germans (The Government) are clear on this point:
Der Einsatz der 'Trusted-Computing'-Technik in dieser Ausprägung … ist für die Bundesverwaltung und für die Betreiber von kritischen Infrastrukturen nicht zu akzeptieren.
"The use of the Trusted-Computing-Technology in this shape and form ...is unacceptable for the Government and for users of critical infrastructures. "
...
I know that this cannot be true because I got an answer from Microsoft regarding what windows 10 is gathering; and they told me that they are very trustworthy
