A few months ago, Nokia gave me one of their spiffy new N9 mobile handsets. They did this in the hope that they might get a bit of exposure from their gift. Nothing was said explicitly, of course. It was just a gift. But we're all grownups here. We understand how things work.

Actually, it's a fantastic phone. I used it as my primary mobile for two weeks, and although I eventually found myself drawn back to my sturdy iPhone 3GS, it was a pleasant experience. The 'Swipe' interface offered by the N9 is a refreshing change from the hunt-and-peck experience of iOS and Android, something closer to Windows Phone, but still unique.

A pity really.

Why? Nokia doesn't want you to know the N9 is an orphan device - first and last of its kind - the result of a very fruitful collaboration with chipmaker Intel, leading to the creation of a new mobile operating system (yes, another mobile OS) known as MeeGo. MeeGo brings Linux, the server operating system which powers much of the Internet, to the mobile.

Truthfully, Google's Android is also built atop Linux, but that its version is effectively hidden away behind layers of software services. Apple's iOS is built on top of BSD, a Linux-like environment - but again, obscured by design. Neither Google nor Apple wants you to know that your smartphone is also a pretty smart computer.

In Meego, Nokia and Intel went the other direction, embracing the smartphone as computer. Flip a switch in the settings, and you can work with the N9 as if it were any other Linux computer, running any of the thousands of tools created by the global Linux community. I quickly learned that I could use nearly any program written for Linux - not just the few hundred MeeGo programs provided via Nokia's app store. Within a few hours, my mobile was running the same software that I had been writing huge, power-hungry servers - and running it well.

Hundreds of thousands of programmers know how to write applications for Linux; if even a small percentage of them focused on MeeGo, I'd have N9 apps for every conceivable circumstance. That was the promise: adopt an existing operating system, make it mobile, and reap the rewards. But things didn't work out as planned. As development on MeeGo advanced, Nokia collapsed, losing its primacy in the smartphone market first to Apple, then Samsung and HTC. The board fired Nokia's CEO, replacing him with Stephen Elop, who'd recently headed up Microsoft's business division.

Elop decided to ruthlessly pare back Nokia's internal development efforts, ending Nokia's involvement in MeeGo, yet, paradoxically, Elop kept the N9. At launch, Nokia's N9 ran an operating system that the manufacturer had already publicly disowned, in favor of Microsoft's Windows Phone OS. Nokia hasn't made a big deal out of the orphan OS on the N9 - only geeks care about operating systems, right?

Hardly. You care about the OS on your mobile because it forms the foundation for the ecosystem of applications and services that give create value. I found myself irresistibly drawn back to my ancient iPhone because it was difficult to live without TripView, the best smartphone app for users of Sydney's public transport. TripView is available for iOS, Android and Windows Phone, but not MeeGo. And given Nokia's lack of support for MeeGo, I doubt the developer will invest the time to port the app. Without support, there is no ecosystem. As much as the N9 is the best phone - from a geek's perspective - that I've ever owned, it's also a dead end.

That's more than a great shame. It's a lost opportunity.

Last week a researcher named Trevor Eckhart published the results of research he'd been performing on Android-based mobiles. These mobiles integrated a piece of software provided by software developer Carrier IQ. Carrier IQ had never been very specific about what their software did, other than that it provided statistics which mobile carriers used to improve their service. Eckhart revealed that Carrier IQ monitored all of the handsets usage - what you text to whom and when, what websites get visited, etc. - and reported it back to the carrier. In effect, with Carrier IQ installed, your carrier gets a peek over your shoulder at everything you do with your mobile.

A huge furor erupted within the technology community as it became clear that Android mobiles had, in essence, been spying on them. Devices that people use in commercial confidence - and under a presumption of security - have been subject to a virtual wiretap. Over one hundred and forty million smartphones have Carrier IQ's monitoring software installed on them - and not just Android devices. Apple's iOS devices have also been implicated, although Apple says the last traces of Carrier IQ were flushed away with the recent release of iOS 5.

Should that news reassure anyone? Should we trust Apple - which was caught out earlier this year keeping a record of locations where iOS devices had traveled? Can we trust anyone? We have no choice. We must trust carriers and handset manufacturers, because we don't have capability to learn the truth for ourselves. I can't perform a line-by-line inspection of the source code for iOS - that's Apple's crown jewel and closely-guarded trade secret. I can inspect Google's Android - but only the version they release publicly, which may not look much like what the carrier has slapped onto my mobile.

Without transparency there is no basis for trust. Which brings us back to MeeGo. For the first time, I can inspect every line of code running on my mobile - it's all available online. If I find something that I suspect might endanger my privacy, I can substitute my own programs, ones which I know are secure. I can guarantee that my N9 can not be turned against me, something that I can't promise for any other mobile.

Were I running a secure organization - like ASIO or the ADF - I would insist that my staff used the N9 for secure mobile communications. Were I in a profession that depended on my ability to keep secrets - the law, or medicine - I would insist my peers used N9s. The same holds true for businesses which need to keep commercial confidences. Only when things are open can they be secured. Open source is the only protection against prying eyes.

I'm holding onto my N9. Not only is a great mobile, it's the only mobile I've ever owned that I know I can trust. That means a lot now, and it will come to mean more, as we learn what kinds of mischief can be made with the secrets we fail to secure.