I've done a lot of digging on this in the last week or two, and here's the
basic rundown:
CarrierIQ is a company that provides quality of service monitoring software
for cell phones. This software has a whole suite of abilities that range
from recording signal levels to uploading logs to tracking GPS locations to
recording every single keypress/SMS/email/anything else that goes in and out
of the device. Your mobile carrier licenses the software in partnership with
the vendor and builds a custom agent for your phone around CarrierIQ's code.
Ideally they would only use the portions that can collect anonymous usage
data (signal levels, device error logs, etc) and give you a way to opt out
if you so choose. What really happened is that the whole CarrierIQ package
in it's obtrusive glory was installed by HTC on this device, meaning it
intercepts everything down to the keypress. You then have to trust that the
data, although being intercepted, isn't actually being logged and transmitted.
Considering every single phone vendor's complete inability to write good,
secure software (Motoblur, TouchWiz, SenseUI I'm looking at you), it is a
huge leap of faith for us to also trust that they have installed CarrierIQ
"right" that won't result in personal data being logged or data leakage to
other apps installed on the system. Especially went you can't disable it
short of rooting and re-flashing.
If you are going the Android route, I would strongly advise that you get one
of the Google Nexus phones which doesn't have any of this garbage
vendor/carrier customization on it. Or get an iPhone.
On Wed, 30 Nov 2011 17:01:43 +0000, Al Puzzuoli <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:
Just saw this. Not sure how big of a deal it will be yet, but worth keeping
an eye on:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/11/30/smartphone_spying_app/
Al Puzzuoli
Michigan State University
Information Technologist
http://www.rcpd.msu.eduResource Center for Persons with Disabilities 517-884-1915 120 Bessey Hall
East Lansing, MI 48824-1033
