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    Is Your Smartphone Being Spied on with the Carrier IQ Rootkit?

    By Jared Spurbeck | Yahoo! Contributor Network – Thu, Dec 1, 2011
    This story comes from the Yahoo! Contributor Network, where individuals publish their unique perspectives on some of the world’s most popular websites.
    Do you have a story to tell? Become a Yahoo! contributor

    Carrier IQ is the name of an app that was secretly installed on millions of Android, BlackBerry, and Nokia smartphones as a rootkit -- a piece of software that has root access to all of the smartphone's systems, and can't be removed or detected by conventional means. The Carrier IQ software was bundled with these phones when they were sold, by either the manufacturer or the carrier, and most owners of smartphones with Carrier IQ installed do not know they have it.

    Carrier IQ was discovered by Android security researcher Trevor Eckhart, and has been the subject of ongoing research by the experts at XDA-Developers. The company that makes Carrier IQ sent Eckhart a cease-and-desist letter after he published his research, but withdrew it after the Electronic Frontier Foundation's team of legal defenders challenged the letter.

    Carrier IQ's website says that over 140 million smartphones have the app installed. Is your phone among them? Here's a partial list of which devices may be affected:

    Apple iPhone

    Erica Sadun of The Unofficial Apple Weblog has compiled information found by iPhone jailbreak programmers, which shows "Carrier IQ references" in the latest version of iOS. The "probably benign" references, however, may not be enabled unless a flag called DiagnosticsAllowed is set, and they don't seem to do anything more than monitor call signal strength -- one of the main features that Carrier IQ advertises its software for.

    Samsung Android smartphones

    Eckhart has posted screenshots of the Carrier IQ software, which show what it looks like before it is modified: An actual app, which lets you choose what you want to give feedback on.

    Android expert k0nane on the XDA-Developers forum posted screenshots of what the app looks like on Samsung phones, as well as technical background. It's been heavily modified, with an array of switches to control which of your activities are logged. You can turn it off, but it requires advanced skill to access the app to begin with.

    HTC Android smartphones

    Unlike the Samsung phones, HTC phones' version of Carrier IQ has had its menu stripped down to the point where it's impossible to tell what each option does from looking at it. This prevents HTC smartphones' owners from disabling the app from inside it, even if they can find it to start with.

    Smartphones on Sprint's network

    According to Eckhart, "Sprint is known to collect carrier IQ data because users have the application running reporting to them, but have no privacy policy, retention policy, or public information on what they use the data for." Even a Sprint phone purchased second-hand and used only on Wi-Fi will still report in to Sprint.

    Smartphones on Verizon's network

    Verizon has publicly acknowledged what data it collects, and that it uses the data it collects to help it serve ads (among other things). It has given its customers the choice to opt out of having their data used for these purposes, but not to opt out of having it collected to begin with.

    Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008.

     

    3 comments

    • sinecureseeker
      sinecureseeker  •  5 mths ago
      oh to be a fly on the wall when they download our muslim in chief's keystrokes... then the truth about him would finally be believed.
    • Andre
      Andre  •  Pleasanton, United States  •  5 mths ago
      It's not my job to provide the carriers or this stupid company (Carrier IQ) feedback! If they want my feedback and data, they should have to request that, and then pay for it. #$&*@ them!
    • kenalexruss
      kenalexruss  •  5 mths ago
      Hackers will be all over this since the "data mining" is already done for them by Carrier IQ! Just intercept the CIQ data stream and voila! Not hard at all. Took me 10 minutes to capture it live in the air waves! That means with a scanner tuned in I can capture 1000s of users with CIQ employed. Yes, it's that easy. Imagine a hacker focusing on particular users - potentially devastating results! One email, one app, one wrong click is all it takes!

      Hackers will be all over this! Now it gets worse!
      Several of the company's employees and directors have links to para governmental agencies in both China and Iran! Yes, simple materials found by googling employees, from their own [CIQ] web site and seeing where they used to work or trained or went to school reveals lots more than imagined! Amazing! I shudder to think what a full audit of the books will reveal - as in "follow the money"!

      Finally, carriers, manufacturers and Carrier IQ are in violation of wiretap laws, espionage laws and a host of other legal violations that could effectively put most involved in jail for 20 yrs or more!

      Amazing!
     Post a comment
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