Almost all smartphones have snoop bug in them

[muleman]

CarrierIQ: Follow the money and it is the carriers behind it

By James Kendrick | December 1, 2011, 6:37am PST
Summary: CarrierIQ is snooping on many smartphone owners in the U. S., and the carriers are likely paying them to do so.
If you follow the mobile tech news you have heard about the CarrierIQ situation. A smart fellow who knows how to snoop inside the workings of smartphones uncovered a service from CarrierIQ that is recording everything you do on your smartphone and passes that on to somewhere in the cloud. This snooping was shown to cover every aspect of use on CarrierIQ-enabled phones, even recording keystrokes in text messages.
A natural outrage followed the uncovering of CarrierIQ and what it is doing behind our backs, especially given the demonstration that it can’t be disabled by the phone owner. Turning off permission to do snooping doesn’t disable what CarrierIQ is doing on the sly. Carriers have been quick to step up and deny using CarrierIQ on their phones to distance themselves from the uproar.
Carriers know that the class-action lawsuits are no doubt going to be filed shortly by outraged customers. There are meetings no doubt happening in glass towers with attorneys chomping at the bit to get filing. Customers don’t like any company snooping on them, and the level CarrierIQ is carrying it is even worse than expected.
The coverage of the CarrierIQ debacle is centered around the app that is recording the information, as if that is the culprit. Fact is this is just the vehicle to deliver a service that the CarrierIQ company sells to carriers. That’s right, carriers pay CarrierIQ to record all of this information to help them troubleshoot network problems that might be caused by individual handset model. It is a legitimate service carried far too deeply. According to experts the recording of text messages may even violate U. S. wiretapping laws. We might see some criminal suits in addition to the civil suits getting ready to fly.
Neither CarrierIQ nor the carriers were willing to talk about this mess, but visiting the CarrierIQ web site clearly details what they do and for whom. Their service is aimed directly at the carriers, and it is obvious they don’t provide it for free. That means every carrier with phones using CarrierIQ, and it sound like many of them in the U. S., have a contract with the company to do the snooping for the troubleshooting. If you follow the money it starts with the carrier, and when proof of this leaks out the lawsuits are going to grow teeth.
Everyone in the loop is quick to point out that this deep level snooping is anonymous and can’t compromise individual privacy. This one statement on the CarrierIQ site tends to differ with that claim (emphasis mine):

What’s more, the combination of the MSIP and IQ Insight lets you move seamlessly from broad trend data across many users, through comparative groups down to diagnostic data from individual devices. Now, not only can you identify trends, you have the power to drill down to specific instances, giving you the insight your specialists need to make a difference. That is the power of Mobile Service Intelligence.
​

I doubt that any company wanted to actually snoop on its customers. Maybe I am naive but the legal exposure to doing so is not in any company’s interest. I envision the engineers at CarrierIQ deciding to record as much user activity as possible so the carrier’s experts would have it just in case. The carrier’s experts probably don’t realize what all of this information recorded by CarrierIQ is, nor do they even look at it.
Ignorance is no excuse, however, and both CarrierIQ and any carrier using its service are now in deep water. This is not going to blow over, as the level of snooping is just too great and folks are already too outraged. That in turn creates the perfect storm for the lawsuits to begin, and federal agencies to begin investigating this whole situation. Then the carriers paying for the service will turn against CarrierIQ to defend themselves, and it is going to get incestuous and nasty. Like the CarrierIQ service, this will end up being all about money. It usually does.

 

[300 H and H]

The evolution of the cell phone has now officially gone over the top....

Why cann't folks just be happy to make a phone call, but instead they insist on using them as their "mobile computor". Good while driving, too I bet.

I just want something simpler than that. I will not have a smart phone in my future. Why? Cause I am smart enough not to carry something that thinks it is smarter than I am. Those that are behind this violation of the public trust, can face the public they are duping....Wonder if that is a fun thing to do...

Technology that makes senceNo rules man!

Regards, Kirk

 

[muleman]

Funny that you mention the driving part of it. NY state police made over 860 arrests for texting while driving over the Thanksgiving holiday. Why can't folks realize that anything other than driving is deadly while motoring down the highway.

 

[Lia]

There's a way to disable AGS on camera's, and I do believe that there is a way to disable this intrusive surveillance feature from one's smartphone too. I don't know what the smartphone solution is, but if it can be done, I know a man who probably could do so.

I think...

 

[tiredretired]

As I understand it, and I have discussed this in detail with the IT guy at my local credit union, all private use should be done on 3G/4G if you have it. Do not put any info into texting and over a non secured WiFi network such as at airports.

There is no way this outfit is hacking or getting into the 3G/4G network and getting passwords or keystrokes, not happening.

Is the Gummint doing it? Ahhh, who knows about that, right?

 

[joec]

Well I don't know about the government going after text messages but for some reason don't doubt it. When I first started in the self storage business I spent a few years working for Public Storage in Florida. Now we rented a small space in our climate controlled building to one un named government agency. They mounted and antenna on the outside wall (company OKed this) and connected up some kind of cell phone monitoring system. Now all I found out about it was they monitored cell and wireless conversations in the area. Other than that they wouldn't explain further to us. They also had 24 hour access which wasn't available there at that time.

 

[thcri]

I can remember a thread on here that I started probably 5 years ago. It was back when the Bush Administration was listening in on cell phones for terrorist threats. Funny of the division here on who was ok with it and who wasn't. If we only knew then what we know now I think that thread would have taken a totally different course. I tried to search it but maybe too old to come up.

 

[muleman]

I can remember a thread on here that I started probably 5 years ago. It was back when the Bush Administration was listening in on cell phones for terrorist threats. Funny of the division here on who was ok with it and who wasn't. If we only knew then what we know now I think that thread would have taken a totally different course. I tried to search it but I AM too old to come up.

Fixed it for you! They are listening to guys like you.

 

[thcri]

I can remember a thread on here that I started probably 5 years ago. It was back when the Bush Administration was listening in on cell phones for terrorist threats. Funny of the division here on who was ok with it and who wasn't. If we only knew then what we know now I think that thread would have taken a totally different course. I tried to search it but maybe too old to come up.

Fixed it for you! They are listening to guys like you.

No actually after searching through all of the old posts you resurrect I had to quit.

 

[Cowboy]

No actually after searching through all of the old posts you resurrect I had to quit.

 

[Cowboy]

Heres an interesting related article.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/gue...-that-smartphone-program-thats-spying-on-you/

Yesterday, we reported that a developer identified a program pre-installed on millions of popular smartphones that logs data and keystrokes, including things like phone numbers dialed, text messages and encrypted web searches. Trevor Eckhart who found the semisecret program, which he notes is awfully hard to remove, has two apps to help you identify and remove it.
The company that runs the program, Carrier IQ, has said it doesn’t read messages or other personal information but tracks metrics that indicate phone performance, such as calls dropped and poor signal quality. Even still, Eckhart created a free app that helps users see if they have the program installed on their phone and another app that costs $1 to remove it.
But, Gizmodo reports that these apps come with several caveats:

• You have to be rooted in order for these to work. And if you’re rooted, I would bet that you’re running something like Cyanogen, which isn’t going to have Carrier IQ. But please, test away.
• The program is only confirmed to work on a few devices.
• I would be extremely careful about using the “pro version” that is designed to remove CIQ, because, again, it’s only confirmed to work on a few devices, and there’s a very real chance you could screw up your phone something major. It’s better to just use one of the testing programs, and if you test positive for Carrier IQ, I’d recommend installing a custom ROM (if available for your phone) that doesn’t have it.

Extreme Tech offers these instructions to using the identifying app:

If you’re using an Android phone or tablet, [...] as this is an off-market app (an APK installer), you will need to push it to your device manually. The easiest way to do this is to email the APK to yourself, then download the attachment on your phone. If that doesn’t work, you need to install the Android SDK and use ADB. Your phone needs to be rooted, too (yes, carriers do not make this easy — to root your phone, Google “how to root PHONE_MODEL_HERE_”).
Hit “CIQ Checks” (see right) and the app will tell you if it’s installed. Pay $1 and the app will try to remove it for you (this doesn’t always work, though). Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any other way to disable CIQ on Android devices. Carriers like AT&T and Sprint will almost certainly provide some kind of workaround in the next few days, though; the clamoring crowd is impossible to ignore at this point.
If you’re using an iPhone or iPad, head into Settings > General > About > Diagnostics & Usage, and click “Don’t Send.”
​

If you’re not interested in getting an app to see if you have the program, Gizmodo also pulled together a list of devices on which the software has been identified. Some of them like Verizon, Nokia and Windows had denied that the program was on their phones, but Gizmodo reports that it was in actually found the program on all these manufacturers’ devices. Among the phones that don’t have it are Kindle Fire, Motorola Photon and HTC G2 Thanks.
Gizmodo does point out that in the list they have developed thus far, they only have been identifying Carrier IQ on phones, not other programs with a similar function that potentially could be present.
In has become apparent that Carrier IQ works differently depending on the phone. For example, Gawker reports that the amount of information collected on iPhones and other Apple devices is not as extensive compared to other platforms:

On most Android, Nokia and BlackBerry devices, Carrier IQ re-transmits a wealth of data, including your web searches and traffic, keystrokes, texts, and GPS location. On the iPhone and iPad, the situation is not nearly so dire. On Apple devices, Carrier IQ only reports your exact location and whether you’re making a phone call — information your carrier already has in less precise form – and even then only does so if you’ve enabled certain settings.
​

After Eckhart released information and manuals about the program last week, he was soon issued a “cease and desist” request from the company and a threat of legal action. The Electronic Frontier Foundation came to Eckhart‘s aid saying Carrier IQ’s requests were baseless and the company eventually backed off and issued an apology. It still maintains that does not use the software to record keystrokes, provide tracking tools, inspect or report content of communications, or provide real-time data to any customer.

 

[Dargo]

I found about that before when a friend of mine's accountant took some shots at our last president. The media wanted to talk to him as did the Secret Service and, no matter where he went, or what he said, they knew EXACTLY where he had been, for how long, and everything he had said.

Since then, I've always treated messages and cell conversations as if they were over a ham radio or on a PA system. It's only gotten worse since then. What that article doesn't say is that, if court ordered, your smart phone can "listen" in at all times and sent all it hears to your provider as long as the SIM card is in the phone. I thought the phone had to be turned on, but I was corrected and informed that it only had to have a SIM card in it and a charged battery. The on/off button means nothing when it comes to snooping.

 

[Doc]

I can remember a thread on here that I started probably 5 years ago. It was back when the Bush Administration was listening in on cell phones for terrorist threats. Funny of the division here on who was ok with it and who wasn't. If we only knew then what we know now I think that thread would have taken a totally different course. I tried to search it but maybe too old to come up.

Are you saying it's all Bush's fault.

 

[Dargo]

It still maintains that does not use the software to record keystrokes, provide tracking tools, inspect or report content of communications, or provide real-time data to any customer.

As always, I ask why collect the data if you don't use it. It costs money and bandwidth to collect all that data. BS if they don't use it! If they collect it, it is being used or sold.

 

[thcri]

Are you saying it's all Bush's fault.

I remember it well, yes there was some big time bashing of Bush and this place was pretty well divided with their opinions.

 

[muleman]

They would have fun tracking my simple phone. Around here you have to drive up on a hill to "maybe" have service. Then you have to aim for the big antennas over to the east. Here at the house you can get one bar if you go out on the front porch. We don't ever use it for anything except phone so they would not learn much tracking it even if they could.

 

[Cowboy]

They would have fun tracking my simple phone. Around here you have to drive up on a hill to "maybe" have service. Then you have to aim for the big antennas over to the east. Here at the house you can get one bar if you go out on the front porch. We don't ever use it for anything except phone so they would not learn much tracking it even if they could.

Well if your like me its hard enough to keep track of your own phone.