Your Smartphone Is Spying on You - Andriod Phones

[Olde Hornet]

I am so glad that I did not put anything personal (banking, passwords, etc) on my Android.

http://news.yahoo.com/smartphone-spying-204933867.html

An Android developer recently discovered a clandestine application called Carrier IQ built into most smartphones that doesn't just track your location; it secretly records your keystrokes, and there's nothing you can do about it. Is it time to put on a tinfoil hat? That depends on how you feel about privacy.

The reason for this invasive Android app seems reasonable enough at face value. Even though it's on most Android, BlackBerry and Nokia devices, most users would never know that Carrier IQ is running in the background, and that's sort of the point. Described on the company's website as software to gain "unprecedented insight into their customers' mobile experience," Carrier IQ is ostensibly supposed to help mobile carriers and device manufacturers gather data in order to improve their products.

Tons of applications do this, and you're probably used to those boxes that pops up on your screen and ask if you want to help the company by sending your data back to them. If you're concerned about your privacy, you just tap no and go about your merry computing way. As security-conscious Android developer Trevor Eckhart realized, however, Carrier IQ does not give you this option, and unless you were code-savvy and looking for it, you'd never know it was there. And based on how aggressive the company has been in trying to keep Eckhart quiet about his discovery, it seems like Carrier IQ doesn't want you to know it's there either.

 

[ToPdOg]

I read about this also. I checked my phone and it's free of any of this stuff, probably thanks to the custom rom i'm running. This CIQ stuff is also on iPhones and Apple says they will fix it in a future update.

 

[bigmanofds]

Carrier IQ: How To Find It, And How To Deal With It

By now, you’ve probably heard all about Carrier IQ, the mobile logging software that an intrepid researcher named Trevor Eckhart found lurking on a number smartphones from multiple manufacturers and carriers.

According to Eckhart’s research, Carrier IQ is capable of tracking what apps you’re running to where your phone is to what buttons are being pressed — it sounds scary, but Carrier IQ claims that collecting that information ultimately helps end-users.

Carrier IQ maintains they summarize performance information to help improve the quality of a carrier’s customer experiences, but what if you don’t want anyone else to have access to the sort of fine-grained data that Carrier IQ is capable of accessing? Here’s how you can figure out if your phone is affected, and how to go about fixing things if it is.

Does your phone have Carrier IQ?

Eckhart’s original report has shown that Carrier IQ has been discovered on HTC and Samsung devices, and that CarrierIQ counts Sprint among their domestic carrier clients. AT&T also appears to use Carrier IQ on their devices: a member of the XDA-dev forums called AT&T and was told that Carrier IQ is indeed preloaded on the HTC Vivid. Other carriers, including Verizon, Vodafone, and O2 have all denied that they use Carrier IQ on their devices.

Nokia and RIM were also among the companies that Eckhart claimed CarrierIQ provided their “mobile intelligence” services to, but they have vociferously denied the connection. The Verge also reports that the three devices in Google’s Nexus line are free of the logging service, so Nexus devotees can rest easy.

Fortunately, you don’t have to take their word for it, as it’s fairly simple to find out if your device has the tracking service running on it. If you’ve got a rooted device, all it takes is a quick download of Eckhart’s free Logging Test app (currently in its 7th revision). Once installed, hit ‘CIQ Checks,’ and you’ll know almost immediately whether or not your device is affected.

Rooting your device will also be required if you want to get rid of Carrier IQ on an affected device, so do look into it. The ease of the process will depend on your phone — for some its a total breeze while for others (usually newer devices) it can be a bit hairier. A quick Google search for “your device name + root” should get you pointed in the right direction.

What about iPhones?

Most of the original furor around Carrier IQ stemmed from its appearance on Android devices, but recent findings from iOS hacker chpwn has revealed that CarrierIQ exists in one form or another in versions of iOS as early as 3.1.3. For what it’s worth, it seems much less nosy than its Android cousin: chpwn seems fairly convinced that the iPhone variant isn’t able to access “typed text, web history, passwords, browsing history, or text messages,” and therefore isn’t able to send that data along.

While the iOS 5 version seems pretty toothless, chpwn admits that earlier versions of iOS “may send back information in more cases,” so the truly worried should make sure they’re diligent about updates.

What do I do about it?

Well, you could just live with it, but I’ll admit that it’s not a terribly appealing option. iOS users who want to disable logging have it pretty easy here: chpwn believes that in iOS 5, CarrierIQ is enabled during the initial setup process if you opt-in to sending log back to Apple. Since that’s the case, all it takes to disable Carrier IQ is to jump into Settings/About/Diagnostics & Usage, and change the setting to “Don’t send.”

http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/01/carrier-iq-how-to-find-it-and-how-to-deal-with-it/

 

[Olde Hornet]

My android is my work phone so I dont have anything personal on it, but I will NEVER buy an android for my personal use unless there is a way to turn that off. If they are storing that information, someone is using it. Even the e-mail account on it was setup specifically for that phone and I never use it. The phone is cool, but I just dont put any of my personal information on there.