Broadband Tech > Security > Security > CarrierIQ: Most Phones Ship With "Rootkit"

A different POV, FWIW:

Carrier IQ Unfairly Targeted, Researchers Say:

More than 48 hours after a software developer posted evidence Carrier IQ monitored the key taps on more than 141 million smartphones, a company official has come forward to rebut the disturbing allegations. And he's provided enough technical detail to convince The Register the diagnostics software doesn't represent a privacy threat to handset owners.

“To answer your point, we're on a fishing boat out at sea and we're catching fish that are too small and they go back in,” Coward explained. “And they go back in for two reasons: One, the holes in the net don't catch small fish, i.e. the filtering, and/or the fish is the wrong type and it gets thrown out of the boat, hopefully while it's still alive.”

The interview came as Carrier IQ faced four lawsuits and a request by a US lawmaker for an investigation by the Federal Trade Commission.

What follows are highlights from The Register's interview with Coward...

Organizations and regulators across Europe, including Germany, have started looking into the use of Carrier IQ's tracking software, to ensure that mobile phone vendors and operators are not violating users' privacy.

T-Mobile has gone against the grain and does indeed have CarrierIQ installed on three of their in market BlackBerry smartphones.

• BlackBerry Bold 9900
• BlackBerry Curve 9360
• BlackBerry Torch 9810

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt has criticized Carrier IQ, the maker of a controversial app that secretly collects personal info from smartphones, but also says that Google can't do anything to prevent the software from being installed on Android devices by handset makers and wireless carriers.

Calling the software a "keylogger'--a label that Carrier IQ rejects--Schmidt explained that Android is an open operating system and, as such, Google cannot prevent the software from being installed on phones running the OS. Schmidt revealed this in a speech at a Google-sponsored conference on Internet freedom in The Hague Thursday.

"Android is an open platform, which means people can make software for it that's not very good for you," Schmidt said Thursday, according to The Telegraph.

"This [Carrier IQ] appears to be one [such case]," Schmidt added.

Apple admitted that the program does exist on iPhones, but says that the app has been disabled and will be removed during the next software update.

How to Protect Your Mobile Banking Sessions

So how can you ensure your mobile banking sessions are protected from third-party eyes?

The truth is that accessing any kind of sensitive data, whether it’s your e-mails, bank accounts or personal contacts, is put at risk when you do it online. While Carrier IQ probably has the capability to see a lot more than you’d like, it’s up to the carrier to determine what types of information they want to obtain. Does Sprint have any interest in your personal photos, text messages or bank info? Not likely.

That said, online security is definitely a growing issue, but we regularly trade privacy and safety for the convenience and immediacy technology has to offer. So if you’re worried about the security of your personal banking information, there’s no magic solution to the Carrier IQ issue: The only surefire way to protect your finances and other personal information is to keep it offline.

Carrier IQ ... has said it inadvertently collected some SMS messages as the result of a software bug.

Carrier IQ, which makes software that monitors mobile phone users, says it is not being investigated by the Federal Trade Commission, despite a report in The Washington Post that said the federal investigators were looking into the company.

“We were misquoted in The Washington Post,” says Mira Woods, a Carrier IQ spokeswoman. “We are not under investigation.”

Two Carrier IQ executives, Larry Lenhart and Andrew Coward, flew to Washington on Wednesday to meet with regulators at the Federal Trade Commission and Federal Communications Commission, but Ms. Woods maintained that the trip was not because the company is under investigation.

“We sought the meetings with F.C.C. and F.T.C. in the interest of transparency and full disclosure,” Ms. Woods said.