Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Users of Android, BlackBerry and Nokia mobile phones can forget about keeping their cellular activities to themselves. Almost everything a person does on these phones is recorded by a secret program that few knew about until last week.
That was when 25-year-old researcher Trevor Eckhart revealed the capabilities of the Carrier IQ software, which is installed on all of the phones and logs everything from text messages to key strokes and sends the information back to the manufacturer, supposedly for quality control purposes.
Carrier IQ denied its software records key strokes. But then Eckhart produced a video that showed otherwise.
The company threatened to sue Eckhart for his disclosures, but later backed off after the Electronic Frontier Foundation came to his aid.
–Noel Brinkerhoff
Researcher’s Video Shows Secret Software on Millions of Phones Logging Everything (by David Kravets, Wired)
What is Carrier IQ? (by Hayley Tsukayama, Washington Post)
Carrier IQ: Blame Operators, Not Us (by Chris Davies, Slash Gear)
Carrier IQ: Blame Operators, Not Us (by Chris Davies, Slash Gear)
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