Carrier IQ is an application installed on over 140 million smartphones. The software is advertised as an application that offers real-time data for carriers on devices the app is pre-installed on to help them improve their service. Because almost every phone is sold through a carrier, most of these phones have this application pre-installed.
The reason I mention all of this, is because a recent report, from researcher Trevor Eckhart, discovered that Carrier IQ may be recording almost everything you do on your device (see video below). From recording SMS text messages, location data, key strokes, and browsing history – including encrypted data over https (SSL). This means where you live, what you say, and how you do it is being recorded and possibly stored on Carrier IQ’s servers.
The majority of Android phone owners are stuck with no way of protecting themselves from this potential breach of privacy.
Now unless you’re a part-time nerd or know one, chances are you don’t know how to root your phone – you may not even know what that means (think jail-broken iPhones). But that is exactly what you will need to do to stop Carrier IQ’s software from recording your private data off of your Android device – unless you have a Nexus phone.
This means that aside from the four Nexus phones (Nexus One, Nexus S, Nexus S 4G, and Galaxy Nexus), the remaining Android devices remain locked with Carrier IQ pre-installed. The reason Nexus is off the hook is because Google controls the software, the phone can be purchased without a carrier (key point), and no additional bloatware is installed from manufacturers or carriers. So if you remove the carrier and manufacturer out of the equation, you remove Carrier IQ.
Now if you don’t have a Nexus phone, you are part of the overwhelming majority of users this application affects. With over 200 unique types of Android smartphones and 200 million activated Android devices in the marketplace. This number means 53 percent of the smartphone market is vulnerable to this potential threat – pulling the four Nexus products out of the equation. Android’s growth is also magnifying, as they add more users to the problem. Currently, 52 percent of all new smartphone purchases are Android, with 550,000 being activated daily. Most of these devices will not be Nexus phones.
It is true that this same problem is present on iOS devices, but this feature can be quickly turned off by disabling “Diagnostics and Usage” in the system settings (there is no option for Android). There’s no word whether the information is being funneled back to Carrier IQ’s servers, but the thought of tracking on this level is scary enough.
Carrier IQ even tried to bully Eckhart into removing his research off the web – which seems like an admission of guilt. Eventually they backed down after Eckhart received legal support from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, but if they were not using the data, why record it at all?
