Carrier IQ Responds To FBI Drama, EFF Wants More Information 140
New submitter realized writes "Yesterday Carrier IQ released a report (PDF) which tries to answer some questions about how their system operates. Also, after reports of the FBI using Carrier IQ data, the company responded by saying, 'Carrier IQ has never provided any data to the FBI. If approached by a law enforcement agency, we would refer them to the network operators.' Additionally, the EFF just released a report which says they believe keystroke data 'is in fact being inadvertently transmitted to some third parties,' but they would like to study carrier profiles to verify information."
Reader Trailrunner7 adds that Carrier IQ's report indicates "under some limited circumstances its software will log the contents of SMS messages sent to a user's phone, but that that the contents of those messages would not be human readable. Instead, they would be in an encoded form that could not be decoded without special software and the carriers don't have access to the contents of the messages either. The company said it has worked on a fix for the bug, which affected devices running the embedded version of the Carrier IQ agent."
Re:A Little Help Please? (Score:1, Informative)
Step 1: Buy an Android phone
Step 2: Run one of the numerous CIQ detection apps
Step 3: If found, install an AOSP ROM like CM7
Re:A Little Help Please? (Score:3, Informative)
Step 1: Buy an Android phone
Step 2: Run one of the numerous CIQ detection apps
Step 3: If found, install an AOSP ROM like CM7
Yes, much simpler than turning off a single option in the iPhone's preferences (after you've turned it on because it's off by default). Or don't turn it off because you can see what it sends in clear text and it doesn't log anything except diagnostic information.
Re:A Little Help Please? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:A Little Help Please? (Score:4, Informative)
Apple has said that they are almost done using Carrier IQ for other methods of data collection.
http://allthingsd.com/20111201/apple-we-stopped-supporting-carrieriq-with-ios-5/
The quote is:
“We stopped supporting Carrier IQ with iOS 5 in most of our products and will remove it completely in a future software update. With any diagnostic data sent to Apple, customers must actively opt-in to share this information, and if they do, the data is sent in an anonymous and encrypted form and does not include any personal information. We never recorded keystrokes, messages or any other personal information for diagnostic data and have no plans to ever do so.”
And for the Fanboys out there I say Other methods since they will still get "diagnostic data sent to them".
Re:A Little Help Please? (Score:3, Informative)
People are way too paranoid... (Score:2, Informative)
First off.. CIQ are not the bad guys here.
They make software. It does various things, and it can be used for good or evil.
The carriers are the ones who requested the software to be placed on the handsets. The handset makers are the ones who screwed up, specifically HTC who left debug mode enabled on a production handset. The Samsung handsets do not exhibit the same issues that were shown in the video that the HTC handsets show.
The whole FBI link, no one really knows for sure, what the deal is, other then they refused a FOIA. That could mean they utilize the data, or they are in fact investigating CIQ itself.
Honestly, for the purposes that CIQ claim the software is for, I have no real issue with it. However they built far more capability then was needed in the software, and that I do have a major issue with.
Re:A Little Help Please? (Score:2, Informative)
Well, security researches have shown that on the iPhone it does in fact start up, check the user's option to have it enabled (which is off by default), then exit immediately if it is disabled.
With the fact that Apple is very open about how it gets turned on, leaves it disabled by default and even makes you accept a new privacy policy to enable it, and all of that has not been disputed by researchers, I will say "Yes, I can trust them"
Enjoy your spyware riddled Android device.
Re:A Little Help Please? (Score:2, Informative)
I've got the iPhone, how do I crib smother this Carrier IQ parasite?
Open Settings, go to General, then About, then Diagnostics & Usage
See where it reads "Help Apple improve its products and services by automatically sending daily diagnostic and usage data, including location information." ?
It will have "Don't Send" with a check mark. Simply never click "Automatically Send", as that option will enable CarrierIQ.
There is also a button below to display the raw data it will send, and the word "Never" which is presumably the time it last sent data out.
If you've upgraded to iOS5, this screen will be missing because they removed the software already.