November 30, 2011
Carrier IQ - Android Logs Everything

So the current bruhaha is that Steve Jobs Was Right, Android Logs Everything in the form of a program called CarrierIQ built into (some?) Android phones which, in short, logs everything the user does in the name of quality control. You'd think that this would be crash logs and statistics of some sort, but it seems that this (even if the user opts out of the service) will basically send everything to the CarrierIQ servers.

At the time, there wasn't a lot of proof to back up Steve's assertion, but as it often does, time has proven Steve Jobs right. Android phones do track you. In fact, software that comes pre-installed on millions of Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones log everything you do with your device, and sends them off secretly to its own servers.

[...]

25-year-old Android developer Trevor Eckhart has discovered a piece of software that comes installed on most Android, BlackBerry and Nokia phones called Carrier IQ secretly logs everything a user does with his or her phone, including text messages, encrypted web searches, phone calls, location and, well, you name it.

I honestly have only seen a bit about this, so I'm willing to say that the fact the stories I'm linking to are on Apple oriented sites may say something about the spin. I'm interested to see if Android people will have the same reaction that Apple people did during the various "locationgate" and "antennagate" fiascos (ie: "meh").





Posted by Arcterex at November 30, 2011 04:06 PM