CarrierIQ: Most Phones Ship With "Rootkit"

Posted by Unknown on Wednesday November 16, 2011 @03:55AM from the your-keystrokes-may-be-monitored-for-qa-purposes dept.

First time accepted submitter Kompressor writes "According to a developer on the XDA forums, TrevE, many Android, Nokia, and BlackBerry smartphones have software called Carrier IQ that allows your carrier full access into your handset, including keylogging, which apps have been run, URLs that have been loaded in the browser, etc." Since this was submitted, a few more details have come to light. The software was designed to give carriers useful feedback on aggregate usage patterns, but the software runs as root and the privacy implications are pretty severe.

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Re:Doesn't Matter by Anonymous Coward · 2011-11-16 04:19 · Score: 0, Flamebait

The Android that you can get from Google's websites may be open but the software you physically get on phones is usually closed (it's neither FSF-free nor DFSG-free). If you're not convinced, read Stallman's article on it.