Carrier IQ Responds To FBI Drama, EFF Wants More Information

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."

Comments

"A fix for the bug"?

[T5]

The fix is to not install spyware on the phones in the first place. How hard is this to understand?

Re:"A fix for the bug"?

[Sponge Bath]

It is well understood, but perceived to be less profitable so is dismissed as an option. Same as it ever was.

Re:"A fix for the bug"?

[MightyMartian]

Corporations are not humans. They are companies

.. run by psychopaths.

Re:"A fix for the bug"?

[Rennt]

Legal, useful, and morally-sound? Yeah, that doesn't sound like a paid comment. It IS a rootkit, by definition (does it hide from your process list, can you remove it?). The EFF thinks it HAS been used as a keylogger, even if unintentionally. No matter what the customer agreed this functionality is morally reprehensible. If anything, the carriers deserve some credit for showing restraint in the use of this application, but CarrierIQ itself deserves all the criticism it is getting.

Re:"A fix for the bug"?

[Wolfier]

It's not spyware. Carriers want info on how people use their phones so that they can fix bugs and make better phones. It's no different from software that occasionally reports home with usage statistics. Everyone does it, and it's a good thing. The only problem is that a few OEMs and carriers disabled the user's ability to opt out.

CarrierIQ makes a legal, useful, morally-sound product. Some companies go on to use that product in a legal, useful, but less moral manner. But some asshole of a security researcher figured out (correctly!) that he'd get way more hits on his webpage if he accused them of making a rootkit and keylogger. And now all the innocent, hardworking developers at this small business will be out on the streets, because the rage-a-holics want something to scream about, and the media is more than happy to manufacture controversy if it means good ratings.

So congrats. You're going to destroy the lives of some innocent people over the tiniest of slights. I'm sure you're very proud.

Not so fast. I suspect if CarrierIQ didn't attempt to SLAPP the researcher, none of its PR disaster would have happened.
Don't act as if CarrierIQ is totally in the right, because it is not. The moment they decided to unleash a lawyer first, and then an honest disclosure when necessary, their fate was sealed.

Re:"A fix for the bug"?

[L4t3r4lu5]

It's no different from software that occasionally reports home with usage statistics.

The difference here is that I wasn't asked if I wanted to provide usage statistics, didn't even know that such statistics were being created, and the data being collected goes way beyond that which would be useful to any developer. Why would they need to know the content of my SMS messages to make a better app? Why do they need to know who I called and when, not just that a call was made?

This is just too invasive. If they made it so it reported the most basic, anonymised stats there wouldn't be a problem. What they have done, however, is load devices which potentially contain sensitive personal data with remote monitoring software, with access to communications made on that device. It's too much, and they need to be called out on it.

Re:The more you know...

[cosm]

And we give you more shiny toys...
All the better to track you my dearie!

And we give you better airport security...
All the better to control you my dearie!

And we give you more in store free membership cards...
All the better to know your every purchasing move my dearie!

And we give you more places to report SSNs...
All for the illusion of importance and identification my dearie

And we give you traffic and overhead cameras...
All the better to make sure your driving safe dearie!

And we give you more more social networks...
All the better to keep you and our friends close, so we can keep you our enemy closer!

And we give you internet shaping and monitoring...
All the better to provide better content delivery my dearie!

And we give you more child porn laws and content ratings...
All the better to protect your eyes my dearie!

And we give you more drug laws and consensual restrictions...
All the better to keep you safe my dearie!

And we invade other countries and install governments...
All the better to ensure your security my dearie!

And I give you the slow erosion of all that is personal responsibility, hard work, civil liberties, freedoms, independence, free speech, and everything America ever once strived at standing for...
All the better to own you my dearie!

Re:A Little Help Please?

[jesseck]

That just means they have a replacement that will do the same.

Re:No secret decoder ring here!

[betterunixthanunix]

First thing this new year, I'm migrating my phone over to cyanogenmod

Or, you could use your phone less, and use other devices more. The more dependent we become on our cell phones, the more power the cell phone companies will have over us.

The intention doesn't matter

[markjhood2003]

Defenders of Carrier IQ insist that they're not collecting keystrokes, capturing SMS messages, or relaying personal information to the FBI, and that they're just collecting information to improve the quality of the network. The argument is irrelevant. Clearly the software has the capability of performing all these functions even if it isn't currently being used that way, and if the capability is there, it can be abused by third parties. Its existence on a personal device on anything other than an opt-in basis is unacceptable.

Re:The intention doesn't matter

[sjames]

If CIQ is so honorable, why have they made such an effort to embed it so deeply it cannot be turned off or removed from the phone by it's rightful owner short of extreme measures? Why isn't it's presence and operation more obvious? The deep embedding and stealth nature of the app are strong evidence that they know very well that phone owners will object to it. Those are not the actions of the innocent.

If their intentions were honorable, they would apologize for getting it so very wrong and would have offered up a free detect and disable app for people who do not want CIQ on their phone. They have done no such thing. Instead they have been backing up slowly denying and backtracking all the way.

You're right that we shouldn't ban knives, but you bet there will be hell to pay if someone is caught sneaking onto a plane with a knife concealed in his rectum. Claims that it was just in case he needed to peel an apple during the flight will not be accepted.

Re:A Little Help Please?

[Black Parrot]

I've got the iPhone, how do I crib smother this Carrier IQ parasite?

Next time you drive across a bridge, toss it out the window.

Re:A Little Help Please?

[KahabutDieDrake]

This seems to be the point everyone is missing in all this. The carrier doesn't need spyware to spy on you, THEY ALREADY SEE ALL YOUR STUFF IN PLAIN TEXT. It's not like ATT needs a warrant to open up their own network and take a look around. Nor does verizon need federal permission to log, through their data proxy, every address you ever visit, for how long and using what protocols. In point of fact, current federal law requires these companies to store this information, for a very long time.

What exactly do people think CIQ can tell the carrier that they don't already know? The pathetic answer is, real world network performance diagnostic data. Which is just about the ONLY thing the carrier doesn't already know about your handset.

Re:A Little Help Please?

[shutdown -p now]

Step 1: Buy a Nexus phone.
There is no step two.

FTFY.

Re:A Little Help Please?

[RubberMallet]

There's nothing to turn off on my Android... CarrierIQ isn't even installed... wasn't installed from the beginning. So.. who has the spyware riddle device now? The iPhone which actually has the software installed, or the Android where it isn't? Hmmmmm

The if, the why, and the who, are moot

[sgt scrub]

Our client Trevor Eckhart (whose research set off the present firestorm) and his subsequent collaborator Ashkan Soltani have shown that on some phones, dialer keypresses and SMS text are being written to system logs by layer 4 code.

It doesn't matter the intent of the developers of the software. If it exposes private information by logging plain text information to a place where an application can access it, it is bad. Trevor Eckhart exposed a VERY dangerous effect of a software exposing private information. The developers should fix their shit and shut the fuck up.

Finally, there is an additional configuration file (called a "Profile") that controls the behavior of layer 2 and determines what information is actually sent from the phone to a carrier or other Carrier IQ client.

If the user does not have access, or even know there is access, to controlling the "Profile" it is spyware. If it can not be disabled or removed without rooting the phone it is a rootkit.