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Sprint Orders All OEMs To Strip Carrier IQ From Their Phones
An anonymous reader writes with a report that Sprint, in an attempt to extricate itself from the Carrier IQ drama, has "ordered that all of their hardware partners remove the Carrier IQ software from Sprint devices as soon as possible." Sprint confirmed that they've disabled the use of Carrier IQ on their end, saying, "diagnostic information and data is no longer being collected." The software is currently installed on roughly 26 million Sprint phones, though the company has only been collecting data from 1.3 million of them.
I am currently on the fence trying to decide between Sprint and Verizon. I think Sprint just tipped me to their side with this.
nokia uses nokia analytics collector to collect carrier iq data which is sent to nokia (not the phone company). i presume sprint will still continue to collect carrier iq data from nokias which run NAC or have the libraries loaded like all of nokias windows 7 phones....
Does this also apply to their Virgin phones?
-uso.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
Just for their customers service ..
but i suspect verizon for the network and if you are ok with poor human service when you have a problem.
Wonder if they're giving up Carrier IQ as a sacrificial lamb, while their other gathering program(s) lie safely tucked away. Old Gestapo trick. Shoot one of your own...
Does this mean that 1.3million Sprint users are on some DHS watchlist?
Why wouldn't they collect "diagnostics" on all 26 million? If I were a data analyst looking for useful data to "improve user experience" (or whatever it is they say they use it for) then I want the largest data set possible.
I'd hate to work for and / or have a stake in Carrier IQ. Talk about going down in a massive ball of flames overnight! Simply put, that company, at least by name, will have to cease to exist. No one would dare want that name associated with their devices.
Better known as 318230.
I wonder if this will result in a price hike since they will be losing all this juicy customer data that they may have been selling to "market research" vultures.
It's nice to have a Blackberry through all of this. The WP7 users are probably pretty happy too.
That was my first thought when I read the headline: what have the replaced it with?
They're apparently doing this in order to avoid being dragged in front on Congress and not out of any sort of altruism. (OK, so no one thought they were doing it out of altruism, but you may have thought they were trying to avoid alienating customers. Nope. They just want Congress to drop the issue.)
The article itself makes it pretty clear that they expect that Sprint is simply going to switch to some other software. It's kind of like how the iPhone "doesn't run CarrierIQ as of iOS 5." Well, of course it doesn't - Apple moved all of that stuff into iOS 5 itself. It's built-in to the OS now. All that CarrierIQ information is still gathered, and still sent back to Apple.
But that's OK. Remember when people were upset about the iPhone tracking you? That's a "feature" in iOS 5. Essentially, by allowing you to "track" yourself and your friends, Apple managed to turn "we constantly track and record your location" into a bullet point feature. (Not joking! Yes, you have to "opt in" to be allowed to see the data that Apple gathers about you. That's nice. They still gather it if you have the features turned off, you just aren't allowed to use that data yourself.)
So I fully expect that a couple of weeks after the "remove CarrierIQ update" is released, security researchers will discover Sprint phones now come with some new software with a different name that does the exact same thing.
I think they just got caught with their hand in the cookie jar and wisely decided to let go of the cookie. I'm guessing that their corporate lawyer types who are dealing with the lawsuits recommended this happen ASAP and management is following their lawyers'' advice. The question now is will all the crumbs laying around lead to them being punished or just sent to bed without dinner.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Carrier IQ is about to 'Cease and Desist'. ...or should that be 'Cease to Exist'?
What about those of us who already have it on our existing phones? Any way to remove it, Sprint?
there are some phones shipped to Verizon that also have cIQ on them. if Verizon is not using it, they should also do an "update" strip of that root.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
Since Virgin Mobile, at least in the U.S, uses Sprint's network. Though I'm not sure if Carrier IQ was on their phones.
Sprint (or at least their OEMs) are working on updates that remove it, such as the EL13 leak for the Epic 4G Touch.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
While Sprint has been the largest user of CarrierIQ, with the most invasive CIQ installations in devices, AT&T was starting to put it on their phones too. For example, the Samsung Infuse 4G Gingerbread leaks from September to November carried a CIQ installation that was quite invasive. All evidence of CIQ is gone from the latest UCKL2 leak.
Similarly, while the original UCKH7 build for the Galaxy S II did not have CIQ, all leaks from October and November had it start to appear - but it was removed before the official UCKK6 update that just started getting rolled out to users earlier this week.
Carrier IQ (the company) = smoking crater. Their largest user is dropping them like a hot potato, and their fastest growth market (AT&T devices) is also ditching them.
Canadians are still screwed - Rogers seems silent in terms of CIQ. They actually had the balls to claim they don't use it, even though it was clearly there in the UXKG3 firmware release for the Samsung Infuse in that country.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
I wonder if any phones will get more recent versions of Android because of this. Some phones may get moved from Ecliar to Froyo or Froyo to Gingerbread.
on shareholderdot.com, investors are furious that sprint has foregone such a significiant exploitation of revenue stream. after all, why else does sprint exist, if not to provide them with profit?
Uh, unless something's changed, Verizon never had CarrierIQ to begin with.
Unless something's changed, VZW has denied using CarrierIQ, but has refused to explain why CarrierIQ was found to be connecting to servers with "vzw" in their names.
As a VZW customer, I'd be shocked if VZW wasn't doing something nefarious when it comes to customer monitoring. I'd also fully expect them to then lie about it.
Note well: This doesn't mean I'd trust Sprint (or AT&T or T-Mobile or whoever) over VZW. I wouldn't trust any of them.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
Like Sprint Nascar, Sprint Football, Sprint Zone, Amazon MP3, Blockbuster (they still exist?), NOVA, Telenav GPS (which appears to be cheap knockoff of Google Maps nav mode) and Qik Video.
While I'm glad the Carrier IQ stuff is going away, I'm still planning on rooting my phone when I have the time (like over the holidays; whee!).
My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
Oh, but when I sent an email to the CEO to complain, I got a nice call back from a lady who said all that crap is on there because customers want it to be. So, I asked her whether she'd ever read the reviews on the Android Market for the bloatware apps, and that she might notice the reason they're rated low is because people want to be able to uninstall them.
Everybody else who cares should email the CEO as well, and maybe we can get this changed.
Just how much bandwidth does CarrierIQ use? Does network congestion in part stem from this software? And finally does the end user pay for that bandwidth or have it deducted from their capped allocation.
It's installed on 26 million phones but they only gather information from 1.3 million users, so how did they decide on that 1.3 million, or does it rotate the users and the number of actively monitored phones cap at 1.3 million because their network can't handle any more than that?
I think this story might get a whole lot more interesting shortly.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
I doubt the few people who complain don't nearly equate to how much nascar, amazaon, and others are paying Sprint for this.
I guess that carrier IQ will just rebrand to something positive sounding like NetworkOptimiza
Jehovah be praised, Oracle was not selected
and sell to china and middle-east and belarus(it's like russia - only more tightly gripped and without the mellow countryside).
oh wait they already probably did..
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
I'm wondering, because detecting unauthorized tethering seemed to me the most "useful" use for a carrier to use cIQ for. I know at&t does that, but does sprint?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
If your phone was sending diagnostic data upstream without your permission (or knowledge), who was paying for the data usage? For those with an unlimited data plan, it's a non-issue. Everyone else should be asking their carrier questions before it's too late to get a refund. I would think that you are entitled to a refund of any and all overage charges.
I went to renew my contract with Sprint today, as they (unlike AT&T or Verizon) do not donate big bucks to Republicans, and I found out I get 10% off my bill for banking with a credit union. Talk about pleasing a liberal.
A piece of software will be installed in order to verify the removal of Carrier IQ. This software will remain on the phone to ensure it's never installed again by sending the currently installed software data to the Sprint. Problem solved!
Is Sprint also putting a CarrierIQ stripper app into the Android Market so I can strip it myself from my own phone? Why do I have to rely on the OEM, and probably never get it - unless with a new phone, which will have something even sneakier? I don't want to rely on even CarrierIQ detectors from a 3rd party - who knows what it will do when I install it with its permissions.
Apps should have a "line item veto" where I tell my Android OS to refuse specific permissions and accept others if I want. If a feature actually requires a permission, it should ask again. Or just stop asking for these unnecessary permissions, which cause me (but not most people) to refuse to install the app, even if I want it for features I'd permit where actually necessary. Android is really a soup of "intent" messages being sent among the apps. At least make the app modular enough to let me grant permissions on a per-intent basis within an app.
--
make install -not war
This, my friends, is what happens when you have it.
I have left slashdot and am now on Soylent News. FUCK YOU DICE.
I had NexTel since dropping verizon after literally throwing my phone out the window in Sterling Heights MI , and was very happy... then Sprint bought them. Other then a few douche bags at the local stores lying to me about various things, which i figured out quickly, everything has been good. To be hones,t for every douche bag there has been another customer serv rep who has been very good. the everything plan is just what it says, with fees and taxes, insurance ( ya im the one who gets a new/refurbished phone about every couple of months tx to insurance, i just like nice clean screens on my phone, and cleaning the camera lens/etc is too time consuming..easier just to spider the screen) i think my bill is around 92/month. I am a little concerned about the 4 g issues in the near future, but i have seen verizon and att networks suck on phones too. The one thing i was always curious about was why AT&T and verizon adds were always negative about the each other, but non mentioned sprint. any ideas?
-KI
And your evidence that they ever used it is where? Oh right, you don't have any.
And even if they didn't use CarrierIQ, what's to say that they don't have a homegrown version of software that does the exact same thing?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_ignorance
Sprint phones have had Telenav since before the iPhone came out. Like.. years before the iPhone came out. And not just the smartphones either. All the regular flip-phones where everything was java.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
From the time it takes to do a find my friends and the way it starts with low accuracy it seems fairly clear that the location isn't tracked and cached.
It seems that the process is:
1) User A requests location of user B from Apple who handle authentication of the user.
2) Apple send message to user B's phone.
3) User B's phone checks the requester is authorised and turns on the location system to try to pinpoint itself then sends back location to Apple/original requester.
Updates of increasing accuracy may follow.
It seems quite clear that Apple do not continuously monitor location (indeed the phone itself doesn't although this is presumably for power reasons). I also don't think that they would dare continuously track you in the current privacy environment.
Actually Apple is probably the safer (relative term) of Apple and Google in this regard because their business is selling you stuff rather advertising, user profiling you and generally data mining.
Interestingly both are very secretive companies so they should understand privacy as a desirable thing. I leave as an exercise for the reader consideration to what extent they might believe in other people and organisations privacy from their actions.