[LINK] Carrier IQ

[Richard Chirgwin]

Scott,

Here's how Carrier IQ liked to be seen before it all turned to sludge:
http://www.canada.com/sports/Carrier+Named+Innovative+Business+Analytics+Company+Under+100M+Watch+Leading/5616548/story.html

A couple of points from the story.

1. It was not recognised as a boring system diagnostics software 
company: it was in the "business analytics" space.

> delivering mission critical intelligence on how services perform and 
> how devices actually work in the hands of end users. 
That's going beyond some kind of "if it crashes let us know capability". 
I think my previous point stands: maybe it was a good idea but they 
didn't know when to stop.

> "Carrier IQ's Mobile Intelligence platform puts the customer at the 
> center of decision making by providing a detailed understanding of the 
> customer's experience," said Larry Lenhart, CEO, Carrier IQ.
and

> Carrier IQ delivers a unique source of knowledge, directly from the 
> mobile device, which represents an objective, impartial view of how 
> handsets and devices are performing on the network, and how mobile 
> devices are being used day-to-day. 
It's not just about performance management - it's about user behaviour. 
I don't actually care whether they think the information is secure and 
anonymous, because security and anonymity are circumventable. And 
anyhow, I think the legality of collecting such data is probably 
questionable, at least in Australia.

RC


On 2/12/11 6:32 PM, Scott Howard wrote:
> On Thu, Dec 1, 2011 at 11:00 PM, Richard Chirgwin 
> <rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au <mailto:rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au>> wrote:
>
>     1. Issue and then withdraw legal threats?
>
>
> I'd guess because that what's their legal council recommended they do 
> in an effort to avoid the bad press of even the suggestion that they 
> log data/etc got out - regardless of whether it's true or not.
>
>
>     2. State that it could not capture real time data when it can?
>     (the "not
>     real time" position was maintained right up until the video was
>     posted,
>     showing real-time capture.
>
>
> At best this is semantics.  Firefox "captures" every key I type - 
> including all of my website passwords. Thus clearly Firefox and the 
> entire firefox community is evil.  Right?  There's a big difference 
> between "capture" and "log and report back to a 3rd party".
>
> From their press release they stated that their software :
> /    Does not record your keystrokes.
>     Does not provide tracking tools.
>     Does not inspect or report on the content of your communications, 
> such as the content of emails and SMSs.
>     Does not provide real-time data reporting to any customer.
>     Finally, we do not sell Carrier IQ data to third parties.
> /
> There has been absolutely ZERO proof from anyone that they do any of 
> those things. (Logging keystrokes to the operating systems debug log 
> when put into debug mode does NOT count as "recording" IMHO)
>
>
>     If the data logging were innocent, why did we also see a rush of
>     carriers in Australia and New Zealand saying "we don't touch this
>     stuff"?
>
>
> To distance themselves from the bad press?
>
>
>     Finally, if it were innocent, why is it difficult to find?
>
>
> Because it's a system-level application?  I'm sure there's dozens of 
> processes on any smart phone which are 'hidden" in some way or other 
> as they aren't something that the user is expected to interface with.
>
>   Scott
>