[LINK] Carrier IQ

[Anthony Hornby]

Developer supercurio of XDA and Voodoo sound drivers fame has put an early
release of "Voodoo Carrier IQ detector" in the market.

Anthony
On Dec 2, 2011 6:04 PM, "Richard Chirgwin" <rchirgwin at ozemail.com.au> wrote:

> 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
> >
>
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