Android Phone Owners: Are You Being Spyed On?

Every day, Android cell phone users are entering in data. Everything from credit card info, to social security numbers, to chat and text messages. Did you know that a program is running behind the scenes that is capturing that information?

Hey, That's My Private Data!

Privacy advocates are alarmed that software made by Mountain View, California company Carrier IQ, could quite possibly be doing something fishy. Carrier IQ is embedded software that is pre-installed on millions of Android devices including HTC, Samsung, and Blackberry cell phones. Their claim is that Carrier IQ is monitoring and storing their personal data.

Carrier IQ is software used to gather information from cell phones for measuring quality of service. For example, to determine why applications may crash, to analyze why a signal is poor or why phone calls are dropped.

Researcher Screams Foul

Trevor Eckhart, a systems administrator from Connecticut, thinks otherwise. Eckhart discusses in great detail his findings and demonstrates that Carrier IQ is capturing keystrokes and sending it off to the mobile carrier to be stored.

Because he chose to share this information on the Internet, Carrier IQ fired off a cease and desist letter threatening Eckhart to remove the training materials off his website along with refraining from making any comments about his findings.

Pretty much this order went for not as Eckhart approached the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) for legal assistance. If your inclination is that Eckhart did nothing wrong, you would be right. He is protected under the First amendment and Fair Use laws. Carrier IQ would embarrassingly retract its order in a press release.

In it, Carrier IQ says that it does not capture keystrokes nor does it store and sell this data to 3rd party customers.

Government Inquiry In Order

Senator Al Franken of Minnesota wants to get to the bottom of this. As the Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy Technology and the Law, he sent an inquiry this week to Larry Lenhart, the CEO of Carrier IQ requesting detailed information about that software and was concerned of the potential that Carrier IQ was violatiing federal privacy laws.

Lenhart and his staff are to get back to him by December 14. At that time we will learn just what Carrier IQ is really doing.

Detecting if Carrier IQ Is On Your Android Device

To determine if Carrier IQ is on your phone, you can download the Voodoo Carrier IQ Detector. The app will only detect the existence but not remove the Carrier IQ rootkit.

About Kerry Kobashi

Kerry is the founder of KerryOnWorld. He lives in Silicon Valley and has worked as an engineer and project manager. He owns Kobashi Computing a consulting company.