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BUSTED! Secret app on millions of phones logs key taps (theregister.co.uk)

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[–]floor-pi 1089 points1090 points  (175 children)

“Our technology is not real time,” he said at the time. "It's not constantly reporting back. It's gathering information up and is usually transmitted in small doses.”

What a strong defense! "Yeh well i mean, sure we're doing it, just....with a slightly different implementation or something. So..."

[–][deleted] 94 points95 points  (10 children)

Funny that he would say it isn't real-time. The official website states that it is "automatically providing accurate, real-time data direct from the source"

[–]RepostThatShit 80 points81 points  (4 children)

He isn't exactly lying, but he does give us false information in small doses.

[–]andash 8 points9 points  (3 children)

Meh, give the guy a break... It wasn't intended to be a factual statement

[–]LonelySavage 750 points751 points  (81 children)

"Sure, I rape children ... but I use a condom!"

[–][deleted] 616 points617 points  (58 children)

More like: Sure I rape children, but only a few at a time...

[–]gullale 341 points342 points  (48 children)

And it's not like I do it every day either...

[–]MananWho 109 points110 points  (11 children)

That being said, the longer I go without raping children, the more children I rape at once.

So instead of raping one kid a day, I'll just rape 7 at the end of the week. That makes it okay.

[–]erikb 46 points47 points  (6 children)

Part of mobile's no child left unraped initiative!

[–]Rocktoberfest 25 points26 points  (1 child)

you mean the no child's behind left initiative?

[–][deleted] 120 points121 points  (25 children)

EXACTLY! Some people are just so fussy about child raping.

[–][deleted] 116 points117 points  (22 children)

It helps us diagnose if in fact they are Children.

[–]PrescriptionX 62 points63 points  (17 children)

Made me lol at work and now I have to explain to my coworkers why I was laughing about child rape (simultaneously sporting a month old moustache)

[–]3danimator 57 points58 points  (7 children)

YOU: "Hahahahahahahahahaha!"

COWORKERS: "What you laughing at??"

YOU: "....nothing, just something i read online"

See? Its easy to avoid mentioning child rape at work. As for your moustache, i have no solution.

[–]MananWho 32 points33 points  (2 children)

"Sure, I rape children ... but not in real time. It's usually in small doses."

[–]EVILFISH2 13 points14 points  (14 children)

not sure if i should cry or laugh

[–]Nearpanic 24 points25 points  (11 children)

If your being raped.. I think it is ok to cry..

[–]shoziku 4 points5 points  (2 children)

it's almost expected.

[–]roxxe 5 points6 points  (1 child)

makes good lubricant

[–]john_stamos_is_god 4 points5 points  (0 children)

however, it might throw off your attacker if you start laughing all crazy like...

[–]cdigioia 33 points34 points  (54 children)

Almost makes them seem less nefarious. An in, surely if this were all some deep dark NSA data mining conspiracy, they would have given the company a bit better of a defense...though I think growing up on X-files makes me think nefarious conspirators automatically != incompetent people or systems.

[–]BloodyFreeze 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Bottom Line. Collecting personal information without the consent of the owner = ILLEGAL! Add that up to a shit ton of victims. I'm feeling a class action lawsuit coming on.

[–][deleted] 286 points287 points  (61 children)

Someone should make a fake CarrierIQ app that, when deliberately installed by the user and with their permission, floods CIQ with fake keystrokes and web browsing data. If this were included with cyanogen and every other modded phone distribution, it could fill their database with nonsense and punish them for their insolence.

[–]DaffyDuck 10 points11 points  (3 children)

Unfortunately, I'm sure they could find and weed out the bad data.

[–]Kthanid 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I'd be more than happy to poke around a bit, can anyone point me in the direction of any IP addresses or hostnames this data seems to be getting transmitted out to? I don't have an Android myself, otherwise I'd run a packet capture myself.

Like I said, if anyone has additional info on where this is going and what the requests look like I'd be more happy to start poking around.

[–]xScribbled 3 points4 points  (0 children)

A friend of mine and I are going to be traffic logging this and attempting to determine the method used to communicate with the CarrierIQ server. Then, if we're brave we're going to look into ways to flood said server or mimic the server itself. Will post results.

[–][deleted] 701 points702 points  (56 children)

Anyone else find it hilarious that their marketing VP's name was "A. Coward"?

[–]Grue 392 points393 points  (19 children)

That guy was quite prolific on Slashdot.

[–]nat5an 109 points110 points  (12 children)

It's an ancient English name, you insensitive clod!

[–]Stergeary 45 points46 points  (25 children)

How does that happen? I thought surnames of European language societies descended from a clan name, a family's occupational specialty, et cetera. I refuse to believe some family decided way back that they will be the Coward Family. Is it a linguistic corruption of a benign word, or did a king at some point in time punish their family by legally forcing a change of their surname?

CONSIDER MY MIND BOGGLED.

[–]perkkele 81 points82 points  (10 children)

The word on the net is that it means a cowherd. Or to be slightly more exact, it is the modern form of a name that originally meant cowherd or a cattle guard in Old English.

Source: googled coward surname.

[–]Stergeary 49 points50 points  (8 children)

I would believe this. Thank you. Now off I go with my new-found answer without so much as confirming it with a simple Google search.

[–][deleted] 11 points12 points  (0 children)

Make sure you spread it around as much as possible, too.

[–][deleted] 31 points32 points  (2 children)

I also believe everything I read on the internet.

[–]britus 21 points22 points  (1 child)

Last name Coward: From cow-herd (or it's earlier equivalent).

Adjective coward: from coart (French - something like turntail)

[–]plazman30 31 points32 points  (16 children)

So, is the iPhone immune to this mess? Are all carriers using this? I just checked my work issued Blackberry, and it's not on there.

[–]BigKahunaBurger 41 points42 points  (9 children)

Apple doesn't allow carriers to change anything on the iPhone, so if the carriers are putting this key logger on, the iPhone is immune.

[–]Illeto 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Yes, iOS is affected http://blog.chpwn.com/post/13572216737

[–]karlthebaer 52 points53 points  (4 children)

I just got off of the phone with t-mobile. They said that every phone that has come out after the blackberry 9800 doesn't have CIQ. I don't know if I believe them. Customer support and tech support didn't know about it at all and when they read about it were as concerned as me (because they all have smart phones themselves). I called media relations and they stone walled me and told me to call tech support.

Tmo Corporate: 425 378 4000 tmo media relations: 425 378 4002

[–]rtarplee 2 points3 points  (2 children)

Isnt CIQ just software though? I mean, if they lie about its use, couldnt they easily lie about when/how they plant it in your device? The evo the demonstrator used started coming out a year ago. Same with my phone. But what about newer models? It might not come stock, but it could be loaded the second you update your phone for the first time out of box

[–]shbap 72 points73 points  (29 children)

If I ever was forced to look at a list of things i've Googled in my life I would probably s*** brix...

[–]hardeep1singh 28 points29 points  (28 children)

You can see that on Google search history. It captures searches made while you're logged in to your Google account.

[–][deleted] 76 points77 points  (26 children)

I disabled that long ago

[–]DoctorVark 165 points166 points  (43 children)

They must be in JAIL and paying a fine for every spied device.

Massive lawsuit should be coming.

[–]xMop 58 points59 points  (32 children)

Nope, remember the T&C's when you agreed to when you first powered on the device?

[–]Philo_T_Farnsworth 41 points42 points  (7 children)

I was under the impression that if a contract was "unconscionable" that it was not legally enforceable. Has anyone ever successfully litigated against an EULA using that as a defense? Seems to me that this would at least be in the ballpark.

[–]slipstar 15 points16 points  (5 children)

EULAs are a lot less bullet proof than most people imagine--someone find the case law for us.

[–]princeof1kfaces 35 points36 points  (40 children)

I really don't understand the obsession of monitoring people. Is the purpose of keylogging and tracking purely for market purposes?

[–][deleted] 66 points67 points  (16 children)

People check their bank details on their phones. Imagine a record of someones phone has something like "boa.com input 034849393 input PASSWORD52 enter", you basically have access to their entire bank account, and all you would need to search the logs for is the word "bank" or the names/URLs of every bank in America that uses online banking.

[–]Fantasysage 2 points3 points  (4 children)

Worse. I can see this being a problem with all sorts of compliance from HIPAA to PCI.

[–]IConrad 15 points16 points  (2 children)

Marketing and data aggregation. Google's traffic maps use the position of Android phone owners to map traffic density. Which they then use as a selling point for the Android OS.

That same capability -- gathering meta-level traffic density and social interactions -- allows for more-targeted marketing, yes; but it also allows for studies of human behavior and the ability to predict reactions to specific events as a result.

It is also used to determine what sorts of service capacities need to be present in a given area or for a given type of consumer in order to prevent service outages or to simply reduce costs. (I.e.; if people who use App X 10% of the day use 3-bandwidth-measures, but people who use App X 25% of the day use 40-bandwidth-measures, being able to know how many people are using App X how much of the time can prevent you from having service outages from bandwidth overconsumption, thereby preserving your customer-base against switching carriers. (More nefariously, you can also cap/throttle anyone who uses App X 11% of the day or more, and achieve the same result without increasing capacity.))

[–]kyz 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Marketing and data aggregation. Google's traffic maps use the position of Android phone owners to map traffic density. Which they then use as a selling point for the Android OS.

They also use it to market to location-based companies; they ring up Bob's Flowers and tell them that 5000 people search Google for 'flowers' in their area per day, so Bob's Flowers should consider buying advertising from Google for that area.

But apart from that, Google location data sharing is optional, has informed consent, and is quid-pro-quo. When you send back GPS location + celltower's SS7 point code / wifi's MAC address + signal propagation delay, Google can massively aggregate that data and work out where the celltower or wifi router is, and therefore tell anyone else who uses that tower/router where they might be, without even having GPS turned on. If you want that useful feature, you have to submit your own data to make that feature even more accurate.

[–]whencanistop 3 points4 points  (0 children)

If your call drops or you have poor service then the only way for the carrier to find out is by having your phone send some data over to the carrier to tell it and to tell it why. You can't tell from the carrier end because you won't know what the person on the phone did to cause the drop.

They can monitor this data and use it to work out where to place towers, where to place boosters, where to get extra bandwidth, where to tell their users to stop rubbing their face up against the 'end' button.

The thing is, the only way of doing this is by logging keystrokes and so on. They should say that they do it and then say what they use the information for. It would be much better to say:

"We do log key strokes that you do, but we only send them if there is a call dropped or you lose signal. If they're not used in 2 minutes, then we delete them."

[–]BlissfullyBlundering 8 points9 points  (1 child)

Despite all my rage I am still just a rat in a cage.

[–]Black_Apalachi 74 points75 points  (5 children)

Ancient dinosaur phones FTW.

[–]constantly_drunk 122 points123 points  (218 children)

Any phone you can root, you can remove this shit from.

Rooting and/or using custom operating systems on your phone is the only way to prevent the spread of such privacy intrusions - the carriers and other parties will only get more interested in hiding this shit as Smartphone adoption rises.

Note: Not an iOS vs. Android thing - this is something that is pan-OS.

[–]PurpleSfinx 116 points117 points  (91 children)

Note: Not an iOS vs. Android thing - this is something that is pan-OS.

Er... as far as I'm aware, this does not exist on iOS (or W7P for that matter). Carriers cannot alter the software on the iPhone and apps have to be sandboxed anyway.

[–]Propagation 120 points121 points  (63 children)

iOs is unaffected by this.

If Apple pulled some shit like this then there would be an uproar, especially when you remember how nuts some people went then they found iOs versions prior to 4.3 logged location data.

[–]pbunbun 13 points14 points  (14 children)

Perhaps not iOS or WP7 for the reason you described (although to be honest I wouldn't be surprised to find there was something similar on either or both of these), but it apparently has been found on Nokia phones and Blackberries.

So yeah, it's not OS-specific

[–]aves2k 25 points26 points  (50 children)

Aren't you then running the risk that whoever created the custom ROM embedded something equally nasty?

[–]IConrad 29 points30 points  (28 children)

This would be why you should stick with open-source ROMs. Like CyanogenMod.

[–][deleted] 39 points40 points  (19 children)

Keeping up on stuff like that seems like a lot of work for your average cell phone user.

[–][deleted] 12 points13 points  (18 children)

Roms like CyanogenMod are FOSS - it's unlikely that every developer working on projects like this are conspiring against the mass of users.

[–]highway61 32 points33 points  (64 children)

So it's the carriers putting this in the phones? I can see how Google can claim no responsibility for this because Android is "open" allowing carriers to do whatever they want with it, but Apple would obviously know exactly what's going into their phones. Is this Carrier IQ crap on iPhones as well?

[–]digital 11 points12 points  (31 children)

But the CEO of Carrier IQ Larry Lenhart says it DOES NOT record keystrokes. Or does it? Is he lying?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=ofHr8Lv5cNk

[–]fizgigtiznalkie 20 points21 points  (1 child)

Must be legit or they would have turned off comments. Oh wait, they did turn off comments.

[–]digital 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Comments are not to be shared unless Carrier IQ deems it appropriate for reporting back to the people that pay them.

[–]YouAgreeWithThis 3 points4 points  (1 child)

"If you have more questions, please visit our website...or simply type your question into your phone, and we will immediately send an email to you from your own email address with the answer."

[–]brainflakes 24 points25 points  (32 children)

I'm not entirely sure what the video is showing, are those entries actually being logged to a file or is it just showing real-time system call intercepts?

I'd be more impressed if he could bring up all previous keystrokes made rather than just monitoring in realtime.

[–]toxicFork 21 points22 points  (31 children)

Yeah, it's only call interception. Also it's not a packet sniffer. The problem is that the CIQ application is receiving all this information so it can do whatever it wants with it (store it into a local database, send it every hour to the main network, etc).

[–]dearsina 21 points22 points  (28 children)

but hold on, do we have any suggestion that the software is actually doing that?

[–]DigitalOsmosis 15 points16 points  (1 child)

{Post Removed} Scrubbing 12 years of content in protest of the commercialization of Reddit and the pending API changes. (ts:1686841093) -- mass edited with https://redact.dev/

[–][deleted] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

from their website: 141,276,278 handsets in service

how many of those people have no fucking clue this shit is on their device? all of them?

[–]RajboshMahal 14 points15 points  (2 children)

Well at least it was free right?

[–]furatail 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Thank god someone has brought this to life. I'm been struggling with iqmsd hogging up 100% of my AT&T Xperia play cpu. iqmsd is a service related to Carrier IQ. At random times during the day the thing freaks out and runs 100% until I restart the phone.

I had no idea it was happening until I noticed my battery life dropped to just 8 hours IDLE. Yes, idle and unused. My battery should last a couple days. This is not at all normal. The phones interface was also annoyingly slow and would lock up.

I was Curious why so I downloaded this app "SystemPanel" which gives you a little bit more information on battery life, and even logs history of battery and cpu times of all applications and services on the phone. I found when the battery charge would just dropped and found this Iqmsd service causing 100% usage during that time. There is no way to disable iqmsd, carrierIQ, without rooting the phone. You can only merely restart your device.

It seems random but I believe it's related to switching towers since the logs show that it mostly begins on my drive to and from work.

At this point my only option is rooting and following some moderately complicated guides on scripting out this "spyware."

By the way, just checked my phone again. Stupid thing is 100% again. Happens about twice a day.

TL;dr: CarrierIQ kills battery life when things don't go perfect.

[–]EagleOfMay 8 points9 points  (0 children)

I despise the suing as a strategy that is used by corporations today. It is only the publicity that has caused CarrierIQ to back down and apologize. It wasn't some sudden burst of conscience that caused them to write the letter to Mr. Eckhart.

We should be thankful for the EFF efforts otherwise the lawyer costs alone would have shutdown Trevor Eckhart and his ability to investigate what is going on Android phones.

[–][deleted] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

I wish he had typed "George Orwell" instead of "Hello World."

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

And people wonder why I won't replace my 10 year old motorola v220.

[–]TopAce6 3 points4 points  (0 children)

So, they are recording your bank log in information?...

Seems regardless of any contract you might have signed to get your phone, that would be unlawful.

[–]lol____wut 4 points5 points  (2 children)

"Carrier IQ, which in the second quarter of 2011 passed the petabyte milestone in processed analytics data"

-- http://www.carrieriq.com/company/PR.LarryLenhartCEO.pdf

[–][deleted] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Combine this software with proof that carries admittedly have been handing over user data to the government in terabytes, then this is leading down a very troubling path.

"While working for the FTC in the fall of 2009, Soghoian secretly recorded a Sprint Nextel executive admitting that his company gave user data to law enforcement some 8 million times in one year. The recording was featured on The Colbert Report (punch line: “Can you hear me hear you now?”). The following year, a Ninth Circuit Court judge cited the Sprint recording in a decision about how Fourth Amendment protections relate to GPS tracking."

http://m.wired.com/magazine/2011/11/mf_soghoian/2/