Posted on 12/03/2011 7:56:05 AM PST by Kaslin
If you are like us, every day you pick up a smartphone and you send email, visit with friends on Facebook, send a text message or even log into your bank's website and pay a bill. These modern day conveniences have become routine.
We all believe that our passwords are secure, our data is protected, and life is easier if we don't have to write a check to pay a bill or dig around and find a stamp to send a friend a quick note.
But this morning we are no longer sure. The tech world is in a fury, which we believe will soon break out into society at large, about a little-known software program call Carrier IQ. Over the Thanksgiving weekend a 25-year-old programmer by the name of Trevor Eckhart posted a video on YouTube which graphically displays how our naïve beliefs of privacy are just plain wrong.
The video, which lasts 17 minutes and starts slowly because he methodically goes through the privacy statements on his cell phone, is frightening. If you watch it, you will never look at your smartphone the same again. We have posted the video at Floydreports.com if you want to watch.
The program, Carrier IQ cannot be turned off. But it tracks your every move. Dial a friend's phone, it sends the number off to someone. Send or receive a text message and the message is recorded and sent off. Call up your bank or another website in the allegedly secure https: mode which we have been told is secure, and Carrier IQ is there recording your username, password and any other move you make on your phone.
Rather than calling them smartphones, we should be calling them people monitors. The only action you take which it cannot record is a thought in your head that you refuse to express. These phones are even capable of recording what you say. Scary is not the word for it.
Trevor Eckhart even takes pains to turn of the GPS function for use by Google maps and search and then he demonstrates how Carrier IQ still is logging your position.
Now what can you do about it? The program can only be removed if you hack or as they say "root" your phone. But beware – rooting your phone likely violates the contract you have signed with your carrier, and it clearly voids any manufacturers’ warranty you may have on the device.
Since the video was first posted, others have gone to work and exposed how in addition to Android phones, the Carrier IQ software is also present on I Phones with iOS3 operating system and above.
The privacy issues surrounding smartphones have been numerous, but the exposure of Carrier IQ brings the threat to an entirely new level. Chances are if you have a smartphone, you have no privacy around or while using the device. Be careful.
Makes you understand why criminals all use burner phones.
Facebook and the like are security risks for bigger reasons.
They provide a pathway for takeover of your computer.
This means more than access to personal and private info, it means potential use of your system as a storage and messaging center for criminals and foreign entities.
I also don’t use a smartphone.....
Every time you requet a URL and visit a website a record of your visit is kept by your ISP.
This is only as private as it takes someone who knows what they are doing to hack it or for the IPS to give it up.
Is anyone surprised at this? You shouldn’t be.
Now thay are putting smart meters on your house so they do not have to send oput the meter reader. Theycan tell when you go on vacation or when you are using the air conditioner. You are photographed everywhere you go by speed camera’s Traffic light Camera’s, security camera’s, Your cell phone can be tracked, your automobile can be tracked,with it’s onboard phone, If you have a wreck the on board system notifies the police while you sit there with the air bag in your face.Your conversations can be listened to while you drive down the road.
Privacy? Maybe in your bedroom if you keep the curtains drawn, put the phone and TV in another room and are quiet.
Might make a good alibi, though, for someone thinking ahead. All you need is a reliable accomplice who can take your smartphone for a very traceable outing, complete with FB comments, while you head in the other direction to commit whatever mayhem you had in mind.
This is frustrating, and scary, downright 1984-ish, but, what can we do? Simply shun all the technological advances we’ve had for the last 100 years? Move to a cabin in the woods with no power and hunt, fish, and gather again for sustenance?
Even sending a paper check through the mail has your account number on it.
So what was the intent of Carrier IQ? We know its capability, but who dreamed it up and why?
So how do I root my smart phone?
Want to really get creeped out/ go to Spokeo.com and type in your name....
I’m curious...what are you selling?
I do what I can. I am not on Facebook, I do not Tweet, I am not Linkedin. I use Ixquick for my searches. It doesn’t track your IP, nor are there cookies. My cell phone is ancient. Friends laugh when I flip it open, and have to pull up the antenna! I still don’t feel secure.
The Founders met in taverns and back rooms so they wouldn’t be spotted by the British, who had Tory spies everywhere.
The lack of cyber privacy is the more reason to meet your friends face-to-face ... like at the pistol range.
Here’s my understanding of the iPhones “tracking”. It does not track the user, it tracks a file. It’s debatable how much difference there is in that distinction.
In other word, tracking file GUID Azsdq%guq-00, does not equal tracking John Smith, sim card number, and phone number, who lives at, etc etc.
While I always hesitate to say we need legislation, but in this case I think we do. We need to make secret collecting of data from private phones absolutely illegal and subject to criminal prosecution as well as civil litigation. If any data no matter for what purpose was taken off of my phone without my consent I should be able to sue their asses off then have the DA hit them with criminal charges. In the day of the old land lines if some company figured out a way to monitor your phone without your knowledge they would have been thrown in the slammer so fast they would not know what hit them. How is this any different other than it's clearly worse as they are deliberately collecting secure information.
I love my Western Electric telephones. Some of them are older than I am, and still work.
You Have No Privacy
Companies such as Acxiom and Choice point has ALL information on you and it’s for sale.
I believe that we went thru a similar problem about 10 years ago. The answer was to encrypt you messages. Everything, that hits the Internet is scrutenized.
As example of encryptian software is “PGP® Desktop Email from Symantec is email encryption software that offers automatic email encryption, without affecting the end-user experience.”
I have no connection with them, they are just one example.
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