Carrier IQ,A Threat for Mobile companies and User

Carrier IQ is installed in more than 141m handsets worldwide.An embattled phone-monitoring software maker said Friday that its wares, secretly installed on some 150 million phones, have the capacity to log web usage, and to chronicle where and when and to what numbers calls and text messages were sent and received.
The Carrier IQ executives, speaking at their nondescript headquarters in a residential neighborhood in the heart of Silicon Valley, told Wired that the data they vacuum to their servers from handsets is vast — as the software also monitors app deployment, battery life, phone CPU output and data and cell-site connectivity, among other things. But, they said, they are not logging every keystroke as a prominent critic suggested.

Depending on the use case, Carrier IQ can collect information that reports on:

• Dropped calls, where and when along with signal information at the time
• Battery life and reliability issues with the device
• Network performance and throughput
• Application usage
• Web analytics
• Quality of connection over time

YouTube/Trevor Eckhart

Security researcher Trevor Eckhart demonstrates how Carrier IQ logs keystrokes on his Android smartphone.

The data, which gets downloaded from consumers’ phones roughly once a day, is encrypted during transit and also provided  to carriers to enhance the “user experience,” these executives said.

“We do recognize the power and value of this data,” Andrew Coward, the chief marketing officer, said. “We’re very aware that this information is sensitive. It’s a treasure trove.”Not all Carrier IQ’s customer carriers choose to turn on the “record the urls” function, but some do. How much data is sent to each carrier depends on how much they want. Some carriers might want the text-message data, for example, only when certain conditions are met, such as when a text doesn’t go through to the intended recipient.

The company holds onto the data for 10 to 30 days, depending on the carrier.

Coward said he was not aware of any carriers selling the data it collects on their behalf to third-party marketers. He said Carrier IQ “has no rights to the data collected.”

What exactly is it watching?

Eckhart found evidence that Carrier IQ was doing much more than simply helping improve network quality; he said the company's software detects every button pressed, every text message sent, every website browsed to. His findings have not been confirmed, however, and at least one researcher suggested that, despite receiving such activity, there was no evidence that Carrier IQ was recording it.

Which handset manufacturers have it?

Blackberry-maker RIM and  Nokia announced Thursday that their smartphones don't come with Carrier IQ . But Eckhart said phones from many major manufacturers does include it, such as HTC and Samsung. Apple has not said whether its phones come with Carrier IQ, though some reports indicate they may as well.

The software runs hidden from users, who generally can’t find it or uninstall it without very sophisticated knowledge or by switching out the operating system by “rooting” their phone and flashing an alternative operating system. While legal, rooting almost always voids a phone’s warranty.