Carrier IQ, What It Is & What Does It Do to Your Smartphone

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Back in early October we told you that Trevor Eckhart, an Android developer, has discovered an important vulnerability on various HTC handsets and shared his findings with the world.

At the time I was not surprised to hear that yet another exploit has been found to affect Android handset and I was expecting HTC to fix the issue. But it turns out the problem is a lot bigger than we would have imagined and it’s not just HTC handsets that suffer from the same problem. It looks like there are millions of Android devices out there that can track everything a users do with their smartphones and I mean everything. And it’s not just Android handsets that are affected by the issue but also Blackberry and Nokia devices.

The software that allows smartphone makers and carriers to spy on their customers – I’m not saying they do it, but it is apparently very possible – is made by Carrier IQ, a company we didn’t really hear about until this scandal broke. That software can be installed by default on a variety of devices and smartphone makers and carriers can further customize it.

Why is it needed? At first sight the software lets these companies monitor the performance of the smartphone in order for them to address potential issues. That’s fine, right? That’s what you’d want them to do in order to enjoy a better smartphone experience. But it looks like the same software can track text messages, web surfing history, searches and who knows what else. That’s certainly annoying as anyone with malicious intentions would be able to use the device to spy on users.

Eckhart was attacked by Carrier IQ with an angry cease and desist letter after he first unveiled the issues with HTC handsets. Fortunately for him, the Electronic Frontier Foundation backed him up and Carrier IQ withdraw its claims but not before telling the world that its software is not used to spy on customers.

Eckart then proved that even if that’s true, the possibility of recording the user’s activity on various handsets exists – just take a look at the video embedded below. The data that gets collected, even when using secure HTTPS protocols, seems to be sent to Carrier IQ’s “in secret” as Wired reports, which is by itself a very annoying issue.

Now add to that the fact that you can’t uninstall the app and you can’t opt out of “using” it and you’ll see why this will turn into quite the scandal, just watch the news cycle in the following days. In fact users are not even aware that the app exists and does what it does, which only makes us wonder whether carriers and smartphone makers are silent partners of Carrier IQ, or whether they too are kept in the dark about such matters.

We’ll be back with more details about Carrier IQ in the following days. Until then don’t try to root your device and install custom ROMs. It won’t work. The app will continue to exist even if you decide to stop using the device as a cellphone.