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Community Corner

Opinion: The Spy Who Loves You Is Your Phone

Your smart phone is too smart for your own good.

While it sounds like a movie plot, your smart phone is very likely tracking everything you do and everywhere you go.  Yes, really.    

Trevor Eckhart, a 25-year-old researcher, posted a YouTube video that went viral and attracted national attention and heated debate.  He discovered that software called Carrier IQ, is secretly installed in many smart phones.  Carrier IQ records and reports all of the information it gathers back to your carrier.  

What type of information?  According to The Huffington Post, it tracks every text message, Google or other search and phone number you call. This software is always running and is nearly impossible to remove. Yes, really. 

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The Huffington Post quotes from Carrier IQ's own website where they describe themselves as, "the world's leading provider of Mobile Service Intelligence solutions."   

What is Carrier IQ?  On Eckhart's site, he described it as rootkit software that is installed on phones sold by Sprint, Verizon among others.  It is found on Android phones, Blackberries, Nokias, tablet devices and others.   

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Who is Eckhart?  According to the Hartford Courant, he is an Eagle Scout from Torrington, Ct.  Yes, really.  He referred to himself as "a self taught geek since forever."  

Eckhart said in an interview with The Courant, "It's just been a dirty little secret, but nobody's said anything about it.  I put enough information that I thought anybody would be able to understand, and I made the information public because I feel this is wrong." 

In a Carrier IQ company video posted on YouTube, the copmany's Vice President of Marketing, said that this software is used to help diagnose where and why calls get dropped, batteries die, systems crash and other problems occur.  He explained that the answers "lie in the handset itself. Because the handset holds the untapped information about what actually happens. Exploiting the information is called mobile intelligence. To extract it we work with handset manufacturers to embed an agent inside the phone, that works pretty much like a rewind button and it records when things go wrong and brings together the data to make it right again. So far this agent is shipped on 150 million devices - not just on handsets, but on tablets, readers and other devices." 

This week, in an interview with CNN Money that VP, indentified as Andrew Coward, was confronted with the fact that Carrier IQ's software logs every keystroke pressed. The company claimed to be shocked and he said, "We're as surprised as anyone to see all that information flowing."  Yes, he said that. Really.

CNN Money listed carriers who have acknowledged using Carrier IQ - they include:  AT&T, Sprint and T-Mobile. They also cited that Apple installed it on iPhones but is discontinuing the use of it on future iPhones.   

Sparked by Eckhart, Senator Al Franken of Minnesota is questioning whether federal laws have been violated.   

What's incredible is that this software has already been embedded in 150 million devices and consumers had no way of knowing this, opting in or out, or turning it off. People put passwords on their phones to insure their privacy and security.  It is an extreme violation knowing that cell phone carriers have access to this information and might be sharing it.   

Even if there is nothing to hide, private information should not be divulged or shared without consent, because it's private. Unfortunately, my text messages, Google searches are not especially noteworthy. Although now that it's apparently public knowledge, I will admit to Googling the same thing over and over because I sometimes forget the answer, texting during my son's games when I should be watching, and as far as my locations - well some things are just between me and my phone carrier. 'Nuff said. Yes, really.

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