CarrierIQ: Most Phones Ship With "Rootkit"

[wraggster]

According to a developer on the XDA forums, TrevE, many Android, Nokia, and BlackBerry smartphones have software called Carrier IQ (http://www.carrieriq.com/) that allows your carrier full access into your handset (http://www.xda-developers.com/android/the-rootkit-of-all-evil-ciq/), including keylogging, which apps have been run, URLs that have been loaded in the browser, etc."Since this was submitted, a few more details have come to light (http://www.xda-developers.com/android/more-on-carrier-iq/). The software was designed to give carriers useful feedback on aggregate usage patterns, but the software runs as root and the privacy implications are pretty severe.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/11/16/1517248/carrieriq-most-phones-ship-with-rootkit