BUSTED TWO: Carrier IQ monitor-ware on iPhones too?
Blogger and iPhone hacker Chpwn believes that the controversial Carrier IQ software isn’t confined to Android devices. In this blog post, he says a look at the /usr/bin folder reveals Carrier IQ’s agent software, identified as IQAgent in iOS 3, and either awd_ice2 or awd_ice3 on iOS 4 or iOS 5 devices. At this point, Chpwn …
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The guy was far from the first person to find it on the iPhone. Look it up in google and you can see that people found this software already last year and 2009...
But..
It wasn't in fashion then!
Plus 'droiders were climbing up the walls following the giant eavesdropping hole that was found on their platform and desperately needed to pin at least some of it on iOS too.
Not that I mind, they'll probably sleep better tonight and will be less cranky at work tomorrow.
'iphones ask'
well yes, when you plug the iphone into itunes for the first time, it has some warning about 'diagnostics and such' , so obviously you say 'nah'.
which is annoying, because those diagnostics appear to be the crash logs generated by apps... I'm guessing thats why whilst we have a few users complaining about crashing apps, we only have one uploaded crash report..
as for the android logging, has anyone shown it actually sending the info it logs , because it does just seem to be the adb logcat output..
Bah!
Why do we tolerate this sort of thing? Why do we allow it to continue year after year? Has the advent of cheap electronic communications blinded us to what is important?
I speak, of course, of the unpronounceable name "chpwn".
No-one who eschews vowels should be granted a platform to spout their views. In an ideal world there would be ubiquitous apps to force recalcitrant offenders to make their names make sense.
I mean, only last week someone was bitching about "F'nor", and that was a made-up character's name.
re: F'nor
From the Dragonriders of Pern Series
Wikipedia: Famanoran or F'nor (Fnōr) is the rider of the brown dragon Canth and was the son of Benden Weyr's former Weyrleader, F'lon and its current Headwoman Manora. He was also the half-brother of the current weyrleader, F'lar. He is a wingsecond at Benden.
Ok, it is made up, but then, aren't all names?
I know, misspent youth...
chpwn
Its obviously a word play on the "chown" command. And actually a little bit funny as it says "pwn(pawn)" instead of "own". It gets funnier if you realize that he is a hacker.. implying he doesn't "own" your files.. just "pawns" them. etc.
Weasel words?
"We don't use it" isn't quite the same as "it isn't installed."
Just because Telstra don't use it themselves doesn't mean that Telstra can't gain from Carrier IQ running on Telstra phones.
Clarifications anyone?
Re: Clarifications anyone?
Simply because they don't know!
Just like TESCO doesn't know what hormones were injected in beef, similarly, Telstra has no practical way of knowing if its installed on any of the OEM phones or not. They are saying - "we don't install or use it. Don't flood our call centers".
But are they legally responsible in case their phones are found to be using it ? I don't know... I suppose they might be on thin ice there if the phones they sell turn out to be collecting data illegally.
And "not using Carrier IQ" is not the same as "not using Carrier IQ or any similiar product".
We all act so shocked
Look folks the business model of all these companies - Google, Facebook, etc is to get as much personal data from you as they can to either
a: sell on
b: improve their ability to advertise sh*t to you.
We all act shocked and surprised when these stories keep coming up like it is some fricking epiphany.
No sh*t Sherlock!
Until the regulators fine someone until their eyes bleed every company who has a business model based upon selling your privacy on will continue to do so, and will use their EULA paragraph 9 sub section 24 in small print to get out of jail free.
Blame the regulators for not laying down the law, blame the inter government agencies for not having a unified approach to privacy in the digital age, and most of all blame us every time we are shocked and outraged.
These companies will continue to do this until the regulators get their act together.
That is all...
I know I've probably beaten this to death, but...
...every time I see a report like this on El Reg, it makes me even gladder that I own a "dumb" phone -- a 2004-vintage Samsung flip phone. Sends/receives voice calls and SMS. That's it. No Web, no email, no bullshit.
Isn't it obvious?
For years, people marveled at Google Maps when it displays traffic information. We all watch the morning news and traffic report which lights up all the problem areas in red. Google Maps will give you traffic information even on small side streets.
So, nobody is wondering where all this traffic data comes from? It comes from spying on your cell phone location with this software. duh!
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