OMG!!! This is proof positive that we are being illegally monitored in the extreme!!

[JasonM]

Please move to the proper area, but I feel this is an extremely disturbing threat to our liberties. PLEASE someone with connections notify Ron Paul and Rand Paul and spread the word. Someone with resources start a class action lawsuit NOW!! THIS MUST BE STOPPED, and if this ends up taking down half the mobile industry, it's a necessary sacrifice if our liberties and freedoms end up benefiting in the long run. If we win here and strike this down dramatically, it will set a powerful precedent for generations to come.

At least 141 million phones are being illegally wiretapped by your carrier and a little known company called "Carrier IQ". Here's the link to the article:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2452...erything_on_m illions_of_phones_updated.html

One of the commenters said it best:

<in response to a question as to which companies are involved in this> all the companies involved from carrier iq developers to the phone carriers to the phone and os developers who put it in, the whole chain

can you imagine in a time of war and terrorism these folks are capturing from our elected officials, their staff, military chain of command, soldiers, ect...

and from what i've read the thing is open to hackers to abuse, can you imagine hackers or terrorists or foreign governments getting this raw feed

what were they thinking

i find it disturbing, irresponsible, illegal, immoral, and even dangerous for them to put a root kit you don't know about and can't easily get rid of

think about it, local/federal police, judges, lawyers, prosecutors, fbi, cia, ect all use cell phones that they use both personally and professionally, and these people have a feed to their phone use, who else can gain access to those feeds or redirect them.

the most sensitive / secret / sacred material is transfered by these folks and a bunch of nobodies without any clearance are all listening in on it!

and not just for this country for all countries, the carrier iq folks brag they are on over 141 million cell phones and rapidly growing

EDIT:

Another link providing further info:

http://venturebeat.com/2011/11/30/heres-how-cell-phone-carriers-are-tracking-everything-you-do/

 

[JasonM]

Also, do a google news search for "carrier IQ" and you can find some good information as all of you dig into this.

PLEASE, someone, I don't have a lot of money, but this is extremely alarming and requires massive effort on all our parts. Believe me when I say this is potentially a national security threat, and the kind that hits a little too close to home. We always suspected this, but this is proof and the researcher who found this is a hero and deserves HUGE praise for finding this. Coupled with the Patriot Act and our CIA/FBI's tendency to abuse it's powers, this is absolutely criminal in the worst kind of way.

Pass this around, this is bad, really really really bad. Big brother here, big brother is now, the infrastructure is in place to make it happen, and it is sitting in your pocket.

 

[RickyJ]

Any wireless comunication that is not encrypted is wide open for anyone to listen in on. This has always been the case. If you thought otherwise you were wrong.

 

[Kludge]

What a surprise. Oh... no, not really. There're backdoors and trojans developed by LEOs all around the world to intercept your communications, "encrypted" or not. German LEOs were recently exposed for having developed and deployed a trojan for Skype which not only eavesdrops on communications, "encrypted" or not, but can also take screenshots of what's being displayed on the desktop and remotely take control of the PC. It was practically unsecured, so anyone aware of the trojan's existence could use it to do anything the German LEOs could.

For a class action lawsuit, it needs to be proven that this software not only collects and stores data, but indiscriminately transmits and retains it. So far, we really don't know all that much about this story. Android, RIM, and iOS [edit: iOS apparently has the software pre-installed, but it is not enabled by default and doesn't track nearly the information as is done on other devices] all appear to be affected -- but, this was mostly the choice of the carriers. While Android's being talked about a lot, Google's own phones (Nexus & Xoom) do not have this software pre-installed. WP7 phones also appear to lack the CIQ software.

 

[Kludge]

Any wireless comunication that is not encrypted is wide open for anyone to listen in on. This has always been the case. If you thought otherwise you were wrong.

Aside from the Skype incident, where encrypted conversations could be listened to, it's also worth noting that in this case, the software's taking information before encryption and possibly after decryption, so encryption's pretty useless with this particular software. Edit: it actually doesn't appear to be logging keystrokes in the browser, but appears to intercept encrypted queries and then decrypts them... but that can't be right.

 

[JasonM]

What a surprise. Oh... no, not really. There're backdoors and trojans developed by LEOs all around the world to intercept your communications, "encrypted" or not. German LEOs were recently exposed for having developed and deployed a trojan for Skype which not only eavesdrops on communications, "encrypted" or not, but can also take screenshots of what's being displayed on the desktop and remotely take control of the PC. It was practically unsecured, so anyone aware of the trojan's existence could use it to do anything the German LEOs could.

For a class action lawsuit, it needs to be proven that this software not only collects and stores data, but indiscriminately transmits and retains it. So far, we really don't know all that much about this story. Android, RIM, and iOS all appear to be affected -- but, this was mostly the choice of the carriers. While Android's being talked about a lot, Google's own phones (Nexus & Xoom) do not have this software pre-installed. WP7 phones also appear to lack the CIQ software.

Still, this is 141 million US phones we're talking about, NOT a small number. And this is EVERY KEY STROKE AND WEBSITE YOU VISIT, EVEN IF YOU NO LONGER HAVE A CONTRACT AND ONLY USE IT FOR WIFI.

Not only that, but it's possible to remotely control the phone using the features of this software installed on the phone to do things like send text messages, maybe turn on audio recording and transmit the file to your location, etc. The carriers may not actually DO THIS, but they retain the capability, which of course is invaluable for law enforcement armed with Patriot Act powers.

And this isn't some third party running an illegal operation using a virus. This is a very big portion of the cell phone industry doing this, presumably "for our own good". It's not a stretch if they retained this mass of data and sold it wholesale to law enforcement clandestinely for surveillance purposes (or someone hacks into their servers and steals the data).

Remember the uproar about the Iphone and how it had software that recorded and transmitted every location that it (and you) have ever been using GPS? Well this incident is nothing compared to what we're seeing here.

 

[Kludge]

Still, this is 141 million US phones we're talking about, NOT a small number. And this is EVERY KEY STROKE AND WEBSITE YOU VISIT, EVEN IF YOU NO LONGER HAVE A CONTRACT AND ONLY USE IT FOR WIFI.

Not only that, but it's possible to remotely control the phone using the features of this software installed on the phone to do things like send text messages, maybe turn on audio recording and transmit the file to your location, etc. The carriers may not actually DO THIS, but they retain the capability, which of course is invaluable for law enforcement armed with Patriot Act powers.

And this isn't some third party running an illegal operation using a virus. This is a very big portion of the cell phone industry doing this, presumably "for our own good". It's not a stretch if they retained this mass of data and sold it wholesale to law enforcement clandestinely for surveillance purposes (or someone hacks into their servers and steals the data).

If it's only being used for "lawful interception," or people who've accessed the data without authorization, is there really any case?

 

[1836]

That is freaky. I watched the video of the guy with the HTC Sense logging the IQ software logging his information. I used to do a bit of programming... it is incredible that this is running so hidden in the background. The information it is catching, like securely encrypted web addresses, is truly frightening. All around, this is pretty damn scary.

 

[Ireland4Liberty]

Its a keylogger, not a packet sniffer.

 

[JasonM]

If it's only being used for "lawful interception," or people who've accessed the data without authorization, is there really any case?

Yes. Wiretapping laws explicitly forbid individuals or government agencies from monitoring someone and collecting their data without their express consent. WATCH THE YOUTUBE VIDEO.

You'll see that not only is this done without the user's knowledge, but it's hard to find, and next to impossible to remove without advanced methods. There is no "opt in", and unless you're willing to take the risk of voiding your warrenty and bricking your phone, there is no easy way to "opt out" or remove this software. If you secretly recorded someone without their knowledge to implicate them for some crime or blackmail, you could face a lot of legal problems if the feds found out. Same thing applies here, but in this case there is no way to disable the software without taking drastic measures even if they advertised it every time you turned on your phone. This software is illegal and the company needs to be taken down and the bosses and developers of this software must face a series of "life changing events" (legally) for this to make an example of them and the carriers must be punished severely enough that they are more careful with what types of monitoring they use. This should prompt a wider investigation into the general business practices of all cell phone carriers and similar "key logger" rootkits

 

[John F Kennedy III]

You probably give consent in your phone contract. Not that the government cares about consent...

 

[John F Kennedy III]

/////

 

[Kludge]

Verizon so far appears to be the only carrier permitting opt-out. Users can opt-out @ www.vzw.com/myprivacy -- this doesn't get the rootkit off your OS, so as far as removing the real threats, it's probably useless.

 

[John F Kennedy III]

///////

 

[JasonM]

Its a keylogger, not a packet sniffer.

Oh it's way more than that. It's a ROOTKIT. They can actually zoom in on your individual phone and make your phone do things without you doing anything. The permissions given to this is pretty much like "god mode". If an employee wanted to make a random phone send text messages to a random nigerian number, they have the capability.

 

[JasonM]

You probably give consent in your phone contract. Not that the government cares about consent...

The consent you gave does not include logging every single keystroke you make on your phone. That is way past the scope of what you agreed to. Don't post 3 times, although maybe it was a computer error that made you triple post.

 

[JasonM]

...

 

[Aratus]

!!!

 

[Xenophage]

You probably give consent in your phone contract. Not that the government cares about consent...

You also gave consent to have Apple kidnap you and use you in biological experiments to create a Human CentIPAD.

 

[JasonM]

Please watch. I edited the original post to include this as well as the original video starting this scandal. Please watch both.