Wizard Exposes Carrier IQ

Carrier IQ as a platform is designed to collect "metrics" at any scale. What I found it to hook into is far beyond the scope of anything a carrier needs - or should want - to be collecting.

Carrier IQ sits in the middle of, and "checks" the data of, SMS and MMS messages. It listens for and receives every battery change notifications. It hooks into every web page you view, and every XML file your device reads. It receives every press of the touch screen.

It 'sees' what you type on the physical keyboard. It reads every number you press in the dialer. It can track which applications you use, what 'type' they are, how often, and for how long. It hooks into data sent and received.

I'm not calling Norelli nix anymore I can tell you that ;)

Reply to
Steve Topletz, Wizard
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Wow, scary stuff. Not buying phones from them until resolved.

Reply to
Ian Anderson

From what i gather, it sounds like it is capable of sniffing, logging, and remotely forwarding all your logins and passwords. Thank you Sprint, thank you Samsung for this rather effective phone keylogger.

Thanks to my pure blood Mom and Dad for giving me wizard blood! ;)

Reply to
Steve Topletz, Wizard

Carrier IQ was something I've heard about only in passing, until a few days ago. Recently, k0nane (Bless your heart, you shiny golden god) was able to dig down into the bowels of the OS and remove Carrier IQ from the mix, publishing the changes in the rom, SyndicateROM Frozen.

The result is astounding.

Lag has been almost entirely obliterated (remaining lag on my device may be due to launcher or other third-party software inefficiencies. Battery life is RIDICULOUSLY improved. And to top it all off, Sprint can't spy on my activities by collecting logs from my phone. Brilliant.

What we need is more wizard...morons. Fuck off, slick git.

Reply to
Gordon Darling

Also - didn't k0nane say that it looked like most of the functionality of CIQ was turned off?

Reply to
Cawshus

Yes. Things are never as good or as bad as initially reported.

Look, I wasn't born yesterday. I'm not surprised by this. I am, however, severely pissed off now that I know the extent of their deception, their power-mongering behavior, and their absolute disregard for customer experience. It's bad enough that I can't go into a sprint store with a problem without getting attitude for improperly trained, moody, and ignorant employees, but now I have to use a device that is riddled with more problems than a submarine made out of wire mesh screens and gorilla tape, simply so sprint can gather our personal info at their whim.

I wrote this post mainly because I'm pissed. But more so because I want you to be pissed. I want us all to be pissed together, and get loud about it, and bombard Sprint online with questions and statements of outrage until they recognize their own stupidity and respond.

Reply to
Gordon Darling

I'm not really thrilled by CarrierIQ either, but I think your rant might be a little overblown and I also don't think most of the improvements you are seeing are due to carrierIQ being removed.

All the other changes, (Overclock/undervolt, EXT4 conversion) have a much bigger effect on both battery life and performance. I say this because for the last week I've been on STOCK rom with Genocide kernel on it, (which is OC/UV). I also saw a noticeable improvement in battery life. (At the end of the day I'm usually at about 40%)

Going from that to Syndicate I really didn't see any improved battery life, and although I got better benchmark scores the phone didn't perform any better in actual use. I'm back on the stock rom/genocide kernel now because I need a stable phone.

Reply to
Linton Yarbrough

As far as being paranoid about what CarrierIQ does, well, I've looked and have yet to find anything but guesses and opinions. If you look at their website

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it appears to be a tool that gives Sprint information about lots if things including call quality and tower performance. The descriptions are all written in "business doublespeak", so it's a little hard to grok but most of the items seems to be things that might actually help Sprint improve their service and be a benefit to their customers. Show me some evidence that they are "spying on us" with this app.

Overall, this is nothing compared to the kind of data we give Google every day because we signed on to the Android bandwagon. They know every location we go to, every URL we visit, every app we install, every phone number we call.

Reply to
RMCG

I'm not that worried about it, really, because my passwords, gps, texts, mms, voice mail, etc. are already stored on Sprint's servers and they can look at it any time they want.

Google knows every application I've installed on my phone and Sprint probably does, too.

So, even though I couldn't care less about someone watching an old man go about his business, I still would like to know exactly what data they are mining.

Reply to
Ace*

I'm not a developer...NOOB here with this TECH...

BUT Carrier IQ is HIDDEN very deep...and hard to remove... THANKS

-- Gays make sick attempt at Harry Potter

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YOU want to be next...? Fuck with 'FOX then...
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with an internet connection, 5 grand, an iq above room temperature and basic literacy can grow outstanding cannabis.

Reply to
DasFox

BY FAR the most hilarious way I've been referenced...LOLZ...

THANKS

-- Gays make sick attempt at Harry Potter

formatting link
YOU want to be next...? Fuck with 'FOX then...
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with an internet connection, 5 grand, an iq above room temperature and basic literacy can grow outstanding cannabis.

Reply to
DasFox

Sprint can dig up DATA AFTER ROM wipe...

Sprint has been including Carrier IQ in Android ROMs....Carrier IQ HIGHLY invasive...SPYWARE...!!!!!

TRACKS signal data, application usage, and much else...

Its services and libraries are tied DEEP into the system...,

to the point that killing just the client (not the server) will DESTROY THE BATTTERY METER....

I ROOTED OUT Carrier IQ BUT NOT completely removed... THANKS

-- Gays make sick attempt at Harry Potter

formatting link
YOU want to be next...? Fuck with 'FOX then...
formatting link
with an internet connection, 5 grand, an iq above room temperature and basic literacy can grow outstanding cannabis.

Reply to
DasFox

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