This week, Carrier IQ concluded an internal investigation and released a report on its findings. The company’s analysis confirmed that its software does not, by itself, record users’ keystrokes. Instead, the report affirmed the Carrier IQ’s prior suspicions that the recording is being triggered on the handset manufacturers’ end.
Carrier IQ’s investigation was a response to developer Trevor Eckhart’s 17-minute YouTube video, which showed how the software secretly runs on his HTC EVO 3D Android phone and logs every key press, every text, and the full URL of every website he visits. It recorded that data even from websites that use security encryption designed to prevent that kind of tracking.
Carrier IQ’s report said that what the Eckhart video displays is actually the result of separate tools put in place by the handset manufacturer. The data recording was being done in what’s known as a debug log is intended to help software developers understand what happened if something goes wrong with an application. It stashes information in the phone’s memory and remains stored until the device is powered down.
Though Carrier IQ is installed on more than 150 million phones worldwide, the debug logging problem appears to only exist on HTC and Samsung smartphones. HTC did not respond to multiple requests for comment. A Samsung spokesman confirmed to CNNMoney that Samsung was storing data in its phones’ logs, but declined to say why the manufacturer had turned on that functionality.
Still, Carrier IQ isn’t completely off the hook. The company discovered that it had been accidentally sending users’ text messages to carriers. Its sudden thrust into the national spotlight illustrates that even those who build, sell and service our phones may not know everything that’s hiding inside Pandora’s box.
Source: CNN.com
Image: Gizmodo
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