If you are like us, every day you pick up a smartphone and you send email, visit with friends on Facebook, send a text message or even log into your bank’s website and pay a bill. These modern day conveniences have become routine.
We all believe that our passwords are secure, our data is protected, and life is easier if we don’t have to write a check to pay a bill or dig around and find a stamp to send a friend a quick note.
But this morning we are no longer sure. The tech world is in a fury, which we believe will soon break out into society at large, about a little know software program call Carrier IQ. Over the Thanksgiving weekend a 25 year old programmer by the name of Trevor Eckhart posted a video on YouTube which graphically displays how our naïve beliefs of privacy are just plain wrong.
The video which lasts 17 minutes and starts slowly because he methodically goes through the privacy statements on his cell phone is frightening. If you watch it, you will never look at your smartphone the same again. We have posted the video here if you want to watch.
The program, Carrier IQ cannot be turned off. But it tracks your every move. Dial a friend’s phone, it sends the number off to someone. Send or receive a text message and the message is recorded and sent off. Call up your bank or another website in the allegedly secure https: mode which we have been told is secure and Carrier IQ is there recording your username, password and any other move you make on your phone.
Rather than calling them smartphones we should be calling them people monitors. The only action you take which it cannot record is a thought in your head that you refuse to express. These phones are even capable of recording what you say. Scary is not the word for it.
Trevor Eckhart even takes pains to turn of the GPS function for use by Google maps and search and then he demonstrates how Carrier IQ still is logging your position.
Now what can you do about it? The program can only be removed if you hack or as they say “root” your phone. But beware rooting your phone likely violates the contract you have signed with your carrier, and it clearly voids any manufactures warranty you may have on the device.
Since the video was first posted others have gone to work and exposed how in addition to Android phones the Carrier IQ software is also present on I Phones with iOS 3 operating system and above.
The privacy issues surrounding smartphones have been numerous, but the exposure of Carrier IQ brings the threat to an entirely new level. Chances are if you have a smartphone you have no privacy around or while using the device. Be careful.
Makes you understand why criminals all use burner phones.
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About Floyd Brown
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AFRAID USA IS GONE DOWN – WITH STUPID CONGRESS – DO NOTHING FOR CITIZENS
JUST DAILY MAKES LIFE WORST – BLINDLY FOLLOWS O & LEFTIST.
USELESS GROUP! PAID BY TAXPAYERS – WHO HAVE NO VOTE.
Looks like 1984 has arrived about 27 years later than the author of that book expected. Why can't people just use a cellphone to make telephone calls? Personally I don't use any of the other junk and don't want and won't have a smartphone!
I am afraid that you are sadly mistaken if you think that the problem with congress is that they don't do anything for citizens. They have increased welfare spending, passed numerous rules to protect us from dirty air and water, increased the minimum wage, passed public healthcare, mandated safer cars, mandated increased gas mileage, mandated car seats for babies, and a number of other mindless rules and regulations that have resulted in the economy grinding to a halt. We would be better off if congress would adjourn and go home. When congress is not in session the country is safer.
Anyone who supported the Patriot Act or Guantanamo or extraordinary renditions shouldn't be surprised, or even disappointed. You got the step toward a police state you wanted.
James, afraid you're right…We have now "officially" gone down the tube, and our freedoms are lost…NO, we can't get them back!! Don't matter who we vote in…The Senate has just given us over to a total police state, the two next moves are to make Gov God, and since you cannot enslave an armed nation, our guns MUST and WILL be taken away from us…we will be an enslaved people!! The "die" is now cast!!
James, Go back and separate your analyses.
The patriot act was an attempt to secure this country from attackers. Unfortunately this good idea was taken well beyond reasonable and became the unconstitutional data collection item that is now is.
Guantanamo was a detention location for prisoners collected from battlefields who had been apprehended while attacking U. S. forces.
Please find a better word than renditions for this part of your objection. Using definitions from my dictionary, it makes no sense. If you are trying to say that using simulated drowning with a doctor or other emergency personnel present is unacceptable torture, I disagree. I believe that hen you are dealing with someone who has demonstrated the desire to behead those who disagree with him, there is not torture involved if he is not physically maimed.
The Patriot Act was never a "good idea"–it was an overreaction by a cowardly Congress that didn't want to look weak. And they gave Bush/Cheney–and now Obama–exactly the sort of extra power that they most wanted.
"Guantanamo was a detention location for prisoners collected from battlefields who had been apprehended while attacking U. S. forces."
Prisoners as defined by whom? In fact, a number of the detainees were children, and we put them there in "no man's land" so we wouldn't have to adhere to either U.S. or international law. Of the almost 800 detainees, most have been released without charge or transferred to facilities in their home countries–suggesting that there was no reason for them to be there in the first place.
As for waterboarding being torture, on this I agree with John McCain and most of the rest of the world. We tried Japanese as war criminals for engaging in exactly that practice, and there is no credible evidence that it works. I'm interesting in intelligence gathering that saves life, not that "gets even" with savage enemies by acting as they might.
This is what I'm referring to by rendition: http://www.aclu.org/national-security/fact-sheet-…
It's so funny, we won't even admit we're at war with radical Islam (that's the Islam that actually believes what the Koran says). Yet if we look back in recent history (WWII) the Russians beat the crap out of captured German soldiers (for info) then took them out and shot them – I myself know a Marine who served on a PT boat – he said they did the same thing – they would interrogate captured Japanese soldiers, then take them to the back of the boat, put a bullet in their head and kick them overboard. That's what you do when you're engaged in all out warfare. And we're making a fuss over water boarding people who want to kill our citizens? That just goes to show you how much the elites in Washington really care about the people they represent!
One of the reasons I use my phone for what it is supposed to be used..to talk on it to another person. I hardly ever text…never while driving…and just TALK on it…I don't use the internet at all on my phone. Besides ..it is too expensive!
Such an idea!! TALKING ON A PHONE!
Are you aware there is an app out there that can find you if you daughter if take a pic of your little girl. The person on the other end can find out if she is in her own room. Perverts get this app. You must learn how to turn off the GPS in your camera on your phone. Kim Kommando can tell you. That is where I heard about it. She said,(paraphrased) " Do not post your children's pics online!" The perverts can find your kids…Get it?
And now that the new Military law came out yesterday…citizens of the USA can be arrested and taken away never to be seen again…and they took away the military law….now…military can commit sodomy and have sex with animals. Don't believe me…go to CNSNews.com and find it for yourself. Senator Graham..whom I will love to see removed from office made the USA a battleground. No rights for citizens of the USA. Remember those FEMA camps….guess there WAS a reason for them. Why in heaven's name would a Republican Senator push for such a law when Obama is in power? Could he have been bought..or is he just a damn fool? Be ready to be labeled a domestic terrorist for speaking your mind! It IS coming…soon! Then you will be taken away and interrogated..maybe water boarded just for standing up for your rights. Oh Yeah..What rights? Our Constitution was raped and killed last night.
Here's the deal…. 'They' will always the make attempt to nose into the peoples business. However, we being the Americans we are… will always find ways to circumvent their BS.
This is a 'no question' violation of the wiretap laws. Lets see some indictments.
-your 'smart' phones are the least of our problems. Look up Agenda 21, from the UN. bo just signed another one of his pres. edicts and has established his agenda 'cabinet.
-they will place nature and animals …and themselves (if you are loaded w/ money)….above humans. You think the Holocast was bad? Wait. It is only going to get worse from here on.
-most of USA, currently over run by radicals of all kinds, will have most of our land as a natural refuge and we will be "stacked and packed" in less than 50 cities
-this is what we have been trying to tell everyone but, we are called crazy and by bo…tyrants and radica, raceist groups. Not enough of you would believe us. "Oh, that will never happen here"……..we are smack dab in the middle of it gang!
- there is one way out-lots and lots of prayer. hugs…….jo
If any of you don't know about the UN's Agenda 21 (that is being implemented by the usurper without ever having been brought before Congress, discussed, debated or ratified), here it is:
http://www.un.org/esa/sustdev/documents/agenda21/…
Just turn off the GPS on your phone for goodness sake. Stop being so blasted paranoid! Take your Xanax!