Carrier IQ comes clean on what's been tracked and what not

Carrier IQ obviously got tired of all the speculations around its software and released a detailed report on its software. The company, which recently found itself in the middle of a huge tracking scandal, announced what sort of data is collected by its app and why.

As it turns out, the Android log files that contain unencrypted personal information (the ones that started the fire) shouldn't normally exist. Their presence in some smartphone is caused to "debug messages from pre-production handset manufacturer software." That means that they only appear on smartphones that come with Carrier IQ preloaded and are caused by faulty software rather than Carrier IQ specifically collecting the data.

Still, the company has acknowledged the problem and is now working with manufacturers and carriers to iron things out. The aim is to disable the debugging messages altogether in the future, once a smartphone has been activated.

The other thing of large interest was the comments that Carrier IQ made on recorded SMS. According to the company there's a bug in their app that causes it to record messages under some "unique circumstances". Now the circumstances mentioned include receiving an SMS during a call or a data session, so we wouldn't call them unique, but it's good to know that the recorded messages are at least encrypted.

We also got a promise that this bug will be dealt with in a timely manner.

If this isn't enough to quench your thirst and if you still aren't tired of this saga you may find the PDF containing the full 19-page report by following the source link below.

Source | Via