Carrier iQ Goes Under, AT&T Buys Assets and Staff (techcrunch.com) 26
An anonymous reader writes: You may recall a company called CarrierIQ from when it angered tech-savvy internet users four years ago. They developed software that allowed explicit monitoring of anything happening on a cell phone, down to individual keystrokes. It was pre-installed on millions of phones at the time, and Carrier iQ unsuccessfully tried to silence the researchers working to uncover it. As the article notes, the company and its software "became synonymous with creepy, unseen monitoring of everything that you do on a smartphone on behalf of carriers and phone makers." Well, it seems they never really recovered. Carrier iQ seems to have evaporated. The bad news is that they sold most of their assets to AT&T, and handed off some employees as well. AT&T says they've continued to use Carrier iQ's software over the past few years to "improve the customer's network and wireless service experience."
Re: (Score:2)
see what? that it's carrying on? that low-level code in your phone is secretly recording virtually everything you do on that phone and uploading it to a server somewhere, with no restrictions on what that data can be used for?
AT&T buys staff? (Score:1)
...Buys Assets and Staff...
How does that work exactly?
Either they bought the company, in which case the employees – who are not slaves – may elect to stay on.
Or they extended job offers...
Or is this just sloppy journalism?
Re: (Score:1)
Yes, I'm being snarky.
Re: (Score:2)
Sloppy writing and poor journalism on Slashdot? Do you expect anything less?
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, I do expect less. If sloppy writing and poor journalism are the only problems with a story on Slashdot, it's pretty much a win.
Re: (Score:2)
It's probably a bunch of bullshit and CarrierIQ was an AT&T offshoot the entire time.
Re: (Score:2)
Birds of a feather flock together!
AT&T the company... (Score:1)
Anyone who would ever consider conducting business with the company has a serious problem. It would be like happily conducting business with the company that made Zyklon B.
Re: AT&T the company... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
sloppy way of saying that one of the assets they purchased was the contracts and employment agreements of the existing company.
in effect they didn't just fire everybody or strip the company of the hard assets leaving the staff with the old company (now gutted).
As if... (Score:1)
...I needed yet another reason to stay away from AT&T.
Yet another reason to not have a smartphone (Score:1)
Secure? (Score:2)
I wonder if anyone is foolish enough to consider their cellphone secure? I assume the bastard is hacked and reporting everything I do and where I am and who I'm talking to at all times. If I ever considered doing anything illegal I'd certainly leave the damn thing at home.
To comply with government mandated backdoors (Score:2)
Undoubtedly this is for government monitoring. When the government requests it they can no doubt secretly command your phone to download this app.
Seems reasonable (Score:1)
Are they trying to catch up to Verizon, and the much swept-under-the-rug Super Cookie?
app store app? (Score:1)
does this lurk inside ATT's Mark This Spot?