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AT&T Businesses Cellphones Privacy

Carrier iQ Goes Under, AT&T Buys Assets and Staff (techcrunch.com) 26

Posted by Soulskill from the reminding-you-whom-to-be-wary-of dept.
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."
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Carrier iQ Goes Under, AT&T Buys Assets and Staff More

Carrier iQ Goes Under, AT&T Buys Assets and Staff

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  • ...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?

    • Or sloppy writing trying to pass as journalism?

      Yes, I'm being snarky.

      • Sloppy writing and poor journalism on Slashdot? Do you expect anything less?

        • 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.

    • It's probably a bunch of bullshit and CarrierIQ was an AT&T offshoot the entire time.

    • 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)

    by Anonymous Coward

    ...I needed yet another reason to stay away from AT&T.

  • I'll stick to my nice dumb flip-phone that wasn't ever in the posession of AT&T in the first place, that they know nothing about, thank you very much. Truth be told I hate AT&T anyway, but it's just too much of a pain in the ass to switch carriers, and anyway they're all at least as bad.

  • 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.

  • 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)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Are they trying to catch up to Verizon, and the much swept-under-the-rug Super Cookie?

  • does this lurk inside ATT's Mark This Spot?

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