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A security researcher has posted a video detailing hidden software installed on smart phones that logs numerous details about users' activities.

In a 17-minute video posted Monday on YouTube, Trevor Eckhart shows how the software – known as Carrier IQ – logs every text message, Google search and phone number typed on a wide variety of smart phones - including HTC, Blackberry, Nokia* and others - and reports them to the mobile phone carrier.

The application, which is labeled on Eckhart’s HTC smartphone as "HTC IQ Agent," also logs the URL of websites searched on the phone, even if the user intends to encrypt that data using a URL that begins with "HTTPS," Eckhart said.

The software always runs when Android operating system is running and users are unable to stop it, Eckhart said in the video.

"Why is this not opt-in and why is it so hard to fully remove?" Eckhart wrote at the end of the video.

In a post about Carrier IQ on his website, Eckhart called the software a "rootkit," a security term for software that runs in the background without a user's knowledge and is commonly used in malicious software.

Eckhart's video is the latest in a series of attacks between him and the company. Earlier this month, Carrier IQ sent a cease and desist letter to Eckhart claiming he violated copyright law by publishing Carrier IQ training manuals online. But after the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a digital rights group, came to Eckhart’s defense, the company backed off its legal threats.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation said the software that Eckhart has publicized "raises substantial privacy concerns" about software that "many consumers don’t know about."

Carrier IQ could not immediately be reached for comment. But the company told Wired.com that its software is used for “gathering information off the handset to understand the mobile-user experience, where phone calls are dropped, where signal quality is poor, why applications crash and battery life.”

On its website, Carrier IQ, founded in 2005, describes itself as "the world's leading provider of Mobile Service Intelligence solutions."

Apple has included Carrier IQ on the iPhone, but the software's default is disabled.

Link here hup hup

watch video peeps, watch the video

[youtube]T17XQI_AYNo[/youtube]

Why do you care, got something to hide?

That sound familiar Ste?

I couldn't give a toss my friend, this is for the likes of the HTC, android, windows users which may I add are all crap.

nowt on my phone worth snooping for.

I care, not because I have anything to hide, I care because it's my phone, that I bought. I pay good money every month for a service that isn't subsidised by any network etc. it's MY data they sell it to the likes of Samsung, apple and so on. IF they sell MY data I want a cut! That's how business usually works, plus they should make the information anonymous and it should be in the public domain for app developers (me) etc.

There was something on the register today about this working on apple I phones as well, some of the snooping on apple and blackberry seemed to be much worse. Androids is not crap, ios wouldn't have half the features it now has if it didn't copy android, eg folders, multitasking, cloud, pull down task bar, wireless tethering etc. android is constantly setting the bar with innovation at the moment, only downside I guess is that you are trading security for freedom.

Don't get me wrong, I really like ios, but I much prefer google integration within the cloud

ps, this is in on all Iphones and blackberry and mainly american Androids, it is not on my Android powered Samsung GS2.

It was originally found on an Android but further investigation has exposed it on all Mobile OS's

I got this email of one of the sites I go on.

Its automatically set to `don`t send` by default on the iphone because apple care for their customers & respect their rights to privacy















Unlike HTC etc etc