Phone ‘rootkit’ maker Carrier IQ may have violated U.S. federal wiretap law in millions of cases

15 years ago

“A piece of keystroke-sniffing software called Carrier IQ has been embedded so deeply in millions of HTC and Samsung-built Android devices that it’s tough to spot and nearly impossible to remove, as 25-year old Connecticut systems administrator Trevor Eckhart revealed in a video Tuesday,” Andy Greenberg reports for Forbes.

“That’s not just creepy, says Paul Ohm, a former Justice Department prosecutor and law professor at the University of Colorado Law School. He thinks it’s also likely grounds for a class action lawsuit based on a federal wiretapping law,” Greenberg reports. “‘If CarrierIQ has gotten the handset manufactures to install secret software that records keystrokes intended for text messaging and the Internet and are sending some of that information back somewhere, this is very likely a federal wiretap.’ he says. ‘And that gives the people wiretapped the right to sue and provides for significant monetary damages.'”

“Carrier IQ captures every keystroke on a device as well as location and other data, and potentially makes that data available to Carrier IQ’s customers,” Greenberg reports. “Eckhart has found the application on Samsung, HTC, Nokia and RIM devices, and Carrier IQ claims on its website that it has installed the program on more than 140 million handsets.”

Greenberg reports, “Nokia and RIM have both denied installing the software on any of their handsets… Class action lawsuits have now been filed against Carrier IQ, HTC, and Samsung.”

Read more in the full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Harry B.” for the heads up.]