If you don't have seventeen minutes to follow his demonstration, I'll tell you what you would see. First he demonstrates that the application is nowhere listed among the legitimate applications on his Android. Then he demonstrates that in spite of its invisibility the program is running at all times. Then he accesses the button that ought to turn the application off, and presses it. Nothing happens. It continues to run.
Then he shows you on his computer screen, which his Android is plugged into, every machine instruction that the Carrier IQ program executes. Nearly every keystroke is coded for transmission to the shadowy central location. All your text messages, whether they are actually delivered or not. All of your secret billet-doux to your lover. Every Google search you execute. Every website you visit. Every userid, every password you enter, even on https sites, before encryption takes place. Want to do online banking now?
And not just your Android. Your Blackberry, your IPhone, all of them have this application embedded un-removeably for the purpose of collecting data. Who is behind this? Rupert Murdoch? Homeland Security? An evil ring of identity thieves?
This is not a spy novel, folks. It is not science-fiction. Senator Al Franken plans to look into it. So should everyone else.
Kate Gallison
