Your HTC Android Spies on You

Originally posted 30th November, 2011

Wow, this story is huge and both HTC and Carrier IQ deserve to get completely roasted for this IMO.

Basically they installed a rootkit which logs everything you do, every keypress (i.e. even passwords on secure sites or services — think your company’s VPN) and reports it all back to their servers.
I especially like Carrier IQ’s response to the guy who originally exposed them — legal threats and bully tactics, which were only withdrawn when the EFF got involved.

This on top of HTC’s other recent security and privacy failings mean I will never buy an HTC device, ever.

FWIW I just hooked in to my Samsung Galaxy s2 (which I got over eBay, from Taiwan) and can’t see anything similar going on.

References

Overview by Trevor Eckhart, the guy who found it
Forbes article discussing illegality and expected lawsuits