Carrier IQ is a software that runs on more than 140 million mobile phones (according to information on the Carrier IQ website). It is a monitoring software that can track user activities and data, including their personal information, locations, network communications, phone calls, messages and a lot more.

A few aspects make the software especially suspicious from a consumer perspective. Carrier IQ is not listed as a running application on the phone. The software furthermore cannot be stopped or deactivated on standard phones.

The Carrier IQ company stated that the Carrier IQ software “delivers Mobile Intelligence on the performance of mobile devices and networks to assist operators and device manufacturers in delivering high quality products and services to their customers”.

How can you find out if Carrier IQ is running on your phone?

It’s almost impossible for users to find off switches, user interfaces, policies, or references to IQRD anywhere on the phone. Using standard functionality, the only place you can see that the application is installed on the phone is in Menu -> Settings -> Manage Applications -> All, then scroll down to IQRD. This application has a non-descript icon and offers no information about itself. Even on old devices, IQRD runs continuously because it’s set to start automatically at boot. The only option you have to stop the application is to select “force stop”—which does nothing. The application continues to run.

The only option to remove Carrier IQ is to root the phone:

The only choice we have to “opt out” of this data collection is to root our devices because every part of the multi-headed CIQ application is embedded into low-level, locked regions of the phones. Even if you unlock your device and remove the base application with a sophisticated removal method, neutered, leftover code called from other applications will likely throw an error each time an old action is triggered.

It’s almost impossible to fully remove Carrier IQ. The browser is modified to send to Carrier IQ daemon, as is almost everything else. The application is so deeply embedded in our devices that a user must rebuild the whole device (system.img and boot.img) directly from source code to remove every part of CIQ.

Eckhart only looked at Android devices, but it is likely that other phone manufacturers are also making use of Carrier IQ.

I suggest you take a look at the YouTube video that is a live demonstration of the Carrier IQ software by the security researcher himself.

I suggest you read the two detailed articles (What is Carrier IQ? and CarrierIQ Part 2 for a deeper understanding of the situation.

My opinion? I’d stop using a phone immediately if it would run the software and would not give me an option to opt-out of it. What’s your take?

Update: Carrier IQ has also be confirmed running on Apple’s iOS. Read the blog post here for detailed information.

I usually do that on a small notebook that I carry around with me all the time and transfer the writings every now and then to the PC.

Wunderlist is a versatile application that aids users in their task management. It actually offers more than just task management but more about that later. Users need to create an account on the first run of the software before they can use it. This is done by submitting an email address and password to company servers.

The main interface is displayed afterwards which lists tasks on the left side and folders on the right. Folders are used to group tasks for easier access and management.

Tasks are added with a click of the mouse or with one of the available hotkeys (Ctrl-T or Ctrl-N). Tasks are marked as complete with a click on the square at the front and marked as important with a click on the star.

It is also possible to add notes to tasks to add more information and to delete tasks.

Folders are added as easily and it is possible to move tasks around using drag and drop.

The search at the top finds matching tasks in all folders and displays them together in the main interface.

The footer bar offers several filtering options, for instance to display only completed tasks or those that have been marked as important, or filter tasks by time.

Tasks are automatically synced with the user’s account which makes it possible to log into the software from another computer to access the same data.

Lists can be printed or send by email to friends. It is further possible to share tasks and notes with other users of the service.

Wunderlist is not only available for Windows but also for Mac and iPhone. An Android version is in the works as well. Wunderlist is a handy, very responsive task management software that’s ideal for users who work on different computer systems and devices regularly.

Flutter, a free application for the iPhone, adds MMS functionality to the iPhone. The application is available at the Apple iPhone store from where it can be downloaded and installed.

There are a few fundamental differences between the usual MMS service that cell phone providers offer and Flutter. On the positive side Flutter users can use the geotagging features of the iPhone and include those information in their message. That can be nice for sending holiday pictures where the recipient can look the location up on a map to know where the sender is currently located.

Unlike usual MMS services though the picture is not transferred directly. The recipient receives a link to the picture and the location on his iPhone which he has to open to view the information. That’s not a huge problem but an option to display the picture instantly would have been nice.

Still, Flutter offers a free service. Everyone with an iPhone can use it to send as many picture messages as he wants to his contacts. That alone and the fact that there are no alternatives makes it an interesting application for the iPhone.

The navigation of the website is a little bit awkward, it contains only a list of categories that lead to the applications. You can choose between the top 10 applications and various categories such as multimedia, email & chat and social networking.

All of them list at least several applications some of which are trial versions while others are free ones. I personally think that the advantage of the site is that it is one of the first sites that lists applications for the iPhone. What I do not like is the layout and navigation and that there is no distinction between free and commercial applications.