Big Brother IS Watching You - Via Your Smartphone (UPDATED)

WARNING: If you're the paranoid type - take a pill or stop reading here - because this information will put you into a spin.

OK - disclaimer out of the way.

I'll start with the bottom line: If you're using a non-Nokia Android device on AT&T or Sprint (not Verizon), or you're using a Blackberry - your phone could be recording and sending absolutely everything you do on your phone from web searches, to SMS, to application use, to continuous real-time tracking and storing/sending the information back to your carrier.

That's because some handset makers (including Apple - more on that in a minute) and some carriers use a piece of software called Carrier IQ that sets at the deepest levels of the operating system (also known as a "rootkit"). This handy-dandy piece of spyware software intercepts every single keystroke, button push, search string, URL, SMS message, email and (potentially) every voice call - before the operating system even displays it to the user.

Don't believe it? To quote an article on Gizmodo:

This video, recorded by 25-year-old Android developer Trevor Eckhart, shows how it works. This is bad. Really bad.

Here's that video - scroll ahead to about the 9:00 mark for the real interesting stuff:

WTH? Ummmm.... "cool." Now, as one might expect, the carriers are insisting that they are only using this data for "diagnostics" - when applications crash, or calls are dropped, etc.

Yeah, sure.

Being in the software industry for as long as I have, I get the fact that it's helpful to get the machine state if something goes horribly wrong - in order to trap for it in future releases and help the application(s) to get better and more resilient over time.

And, although iPhones also have Carrier IQ on them - it has been discovered that Apple really does only use it for that purpose. And, unlike the Android systems - you can easily turn it off by going to Settings -> Location Services -> System Services and setting the "Diagnostics & Usage" to "OFF". By the way - the default setting for this is OFF! (more information)

Personally, I have no problems with companies wanting to improve the stability of their operating system and/or application (although I have my "Diagnostics & Usage" set to OFF on my iPhone).

The thing I have a problem with - is that you as the user are never notified that your phone is spying on you. And that you can't opt-out of this type of information being transmitted/used (on non-Apple devices). And that you can't even stop the service from running in the first place - even when you press the "Hard Stop" kill switch.

Since this video came to light only 4 days ago - it has caused an absolute firestorm of controversy - to the degree that both the US and German governments are getting involved to see what (if any) privacy laws have been broken.

Now, I'm not really big into conspiracy theories - but in my mind just having this software on 141 MILLION devices begs the question: what happens when some hacker figures out a way to exploit this program? What if they already have? What if this software has been exploited by law enforcement (the "hush, hush" kind) for surveillance or illegal wiretapping?

I'm just sayin'... if you're using a wireless device running Android either buy a Nokia device, switch to Verizon, or just buy an iPhone and be done with it.

UPDATE #1 (02-DEC-2011 9:29am): - Ummmmm... you know that whole "illegal wiretap" stuff that I put in there? Well, it turns out that WikiLeaks just released 287 files on surveillance products from 160 companies designed to get around those pesky privacy laws. Allowing "remote forensics" including keylogging, screenshot captures and much more. DOH!

Microblog: The Insidious Latitude

So the mighty behemoth released "Latitude" - a service that allows you to broadcast your current location to your friends (or the world). It works by using Wi-Fi access points, cell towers or GPS to figure out where you are.

Now, I know the "Big Brother is coming!" paranoid among you have probably already written, called and emailed your Congressperson about what an affront to personal privacy this is, and the other end-of-the-world-is-near folks probably have their panties in a bunch over the "potential" for abuse, stalking, etc.

My view is - it's pretty cool and I can see some uses for it. As with any changing technology - at first there is the FUD factor ("Those horse-less carriages will be the end of civilization I tell you!"), and then the marketplace will decide if it's something they like (iPod) or if it's something that sucks (Zune).

It's not as if this thing is turned on by default on all cell phones without the user's full knowledge and consent. In fact, it's almost annoyingly the other way around. As my friend Dan Tynan points on on his ComputerWorld Culture Clash blog:

You type your cell number into a field on the Google latitude page; it sends you a text message with a download link for the 1.35MB file. Install the app on your phone, click through a bunch of user agreements, and sign into your Google account (or create a new one). You can then choose which friends you want to add to Latitude; they get an email inviting them to do the same thing.

Boy - that sure sounds pretty insidious to me. Making you download it. Then install it. Then give you all those "I agree" buttons to click (along with an explanation of what's what). I mean, hey - YOU might actually have to choose to turn it on. Then choose to invite your friends. Then choose to activate it on the phone. Then choose to allow Google to know your position.

It's a conspiracy, I tell you!

If you don't like it, or you're afraid your privacy will be invaded, or you'll be "stalked" or that it will cause the utter downfall of the human race - don't sign up and install it. Period.

Microblog: You're Naked On The Web

OK, well, maybe not naked, per se - but there's sure a lot of stuff out there on almost all of us. This topic seems to be coming up more and more lately - and there was a great blog article by my friend Dan Tynan yesterday that pointed out a new social media site that will do all the hard work for you: Spokeo.

It seems that this little wonder site will take all the "hassles" and legwork out of cyber stalking - or just digging up dirt on you co-workers, employees or ex-girlfriends. From their homepage:

Want to see something juicy? Spokeo searches deep within 41 major social networks to find truly mouth-watering news about friends and coworkers.

Ummmm.... yeah. Welcome to the new way of interacting - and having people know more about you than you probably would have guessed. Part of that is the fault of social media - and part of that is our own damn fault. Hot tip: if you don't want people to know personal stuff about you - it's probably too late. Even if you dump all your profiles on all the social media - there are saved caches of that stuff - and it will probably NEVER go away.

But at least I don't live in New Hampshire! Robert L. Mitchell when doing research for an article in ComputerWorld - found out that his personal information (including full social security number, address, kid's names, etc) were easily found on the Internet - for FREE. It seems that the folks in the good state of New Hampshire, in an effort to make government more transparent - scanned all kinds of tax liens, divorces, and all other matter of "public" data and just made it live.

Nice. If you don't want people to know personal stuff about you... ummm... then just disconnect your phones, your email, your social media - in fact - just turn off the wireless card and unplug that Ethernet cable. Yeah, probably that won't even help at this point.

Public Profile = PUBLIC

In going through all the interesting (and questionable) new business ideas coming out of TechCrunch over the weekend - I stumbled on one of them - iSearch - that, like other sites, will comb the web and allow stalkers of all sorts find out all the information they need about just about anyone.

It's really nothing new - there have been information "aggregators" around for years. They would troll the public sites of local government databases, and sometimes just perform Google (or Yahoo back in the day) searches to put together a "profile" of the person you're trying to stalk locate.

The interesting thing about iSearch is that it allows you to search by not just name and city or state - but also by phone number, or screen name. The site itself isn't "all that" - and it seems that there it's linked in large part to Intelus who appears to be the big aggregator of the information.

On thing I found quite fun - was the fact that it showed basically my LinkedIn profile, including a lot of the people I was connected to - and with a single click - you could get more information on them as well. I think this is just the start. If you leave a big enough digital, public profile - it's just a matter of time (and web services) until anyone will be able to get a full profile of you, your tastes, your music preferences, who your friends are (and their profiles, music tastes, etc).

It's also interesting that according to eWEEK, about 22% of hiring managers look to a person's online profile during the hiring process. When you have basically free access to "people" search engines that will aggregate a bunch of information together on a single person - this will definitely be a trend that is only going to get worse, not better.

The bottom line is that if you have a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pownce, Tumblr, Rejaw life - expect it to be aggregated, analyzed and dissected by anyone at any time. For the paranoid of the group - you may want to have a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pownce Tumblr, Rejaw "alter ego" where you can "be yourself" and keep your "actual" public profiles clean and fresh as the morning rain.

In the "old days" (even today) - I can pay a little extra extortion fee to the phone company to keep my phone number unlisted. I wonder what we'll have to do to get "unlisted" from sites like iSearch...