How To Check Your (Rooted) Android Phone for Carrier IQ

Posted 12/06/2011 at 4:07pm | by Adriana Lee, TechnoBuffalo

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Discovering that user-activity logging program Carrier IQ might be loaded on your phone is like finding out there’s a peeping tom in your neighborhood: You want to find out if your house was on the scumbag’s route or not. Well, if you have a rooted Android phone, you can do just that, thanks to a utility by Trevor Eckhart, the dev responsible for uncovering this scandal.

Eckhart posted an .APK that allows these Android users to test their devices for programs like CIQ, and it’s available as a free and paid ($1) version. (The latter allows you to not only find the offending software, but also remove it.) His post over at XDA-Developers.com says: “It can be used to verify what logging is being done on your phone and where data is going to. It will assist you in manually removing parts you do not running (see post#1), or you can go pro for automatic everything (and support me).”

Both The Verge and RedmondPie tested this on Samsung Galaxy SII devices, and in their cases, the tests came up negative. The Verge notes, however, that users in the related forums did experience a few issues, so you’ll want to exercise caution if you give this a shot. For more info, or to download the free version, click here to go to the post at XDA-Developers.com. (Bear in mind, to get the pro version, users will have to install the free version first and then pay a buck over at the Android Market to get a pro key.)

Again, this is for rooted Androids only. Oh, and before you install, you’ll also want to enable “Unknown sources” in Settings > Applications.

Are you going to give it a shot? If you do, be sure to report on your findings below.

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