Kevin Fitchard reporting for GigaOM:
>“Any report that Verizon Wireless uses Carrier IQ is patently false,” Verizon Wireless spokesperson Jeffrey Nelson said in an email.
Verizon could come out looking pretty good over this Carrier IQ hubbub if:
– They actually don’t use it.
– AT&T does use it.
When you customers generally don’t trust you (I’d say most people don’t trust wireless carriers in the U.S.) it is always good to be the lesser of the evils.
Andy Greenberg:
>Ohm [Paul Ohm, a former Justice Department prosecutor and law professor at the University of Colorado Law School] argues that even when the phone is connected to the cellular network, only carriers are protected by contracts they make with users, not an intermediate software company of which most users are unaware. And carriers themselves typically don’t spell out in their contracts the kind of surveillance that Eckhart has shown Carrier IQ to be performing.
The potential for a lawsuit is very high and should be pushed. I say it should be pushed because a lawsuit may very will be the only way the public finds out exactly what is being monitored.
Grant “chpwn” Paul on how to disable Carrier IQ on iOS:
>However, it does appears to be disabled along with diagnostics enabled on iOS 5; older versions may send back information in more cases. Because of that, if you want to disable Carrier IQ on your iOS 5 device, turning off “Diagnostics and Usage” in Settings appears to be enough.
This is going to get a lot more interesting.