As NSA Spreads Disinformation Wooing Hoi Polloi To Shun Innovation, Dead Beat Carriers Represent Biggest Security Threat -- By Reggie Middleton, Posted at Zero Hedge

 carrierIQ homepageAbout a month and a half ago, I penned the piece NSA's Greatest Weapon In Surveillance? Outright Ignorance In Tech Consumers. The goal was to attempt to wake up the less than conscious in regards to where and with whom the true threats to privacy and security stem from. Those harping on innovative designs such as Glass as security threats are failing to see the forest due to the massive amount of tree bark in the way. This piece is another attempt at education from my perspective. 

I have been hard on the large US carriers, and for good reason. Barring the smallest (and not by coincidence, the most innovative) of the 4, these guys exemplify the monopolistic behavior that has caused America to fall behind the world on many levels. Basically, from an innovation and financial performance perspective, they're basically deadbeats! Hence, 

• Deadbeat Carriers Compete, aka #MarginCompression!!!
• The Death Of The Deadbeat Carriers, Part 2

One other reason many should be down on the deadbeat carriers is also a very fundamental given, that really shouldn't be given - Privacy! Nearly all of the major carriers use the device that they sold you to snoop on you. US cellular carriers use an app that is basically one of the most widely dispersed spyware apps in this country. It can systematically syphon out location data, keystrokes and other aspects of e-mail and SMS conversations. Don't belive me, this is a quote directly from the vendor of the spyware itself:

Network Operators and device manufacturers determine whether and how they deploy the iQ Agent and what metrics will be gathered and forwarded to the Network Operators.  The iQ Agent receives instructions in the form of a profile, which activates the iQ Agent and defines what available metrics are to be collected and provides instructions on how to pre-process the data prior to uploading. The Embedded iQ Agent is not visible or discoverable by consumers.  Since it is deeply embedded inside the device software, it cannot be deleted by consumers.

In non-nerd, anti-dork English, this says carriers decide what the spyware app and Trojan Horse rips from your device and sends back to the carrier. This spyware/Trojan Horse is purposely hidden and concealed from the owner of the device. As per Wikipedia:

• Spyware is software that aids in gathering information about a person or organization without their knowledge and that may send such information to another entity without the consumer's consent, or that asserts control over a computer without the consumer's knowledge.
• A Trojan horse, or Trojan, is a hacking program that is a non-self-replicating type of malware which gains privileged access to the operating system while appearing to perform a desirable function but instead drops a malicious payload, often including a backdoor allowing unauthorized access to the target's computer.^[1] These backdoors tend to be invisible to average users, but may cause the computer to run slowly.  
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