Help Is our phone spying on us?

[ssnacks]

I was looking at the running tasks on my phone an noticed "com.carrieriq.iqagent" running. It appears that this is a piece of software that sends information from the phone back to the carrier or manufacturer after doing research on the company.

I don't recall agreeing anywhere to allow the phone to send random data. Has anyone else noticed this?

 

[wodin]

Short answer: Yes!

Long answer: The cloud is EVIL!

 

[Adrift]

It's the government!! break out the aluminum foil hats!

 

[rockcrawler]

it's the government!! Break out the aluminum foil hats!

roflmao !

 

[pastafarian]

It's the government!! break out the aluminum foil hats!

But the government does everything poorly, so you only need the hat if you plan on reheating your lunch.

 

[latinmaxima]

So if you turn on GPS settings is says it collects data whether you are using GPS service or not. That is what is still running probably. They want to track where the phone travels through probably to ensure they have coverage and where their phone users travel to to compare to users in a market area. I use to work for Nielsen and this is similar to something they were beginning testing on when I was still there. It allowed market research to all sorts of information. Cool stuff honestly. I am sure companies pay alot of money for the info since phones with GPS can be tracked easily instead of sending a GPS unit out to someone to carry so they can track specifially in a time period.

 

[Artie]

Does anyone knows how to kill the iqagent process on a Samsung Moment? Advanced Task killer and TaskManager doesn't seem to do it and TaskManager always reports it above 80% of usage.

 

[tphone]

The other thing that it does is use the data in Google Maps to get real time traffic on surface streets. (I don't know how it differentiates between driving and walking on the sidewalk)
But you can see this in Google maps if you use the traffic layer and check major surface streets.

 

[Artie]

Does anyone knows how to kill the iqagent process on a Samsung Moment? Advanced Task killer and TaskManager doesn't seem to do it and TaskManager always reports it above 80% of usage.

I just wanted to reply that after formatting my phone (factory defaults) and carefully re-installing my apps noticed that the cuplrit on draining my battery and having iqagent process up all the time was GoogleVoice. I am happy with my phone so far, and this process is not blowing my cpu.

 

[immorion]

I just wanted to reply that after formatting my phone (factory defaults) and carefully re-installing my apps noticed that the cuplrit on draining my battery and having iqagent process up all the time was GoogleVoice. I am happy with my phone so far, and this process is not blowing my cpu.

Nice work Artie! I have been curious about the source of iqagent and was preparing to factory reset my phone and step through app installs until I found the app responsible... But you beat me to it and saved me the down time.

thanx!

 

[Iforgit]

The other thing that it does is use the data in Google Maps to get real time traffic on surface streets. (I don't know how it differentiates between driving and walking on the sidewalk)
But you can see this in Google maps if you use the traffic layer and check major surface streets.

Off topic, but I really want to know where they get the info for the traffic. I was extremely impressed how accurate it was. There was a small accident on I-10 in FL and it had exactly the place that we started to slow down to exactly where the traffic ended. And this is when I started using it all the time and am alway surprised how extremely accurate it is. How they do that?

 

[dkjones96]

A lot of the freeway is monitored for speed by ground loops.

 

[caspertodd]

No, no...they are not spying on us... They are only spying on you.

 

[ned23]

If you install a lot of "free" apps, there's a good chance you're inviting people to spy on you.

I've noticed when I'm in a roaming area that a lot of apps try to contact the internet and trigger the roaming guard, even when you're not doing anything that requires a connection, like just playing a bubble game or something.

 

[pdx77]

If you install a lot of "free" apps, there's a good chance you're inviting people to spy on you.

I've noticed when I'm in a roaming area that a lot of apps try to contact the internet and trigger the roaming guard, even when you're not doing anything that requires a connection, like just playing a bubble game or something.

That's why it is always a good idea to check what services the app uses before you install it.

 

[joeykrim]

Off topic, but I really want to know where they get the info for the traffic. I was extremely impressed how accurate it was. There was a small accident on I-10 in FL and it had exactly the place that we started to slow down to exactly where the traffic ended. And this is when I started using it all the time and am alway surprised how extremely accurate it is. How they do that?

i know they can do a bit of traffic monitoring with traffic cams here in nyc

 

[tatonka_Hero]

what difference does it make is someone want's to know where you are? Are you hiding something?

It's as silly as the fear that the gov't is monitoring our phone calls. Who cares? Are you talking about something that they might actually care about?

 

[Othan1]

If you install a lot of "free" apps, there's a good chance you're inviting people to spy on you.

I've noticed when I'm in a roaming area that a lot of apps try to contact the internet and trigger the roaming guard, even when you're not doing anything that requires a connection, like just playing a bubble game or something.

I love paranoia.

The "free" apps are using internet access for the ads they display which, in turn, contacts your GPS location (if you have that feature enabled with your internet connection). They're not necessarily spying; it can be sloppy coding as well.