Many smart phones, not iPhones, come with carrier pre-installed root kits!

[thewayne]

Woohoo! It was discovered by a security researcher, Trevor Eckhart, and now the company that makes the rootkit, Carrier IQ, is trying to suppress his research.

http://yro.slashdot.org/story/11/11/16/1517248/carrieriq-most-phones-ship-with-rootkit

http://mobile.slashdot.org/story/11/11/23/0032233/carrieriq-tries-to-silence-security-researcher

Comments

[silveradept]

Oh, beautiful. I wonder if rooting and then installing a non-carrier ROM scrubs the rootkit, or whether it's so ingrained into the system that no matter what you do on the ROM front, the rootkit is still there. I couldn't tell whether one or the other is the truth from the data.

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I don't know the answer to that, but I'm sure it will be examined in minute detail in the coming weeks.