Thank you, HTC and Samsung, for selling us smart phones with a secret rootkit installed

Oh, this is downright nasty. Loyal reader MC writes me:

Hi Glenn,

Here’s something I found last night, thought you might be interested. It’s about how Samsung and HTC are basically installing rootkits on their smart phones that record and can send out logs of everything you do on the device. It’s pretty disconcerting, especially because it completely throws the privacy of HTTPS out the window. Watch the video if you get a chance, it’s very informative.

http://lifehacker.com/5863895/carrier-iq-how-the-widespread-rootkit-can-track-everything-on-your-phone-and-how-to-remove-it

Frequent contributor Herbbie sends additional self-explanatory links:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/hardware/so-theres-a-rootkit-hidden-in-millions-of-cellphones/16708?tag=nl.e539

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/networking/finding-and-cleaning-out-your-smartphones-carrier-iq-poison/1697?tag=nl.e589

And the ever-vigilant SubnetD adds:

http://www.pcworld.com/article/245265/carrier_iq_tracking_your_questions_answered.html