Privacy Inc.

Critics of a controversial copyright bill known as the Stop Online Piracy Act, or SOPA, are planning to announce an alternative proposal on Thursday, CNET has learned.

Their public discussion draft is intended to provide opponents of the Hollywood-backed SOPA bill, a list that includes much of Silicon Valley, with legislation that they can embrace as a less onerous way to delete "rogue" Web sites from the Internet.

Depending on the details, of course, the new legislation--backed by Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Rep. Darrell Issa (R-Calif.)--could also be viewed as too restrictive.

The Wyden-Issa draft will … Read more

Sen. Al Franken, who heads a Senate privacy panel, is asking wireless companies and hardware makers exactly how they're using Carrier IQ and what data they're collecting.

A Sprint spokesman confirmed to CNET this morning that the company received a letter from Franken, the Minnesota Democrat who wrote a similar letter to Carrier IQ last week.

Franken also sent letters to AT&T, HTC, Samsung, and Sprint Nextel, according to a report over the weekend in the Minneapolis Star Tribune.

Carrier IQ is software created by an eponymous startup in Mountain View, Calif., that's used by … Read more

A Linux kernel hacker who completed an in-depth analysis of Carrier IQ's controversial software has determined that it's incapable of recording keystrokes or perusing SMS messages and e-mail correspondence.

Dan Rosenberg, who has discovered more than 100 vulnerabilities in the Linux kernel, FreeBSD, and GNU utilities, published a blog post last night that analyzed the data Carrier IQ collects and transmits on a Samsung Epic 4G Touch. He found that contrary to what a slew of initial -- and erroneous -- reports claimed, the Carrier IQ software is not a keylogger and "cannot" be configured as … Read more

It's been a tumultuous few weeks for Carrier IQ, the Mountain View, Calif.-based startup at the center of an Internet-wide privacy flap over what its software, which carriers place on mobile phones, actually does.

By now it seems abundantly clear that, contrary to earlier reports, the Carrier IQ technology is not actually a "rootkit keylogger."

But the company has not yet published technical details on how its software works--it says more information will be forthcoming soon--so CNET readers and others have continued to raise questions. In addition, carriers can configure Carrier IQ's software to record … Read more

In just a handful of days, a startup company named Carrier IQ has been subjected to extraordinary public vilification, with reports accusing it of making a "rootkit keylogger" that "creeps out everyone" or is the "rootkit of all evil."

The only problem, which is always a risk when a public lynching takes place, is that Carrier IQ appears to be not guilty of the charges lodged against it.

The most serious charge against Carrier IQ, a venture capital-funded startup in Mountain View, Calif., that makes diagnostic software for carriers, has been that it records … Read more

President Eisenhower, in his 1961 farewell address, warned that the military-industrial complex could "endanger our liberties or democratic processes." Today WikiLeaks editor Julian Assange is warning that the surveillance-industrial complex is even more dangerous.

A set of nearly 300 documents that the document-leaking Web site published today reveals how extensive and privacy-invasive the secretive multi-billion dollar industry devoted to surveillance technology has become.

"We are in a world now where not only is it theoretically possible to record nearly all telecommunications traffic out of a country, all telephone calls, but where there is an international industry selling … Read more

Controversy over a mobile data-logger called Carrier IQ escalated today, with a U.S. senator raising an alarm and Apple and Verizon distancing themselves, even though it's still unclear how the software works.

An Android developer, Trevor Eckhart, reported last month that Carrier IQ software phoned home with details about how the phone was being used and where it was. Earlier this week, Eckhart posted a video elaborating on his claims, which was followed by another report that the software has been found on iPhones.

Apple responded today, saying it hasn't used Carrier IQ since it released iOS … Read more

There is no more influential business lobby group in the world than the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which boasts that its "core purpose is to fight for free enterprise" and "individual freedom."

Which is why the Chamber's unflagging--even unyielding--support of a controversial copyright bill loathed by Silicon Valley might come as something of a surprise. Not only do critics view the Stop Online Piracy Act as antithetical to the individual freedom the Chamber applauds, but the technology industry has contributed more to economic growth and free enterprise in the last decade than Hollywood has. … Read more

Famed Silicon Valley investor and entrepreneur Peter Thiel is helping to launch a floating technology incubator 12 miles off the coast of Northern California.

Blueseed, which is planning an offshore "seastead" for foreign entrepreneurs who have difficulty obtaining visas to live or work in the U.S., said this evening that that Thiel has agreed to lead the company's initial financing round.

"We're all totally psyched," Blueseed CEO and cofounder Max Marty told CNET. It's "hard to imagine this was just an idea some months ago." (See CNET's profile of Blueseed.) … Read more