SOPA app for android. Fight SOPA with the boycott SOPA app

As alot of you know today is "Blackout SOPA" day, where a lot of websites are letting the government and world what sites could look like if SOPA and PIPA pass.  I don't ever ask people to download an app but I am asking now.  Please download this app and let the companies that support SOPA know how we feel about this crap!  I think more people should be aware what SOPA is and what this could bring to ALL of us internet users.  My daughter was asking her Facebook friends what Sopa was and I  believe a lot of people don't know what it really is!  Anyhoo....  enough ranting and more about the app.

The app allows you to scan barcodes of items, which it will then tell you whether or not that product or company is in support or related to the bills in question. A simple, yet effective means of showing your distate for the legislation. The app is pulling data about companies and the bills from the developer's website and will be updated frequently.




Download link from the Android Market

Description (from the developer)

SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) if passed will drastically change the internet for the worse. This app will help you avoid SOPA supporting products to show your displeasure with the bill and help get it voted down! Read more about SOPA here.What it is: A free android application that you can use to scan bar codes to help identify if products are either created by or intimately related to SOPA supporting companies. There are currently over 800 brands/companies on our list. The list currently being used by the application is available on our website listed below.
This application will help you identify goods of companies which according to publically avaliable sources appear to have been supporting SOPA as of approx. January 5th 2011, but the list will be updated as we go.
It is intended as an aid to identifying such products but should not be relied upon. You should carry out your own check in case of any product this app indicates is a product of a company supporting
SOPA is not.
Please visit our site at www.nomoresopa.com for more information
Donating: We’ve had questions about donating, if you want to donate go here: http://nomoresopa.com/wp/?page_id=25 Donations will go to pizza and beer for long nights improving the application.
IMPORTANT: To all the folks asking why it requires other permissions- this app ONLY requires internet permissions. It does require the barcode scanner app made by the ZXing (google/open source) team to be installed on your phone, and nothing else - this app does the image processing to decode the barcode. If you'd like, you may use Google Goggles instead of ZXing and it will work fine. Our app makes one request over the internet to our server to find if the product is a SOPA supporter. We do not access any other data.
Update: We're working to incorporate the great feature requests that people have asked for. We're implementing a second version of the app right now, which will support multiple boycotts, a contact the company feature, and has a more sophisticated search functionality so accuracy will be improved. Thanks for all the interest and bear with us while we get a newer, fancier version out.

Carrier IQ and how it works

Carrier IQ gives a lengthy look into how it works

Carrier IQ, the company that everyone -- for right or wrong -- has come to hate of late has released a document explaining in plain English how it does what it does. "Understanding Carrier IQ Technology -- What Carrier IQ Does and Does Not Do" was released on Carrier IQ's website late Dec. 12 and is a PDF that details what Carrier IQ is, how it's loaded on devices (and what kinds of devices it can be used on), what information is collected, how it can be used by Carrier IQ's customers, and how the data is protected in the process.
Let's break it down.

A few choice points

• Carrier IQ maintains that it's a provider of diagnostic data, and "that having an effective solution requires that the software gather only the critical diagnostic information and do so in a manner that protects consumers’ information."
• Carrier IQ has been used on feature phones, smartphones, data modems and tablets.
• Data is uploaded from the device once a day, at about 200kb a pop. The carrier absorbs the charge for the data.

Carrier IQ is loaded onto the phone as one of three ways

• Preload: Installed by the hardware manufacturer at the behest of CIQ's client -- the carrier, it's not considered a traditional app and is not easily removed by the consumer, but it only has access to data accessible through the system APIs.
• Aftermarket: Installed as a typical application, after purchase of the phone. Can be deleted by the consumer.
• Embedded: Installed using a specific API from Carrier IQ, and differs from Preloaded in that it can report radio signal information.

Explaining the video

Speaking on the now infamous video from Trever Eckhart, Carrier IQ says that while it can't comment on every manufacturer implementation of its product (really?) the company says it looks like a hook was left in place that allows the CIQ metrics being collected to be passed to the Android debugging software, which is exactly what we see in the video, and that it's possible for that to be turned off.
CIQ also contends that just because something was visible in the debugging screen (and, again, they're working to get that turned off), it doesn't mean it was necessarily being collected and/or transmitted by Carrier IQ. Think of it as the difference between being able to see something versus seeing, remembering and then sharing with someone else.
CIQ also explains that, indeed, it's possible to collect URLs that are visited -- if it's part of the data collection profile that the carrier put into place.

Unintended collection

CIQ's also come clean about some unintended data collection. Apparently while collecting signal information (ie what's going on with the network when you drop a call), it's possible that if you're on a call and you receive an SMS message, that SMS "may have unintentionally been included in the layer 3 signaling traffic that is collected by the IQ Agent." CIQ contends that "These messages were encoded and embedded ... and are not human readable," and that it's working with the carriers to make sure that information is no longer being collected. Only embedded versions of Carrier IQ had that problem.

Who owns the data?

Carrier IQ maintains that it has "no rights to the data that is gathered ... for any Carrier IQ customer." The servers that handle all of the data collection can be run by Carrier IQ, or by the carrier (or conceivably a third party). Carrier IQ says to its knowledge, it's never had a data breach.

The wrap up

There's more in the white paper regarding network analytics, and the entire thing is worth a read. You'll still have to come to your own conclusion about just how scary this whole thing is, and it's worth another mention that Carrier IQ doesn't exist in a vacuum. Carrier IQ is a customer of network operators -- the carriers you pay good money to every month.
And all that said -- we continue to believe that a simple disclosure and option to disable the analytics collection at initial startup would go a long way toward defusing this whole situation and restoring trust in Carrier IQ as well as in the carriers that hire its services.

I am not a paranoid person nor do I have anything to hide but to me this is crossing the line.  Take a minute and watch the 17 minute Youtube video posted by Trev, if you haven't already (1.8 million views).  Also take a minute and see if your Android device has Carrier IQ running on it.  I own an HTC Evo 3D, HTC Evo 4G, Samsung Nexus S 4G, and a Samsung Galaxy S 2 Epic Touch 4g and I have Carrier IQ running on all of them.  The Devs over at XDA and Android Central have gotten most of Carrier IQ removed with custom roms and mad props to the devs that have done this.... but why is it there in the first place?

I love my wife Megan and watch the video posted by Trev and let me know what you think.  If you're looking for a custom ROM with most of Carrier IQ removed for your device, leave me a comment and I'll do the research and point you in the right direction.