Put simply - and bluntly - Carrier IQ is a software package buried deep within Android by Samsung at the behest of Sprint. It has been in active use since the time of the Moment, if not before. The company that develops it, also known as
Carrier IQ, bills it as "Mobile Service Intelligence".
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Carrier IQ as a platform is designed to collect "metrics" at any scale. What I found it to hook into is far beyond the scope of anything a carrier needs - or should want - to be collecting. Carrier IQ sits in the middle of, and "checks" the data of, SMS and MMS messages. It listens for and receives every battery change notifications. It hooks into every web page you view, and every XML file your device reads. It receives
every press of the touch screen. It 'sees' what you type on the physical keyboard. It reads every number you press in the dialer. It can track which applications you use, what 'type' they are, how often, and for how long. It hooks into data sent and received.
I, and the rest of ACS, ask Samsung and Sprint - why do you want this information? Why do you need it? Why is the capability in place?
The only saving grace - if there is one - to this nasty, ten-legged mutant spider is that its logs are off by default. During the investigation process, I was able to enter its UI. Below are two screenshots of it.
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Here's the most important part (tl;dr): the Carrier IQ service is a drain on battery life and performance. ACS noticed a significant rise in Smartbench scores and overall system 'snappiness' after Carrier IQ's removal. In addition, with it removed, ACS team lead rjmjr69 saw 30 hours of battery life, with heavy use, on the stock battery.
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