At 160 bytes per text and 2T texts per year, there are 800 gigabytes of texts per day. Thus Carrier IQ is monitoring the equivalent of 1% of all texts across all phones. That is still quite significant.
160 bytes per text seems like a very generous estimate. Casual observation would suggest the average is less than half that. I just got a text that seemed pretty long to me, so I went back and measured it. It was 90 bytes (104 characters * 7 bits per character / 8 bits per byte).
You're thinking quantitative when you should be thinking qualitative. The worrisome thing is that, as the screenshots show, they seem have access to location-based information.
I wouldn't care if they were logging non-identifying info, such as the amount of time my phone display is on to analyze battery performance, for instance, or perhaps even the general settings I have on my phone to help HTC deliver more desirable "factory settings." Any of this could add up to that 1% you mention.
Speaking personally though I use a 5 or 6-year-old Blackberry model with no data plan and will happily continue to do so.
The point isn't how many texts they're getting --- one would be too many. The point is "10 gigabytes per day of metrics" doesn't itself imply that they're getting message contents.
You are militantly missing my point. There is no evidence that they are seeing message contents. All we are going on in this thread is the supposition that because they're getting "10 gigabytes a day", it must be message contents.
They themselves use the phrase "raw data" to describe what they collect (as "metrics"). Metrics are not comprised of raw data, but of measurements, so unless they're being hinky with word choice, a plain reading of their own materials would suggest that they do indeed receive user content.
They've said repeatedly that they do not collect that data. This is a common attitude on HN threads: the idea that the only facts for us to discuss are the ones in the article itself or in other comments on the thread. There are more facts just a Google search away for you.
Their own words are not dispositive; I'm not suggesting that they are. But here you're trying to interpret their words in a way that contradicts their own direct statement. Your interpretation is possibly accurate, but implausible.
This is an important point that I think some people are forgetting. I use Verizon. They already have access to all of my text messages. I send my text messages to Verizon, who then forwards them on to the person I'm talking to. Just as Google first gets my email.
It is unfortunately a point that the contradicts the thread narrative that casts a hapless, poorly-marketed analytics company as Big Brother incarnate, so nobody's going to pay attention to it.
They put backdoors on basically every phone in secret, threatened the guy who outed them with a lawsuit and are perfectly capable of snooping on everything, whether they do so or not.
What do you know about them that makes you trust them?
