I don't think I want a smartphone any more.

I'm somewhat of a Luddite when it comes to phones.  I'm still rockin' the G'zOne Boulder, a cell phone with a built-in compass, a battery that lasts over a week, and is dust, shock, and water-resistant enough that even I can't jack it up.  I always derided the whole smartphone concept until my wife got one--and then, dammit, I had to admit that the Internet-in-your-pocket thing was actually pretty useful.  Darn all this newfangled poppycock, anyway...I remember when we had to walk 10 miles through the snow and pay seven thousand dollars a minute to make a phone call, and we were grateful!  And get off my lawn.

So I was considering the G'zOne Commando, since the Boulder's worked so well for me.  Then Brian had to dig up this article that made me think twice...

A piece of keystroke-sniffing software called Carrier IQ has been embedded so deeply in millions of Nokia, Android, and RIM devices that it’s tough to spot and nearly impossible to remove, as 25-year old Connecticut systems administrator Trevor Eckhart revealed in a video Tuesday.

That’s not just creepy, says Paul Ohm, a former Justice Department prosecutor and law professor at the University of Colorado Law School. He thinks it’s also likely grounds for a class action lawsuit based on a federal wiretapping law.

“If CarrierIQ has gotten the handset manufactures to install secret software that records keystrokes intended for text messaging and the Internet and are sending some of that information back somewhere, this is very likely a federal wiretap.” he says. “And that gives the people wiretapped the right to sue and provides for significant monetary damages.”

Um, yeah...I think my Boulder will do just fine, thanks.