Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

“Metadata” Can Tell the Government More About You Than the Content of Your Phonecalls
Zerohedge ^ | 6/12/2013 | Anonymous

Posted on 06/12/2013 5:00:39 PM PDT by PieterCasparzen

The government has sought to “reassure” us that it is only tracking “metadata” such as the time and place of the calls, and not the actual content of the calls.

But technology experts say that “metadata” can be more revealing than the content of your actual phone calls.

...

What [government officials] are trying to say is that disclosure of metadata—the details about phone calls, without the actual voice—isn’t a big deal, not something for Americans to get upset about if the government knows. Let’s take a closer look at what they are saying:

They know you rang a phone sex service at 2:24 am and spoke for 18 minutes. But they don’t know what you talked about.

They know you called the suicide prevention hotline from the Golden Gate Bridge. But the topic of the call remains a secret.

They know you spoke with an HIV testing service, then your doctor, then your health insurance company in the same hour. But they don’t know what was discussed.

They know you received a call from the local NRA office while it was having a campaign against gun legislation, and then called your senators and congressional representatives immediately after. But the content of those calls remains safe from government intrusion.

They know you called a gynecologist, spoke for a half hour, and then called the local Planned Parenthood’s number later that day. But nobody knows what you spoke about.

Sorry, your phone records—oops, “so-called metadata”—can reveal a lot more about the content of your calls than the government is implying. Metadata provides enough context to know some of the most intimate details of your lives. And the government has given no assurances that this data will never be correlated with other easily obtained data.

(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...


TOPICS: Computers/Internet; Conspiracy; Government; Reference
KEYWORDS: constitution; globalism; metadata; nsa; prism
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-32 last
To: muawiyah

First of all, it’s not meta data.

Meta data means “data about data”.

If I have two records, they are data:

Bob, Johnson, 212-555-1212, 609-555-1212
Sally, Thompson, 212-555-4444, 609-555-2134

The corresponding meta data would be the descriptions of the fields of the records:

FirstName Char(30);
LastName Char(30);
CallFrom PhoneNum;
CallTo PhoneNum;

The data the govenment gets is billing data.

They are calling this meta data because it describes...
the data which is the content of the actual phone call, the voice recording. It’s really a misnomer meant to confuse. It’s the

If they said they were receiving the entire contents of everyone’s phone bill every month, up to the current day, along with MORE information that does not even appear on your bill, like what location you called from, then the general public would better understand just how they are being hosed by their government (dutifully doing the bidding of the financial oligarchy).

The only treason is the daily warrantless seizure of transactional and other personal records.

Second of all, as the article very simply points out, if you do a select on all calls from a person, and return the “to” phone numbers, they can easily be correlated with public databases to find out about who the person called.

With very straightforward queries one could develop reports of terrorist networks, but one could also develop reports of any other attributes as well just as easily.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_detail_record


21 posted on 06/12/2013 6:11:52 PM PDT by PieterCasparzen (We have to fix things ourselves)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: PieterCasparzen

Deb Roy - of MIT, this video starts out showing how he wired his house with video cameras. Data and images were tracked and saved.

This is eye opening as to what a DATA tracking landscape looks like, and is just a glimpse of how “we” are being tracked through social media.

http://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word.html


22 posted on 06/12/2013 6:11:59 PM PDT by Bluebird Singing
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PieterCasparzen
or, you could easily mislead yourself into believing conspiracies exist even when they don't.

BTW, this term ~ meta data ~ is not well established in the general lexicon of English so use of spelling nazi high dudgeon is premature!

Having set up and managed several automated PBXs over the years, I know just how much data is generated to describe a connection ~ then there were the experiences with a major telco billing operation ~ they liked to mail a lot of stuff and wanted to minimize the contact between USPS employees and their employees. Actually I promised to not tell anybody, so that's where that line ends ~ but billing is the holy of holies for phone companies.

I"m sure it could be substantially reduced in size if customers were willing to give up timed service. Just simplify it to a 3X5 card every 6 months that says $2000 ~

23 posted on 06/12/2013 6:20:50 PM PDT by muawiyah (Git yer Red STATE Arm Bands here - $29.95 - NOT SOLD IN STORES - TAX FREE)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: PieterCasparzen
all data is connected. think of the phone number as the handle on the briefcase containing however as much of you communications tracks as have been saved on some server.

the phone number's connected to the email,
the email's connected to the websites,
the websites are connected to the data,
the data is your personal life.

24 posted on 06/12/2013 6:24:51 PM PDT by schm0e ("we are in the midst of a coup.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PieterCasparzen

I wonder how long it will take for lawyers to begin to supoena e-mails, skype, text-messages, and messages or any other thing which could be used in a court of law to fight any legal proceeding. For example if 2 drug dealers are talking on skype and one gets caught, then turns states evidence to reduce a sentence, it might exhonerate someone who says they were not part of the deal. So they suppoena the documents and it seems each party has a right to a vigorous defense.


25 posted on 06/12/2013 6:25:22 PM PDT by Texas Songwriter (')
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: PieterCasparzen

Obama and his ‘metadata’ have just killed their beloved social media. Anyone who stays on it now is a fool.


26 posted on 06/12/2013 7:22:08 PM PDT by AdaGray
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: muawiyah

Indeed, those would be great batteries!


27 posted on 06/12/2013 7:26:55 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 15 | View Replies]

To: schm0e

I’m a programmer. There are literally millions of them who know all this very well.

In a business environment, handling data for thousands, millions of customers, employees, vendors, etc., is no big deal.

This is the same thing; it’s just data. With a little thought, and the NSA gathering all the public data it can and simply requesting other data, yes, there could be quite a bit of data sitting on their servers for every American.

Anyone (including anyone in Congress) outside of NSA has no way of knowing how it’s being used.


28 posted on 06/12/2013 7:27:54 PM PDT by PieterCasparzen (We have to fix things ourselves)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 24 | View Replies]

To: PieterCasparzen
I think, too, it's axiomatic that the likelihood of data being liked is roughly proportional to the confidence its custodians have that it won't be. Not including the possibilities of outright hacking.

it's also a hunch that there is shadow market for data just as there was for credit reporting data for decades.

And one final note: I recall some annoying geek bragging 20 years ago that he was able to find Dan Quayle's social security number - back in the dark ages of information tech.

29 posted on 06/12/2013 8:00:29 PM PDT by schm0e ("we are in the midst of a coup.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: PieterCasparzen
woops -- that should read "likelihood of data being leaked" -- not "liked."
30 posted on 06/12/2013 8:00:46 PM PDT by schm0e ("we are in the midst of a coup.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: PieterCasparzen
In intelligence this is called "Traffic Analysis.". Think about WWII, where radio traffic was sent in Morse Code, with all words reduced to 5 digit numbers, which were then encrypted. A radio operator would transmit the coded message "38751 19054 09528" which would be decoded, to remove the encryption, as "83206 64509 54073."

Without the key to the code, the other side could not translate the first three sets of numbers into the second set of numbers, and without the code book it could not look up the meaning of the second of numbers as "next transmission noon."

But the other side could, with hard, meticulous work, deduce that an Infantry Division HQ, a field hospital, and an Armored Regiment HQ, all have different, and unique, patterns of radio traffic, based on the amount of radio traffic, the number of sub-units (if any) that acknowledged receiving the radio traffic, and the like.

When an Infantry Division and an Armored Regiment held in reserve suddenly started chatting with a Corp. HQ, and stopped talking to the Army HQ that reserve units spoke to, it was very clear that those two units were now assigned to the Corp. HQ, and were moving up to the front. That could be deduced even if absolutely none of the contents of the messages could be read. And it could be deduced by tired human brains, with limited understanding of the other side's radio traffic.

Just think about the relationships a super computer with perfect knowledge of time and place and other parties with whom you have made and received every call, text and email, for a period of years, will be able to deduce.

31 posted on 06/12/2013 9:13:36 PM PDT by Pilsner
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: AdaGray
A few days ago I posted a dozen or so rules for how to minimize your real contact with the outside world ~ beyond the glow of your video screen. One of them was to pick a PEN NAME early on ~ say by the time you are 11 or 12, and stick with it FOR EVERYTHING!

To a degree that becomes your real name ~ but it also provides all the traditional legal advantages of a DIT name, or a Nomme d'guerre. It ain't you! And if it's hacked, it really isn't you.

Another benefit just came to me ~ it doubles your footprint and doubles your sort time to come spilling out of somebody's data mining expedition. Maybe a dozen pen names would be even better ~ then, on 3X5 cards keep your actual information ~

32 posted on 06/13/2013 5:13:04 AM PDT by muawiyah (Git yer Red STATE Arm Bands here - $29.95 - NOT SOLD IN STORES - TAX FREE)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-32 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Bloggers & Personal
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson