Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsGraphs by MIT Students Show the Enormously Intrusive Nature of Metadata
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/01/08-3You've probably heard politicians or pundits say that metadata doesn't matter. They argue that police and intelligence agencies shouldn't need probable cause warrants to collect information about our communications. Metadata isnt all that revealing, they say, its just numbers.
But the digital metadata trails you leave behind every day say more about you than you can imagine. Now, thanks to two MIT students, you don't have to imagineat least with respect to your email.
Deepak Jagdish and Daniel Smilkov's Immersion program maps your life, using your email account. After you give the researchers access to your email metadatanot the content, just the time and date stamps, and To and Cc fieldstheyll return to you a series of maps and graphs that will blow your mind. The program will remind you of former loves, illustrate the changing dynamics of your professional and personal networks over time, mark deaths and transitions in your life, and more. Youll probably learn something new about yourself, if you study it closely enough. (The students say they delete your data on your command.)
Whether or not you grant the program access to your data, watch the video embedded below to see Jagdish and Smilkov show illustrations from Immersion and talk about what they discerned about themselves from looking at their own metadata maps. While youre watching, remember that while the NSA and FBI are collecting our phone records in bulk, and using advanced computer algorithms to make meaning from them, state and local government officials can often also get this information without a warrant.
InfoView thread info, including edit history
TrashPut this thread in your Trash Can (My DU » Trash Can)
BookmarkAdd this thread to your Bookmarks (My DU » Bookmarks)
2 replies, 552 views
ShareGet links to this post and/or share on social media
AlertAlert this post for a rule violation
PowersThere are no powers you can use on this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
ReplyReply to this post
EditCannot edit other people's posts
Rec (3)
ReplyReply to this post
2 replies
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Graphs by MIT Students Show the Enormously Intrusive Nature of Metadata (Original Post)
eridani
Jan 2014
OP
Recursion
(56,582 posts)1. Not only is it mineable, it's widely visible (not even counting the NSA)
Every single network you send your traffic through (and that can be several for each connection -- routing works like that) can potentially access and store that information. That is, even if we roll back the NSA's spying, you should assume that this is visible to people you don't want to see it.
woo me with science
(32,139 posts)2. K&R Corporate fascism.