[Vision2020] A quick rant about the term "metadata"

Scott Dredge scooterd408 at hotmail.com
Fri Jul 5 11:32:46 PDT 2013


Obviously it's unwise to trust the government or corporations or unions 
or churches or any other hierarchical structure of people where leaders 
motivated by their own self-interest have their minions carry out the 
dirty work.

I agree that there needs to be oversight to prevent /
 prosecute abuses, but there also needs to be some level of 
non-disclosure regarding methods of tracking criminal activity otherwise
 the criminals will find a way around it.  It's not an easy problem to 
solve.  It's like trying to keep guns out the hands of the crazies 
without infringing on the rights of the responsible.

-Scott

Date: Fri, 5 Jul 2013 10:55:30 -0700
From: godshatter at yahoo.com
To: thansen at moscow.com
CC: scooterd408 at hotmail.com; vision2020 at moscow.com
Subject: Re: [Vision2020] A quick rant about the term "metadata"


  
    
  
  
    

      The more we learn about what the government is doing, the more
      reason we find not to trust them.  Secret letters to corporations
      they can't even talk about forcing them to give us so much data,
      secret courts to determine if secret gathering of data is
      legitimate.  Secret documents describing their secret
      justifications for these secret data grabs.

      

      Do you trust our government?  Are you OK with the sweeping
      gathering of data that we have recently heard about in the news?

      

      Do you trust corporations?  Are you OK with them selling our data
      to advertisers and who knows who else?

      

      In my opinion, it's better to be distrustful of a group of people
      who hide behind secrecy even now than it is to be blissfully
      naive.

      

      Paul

      

      On 07/04/2013 07:22 PM, Tom Hansen wrote:

    
    
      
      
        “To the man who is afraid
            everything rustles.” - Sophocles
        

        Seeya 'round town,
          Moscow, because . . .
        

        
        "Moscow Cares"
          (the most fun you can have with your pants on)
        http://www.MoscowCares.com
          
        
          Tom Hansen
          Moscow, Idaho
          

          
          "There's room at the top they are telling
              you still 
          But first you must learn how to smile as you
            kill 
          If you want to be like the folks on the hill."
        

            
        - John Lennon

            
           
        
        

        
      
      

        On Jul 4, 2013, at 7:00 PM, Paul Rumelhart <godshatter at yahoo.com>
        wrote:

        

      
      
        
          
          

            It does bug me.  And it's pointless for them anyway, since I
            run AdBlock Plus and NoScript on Firefox and hence never see
            the ads anyway.  I also mitigate it by popping my email to
            my home machine.  I'm sure they scan it coming in, but I
            doubt they keep a copy of every email that I delete for very
            long.  It wouldn't make business sense to have to have that
            amount of extra storage on hand.  I've been aware of these
            kinds of things for a long time, and have in the past
            brought things like this up on the list.  I figure it's not
            gotten so bad that I need to go to the trouble of setting up
            a mail server and changing every account I've opened on the
            net over to it.  Not yet, anyway.  I'm sure it will get
            there someday.

            

            The fact that corporations do sell my data in certain cases
            doesn't mean I approve of it in the slightest.

            

            Paul

            

            On 07/04/2013 03:12 PM, Scott Dredge wrote:

          
          
            
            Companies having been selling data for eons
              to anyone willing to pay for it.  And lots of times these
              companies will allow you to pay a premium to keep your
              data more secure.    For instance, for $5 per month, you
              can get an unlisted Verizon phone number:

              http://hothardware.com/News/Verizon-Claims-5-Monthly-Fee-Necessary-For-Unlisted-Number/

              

              One question I have for you is that since Yahoo a full
              month ago started scanning & analyzing emails for ad
              targeting, why aren't you bugged by that?  Is it because
              it's a free service and if you were concerned about them
              rooting through your emails, you'd switch and pay for a
              premium account that doesn't do that sort of thing?

              

              I'll concede that ad targeting is less disconcerting than
              the thought of the big, bad, dangerous almighty government
              tracking you and the lines for limiting their power are
              (or will be) drawn for them by lawmakers and the
              Constitution (or whatever tatters are left of it as Sunil
              points out).

              

              -Scott

              

              
                Date: Thu, 4 Jul 2013 12:33:20
                -0700

                From: godshatter at yahoo.com

                To: scooterd408 at hotmail.com

                CC: vision2020 at moscow.com

                Subject: Re: [Vision2020] A quick rant about the term
                "metadata"

                

                

                  It's OK if they pay for it, but not if they force them
                  to give it over?  Are you OK with all the companies we
                  do business with selling all our data to the
                  government, or do you draw a line somewhere?

                  

                  Paul

                  

                  On 07/04/2013 10:08 AM, Scott Dredge wrote:

                
                
                  
                  
                    The term 'metadata' bugs you.  What bugs me is that this 'valuable data' is being sucked
up by the NSA 'wholesale' instead of the telcos charging them a pretty penny for it.
The whole mess seems to be creating a lot of bugging.

-Scott


Paul wrote:

As a computer science guy, this bugs me.
 
I've seen the term "metadata" abused in the news media and online often 
in relation to phone data the NSA is sucking up wholesale.
 
"Metadata", as the media is using the term, *is* data.  Things like 
phone numbers, dates, times, duration of calls, cell phone tower 
identifiers, etc *is* data.
 
The term "metadata" has a specific meaning, it's data about data. For 
example, metadata on the data that Verizon was forced to give over would 
look something like this:
 
Field                     Data Type  Size  Comment
Originating Phone Number  NUMBER     10
Called Number             NUMBER     10
Call Duration             NUMBER     4      Length of call in seconds
Date of Call              CHAR       10     Date format: MM/DD/YYYY
Time of Call              CHAR       12     Time format: HH24:MI:SS.nnn
...
 
And so on.  I couldn't care less if they grabbed the metadata from all 
the phone carriers.  It would be a bunch of database table descriptions.
 
Don't kid yourself, what they grabbed from the telcos was actual data, 
and valuable data at that.
 
Paul
 
                  
                
                

              
            
          
          

        
      
      
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