For all those who think collecting Metadata is no biggie

I've run across a lot of posters on ATS who seem to think that because the NSA 'only' collects Metadata, it's somehow less of a threat to people or that it makes it all okay.

I urge those people to read this article from Wire magazine and rethink their position.

Metadata is our context. And that can reveal far more about us — both individually and as groups — than the words we speak. Context yields insights into who we are and the implicit, hidden relationships between us. A complete set of all the calling records for an entire country is therefore a record not just of how the phone is used, but, coupled with powerful software, of our importance to each other, our interests, values, and the various roles we play.

Phew, NSA Is Just Collecting Metadata. (You Should Still Worry)

"For all those who think collecting Metadata is no biggie"

I hope you are all first in line at the Fema Camps because you are the ones that will be picked up first.

Unless of course you have nothing to worry about because you are doing nothing wrong...

That line is getting to be the biggest joke on the Net these days.

Peace

nsa.gov1.info...

Utah Data Center Technical Specifications Data Storage Capacity The storage capacity of the Utah Data Center will be measured in "zettabytes". What exactly is a zettabyte? There are a thousand gigabytes in a terabyte; a thousand terabytes in a petabyte; a thousand petabytes in an exabyte; and a thousand exabytes in a zettabyte. Some of our employees like to refer to them as "alottabytes". Learn more about the domestic surveillance data we plan to process and store in the Utah Data Center. Also, view our strategy for using the PRISM data collection program, nationwide intercept stations, and the "Boundless Informant" mapping tool to gather and track this data.

Code-Breaking Supercomputer Platform
NSA Utah Data Center supercomputer
The Utah Data Center will be powered by the massively parallel Cray XC30 supercomputer which is capable of scaling high performance computing (HPC) workloads of more than 100 petaflops or 100,000 trillion calculations each second.

Code-named "Cascade", this behemoth was developed in conjunction with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to meet the demanding needs of the Intelligence Community.

They say they will pump more then 170 million gallons of water through there just for cooling per day. This is no simple meta data storage facility. And who knows how many super computers are going to be in this building? They say what it can do but they don't say how many are planned. The Utah Data Center will be the Cloud that all intelligence agencies get there data from. And NSA will control who gets what.

post now redundant.

reply to post by Archie


Good post. You know you can actually quantify this "information" stuff. Simply, if there's a million people you might call and a thousand things you might say, than there is twice as much info in who you call than in what you say. Information is the log2 of reciprocal of (what was done)/(what was probably to be done.) So if you get the the binary number 01110110, and all other 8 bit numbers are equally likely - 256 possibilites, than you have 8/bits of information. log2(reciprocal(1/256)) however if you get 11111111, and that's the only message that's ever come on the channel, than you have 0 bits of information, (log2(1/1)) even thought you have 8 bits of data. If a world with a million people we might or call or sites we might visit, there is a lot of information in who we call/visit. But in a world with few people and few sites, there is very little information in that.

reply to post by tridentblue


that's utter babbling nonsense and you know it. troll someone else.

Hopefully, I can add some insight to the situation that will further inspire fear, anger, and paranoia in the average person previously unconcerned and unaware of the conspiracy of blanket government spying that has been discussed here for years.


The Wired article is correct about the meta data, but they leave out some important information -- meta data is more valuable than the actual content of phone calls and email. Yes. It's true.

I've recently been thrown into the world of "big data analysis" and things like massive Hadoop clusters; volume, velocity, variety (3-Vs); flume feeds, pattern matching, extraction and on and on. For a look at one private sector company, funded by US tax payer dollars through Venture Capital arms of the nations covert agencies, check out www.recordedfuture.com -- using big-data tools to try and predict the future.


Meta data is structured information. This means field values across different datasets will either be identical, or so similar as to need only a minor adjustment to be normalized. Time. Location. Phone number. Phone owner. Length of call. Number frequency. All these and more are highly structured pieces of data, and the more you have from different sources, the possibility of deep and meaningful insights increase.

Call content, email content, tweets, text messages, web page content, etc. are all unstructured data -- language. While we might have a billion phone call transcripts in english, each will be formatted differently, use different syntax/slang, have varying levels of literacy, and so on. Normalizing this unstructured data for big-data analysis requires expensive (in terms of processing power) and slow natural language processing. Keyword and entity extraction can be performed fairly well, but even then, the all-important context or meaning will be missing.


Pattern-matching meta data in trillion-record datasets is the big-data analyst's wet-dream. It's highly plausible that such a system, with all data from everywhere, could identify that a new burner phone is being used by criminals or terrorists within 2-3 days using just the meta data. The same pattern matching could also identify that a burner is being used by a journalist -- or -- using the journalist's known number, determine what potentially damaging story a journalist is currently investigating. Once pattern-matching flags something, then the available unstructured data is examined.

Oh, and don't presume that the typical methods of encrypting or protecting your privacy will thwart this. Even if you use TOR for browsing, and the NSA/FBI takes an interest in what sites you visit -- if they have your ISP logs and that of upstream Internet providers (it has been reported that they do), it only makes it about 5% harder to nail down where you went online. Seriously.


Of course, all of this relies on having all available data from all sources, and that it's constantly updated in real-time. Missing pieces like Qwest/CenturyLink are a real problem for bringing it all together. So if anything, it's not as bad as it could be... yet.

Wow, a site owner on one of my threads. We're not worthy.

There is an excellent break down of PRISM and how it works and related Q&As here; www.abovetopsecret.com...

reply to post by Archie


Yes, that was focused on data collection. I wanted to focus on data analysis.

Yes, it's all good to know.

I just wanted to add that that article and your post illustrate brilliantly why there needs to be much greater accountability surrounding these programs when it comes to the private metadata/data of private citizens which is why as many people as possible should try to get to their nearest Restore the Fourth rally and press TPTB to take notice. Turning away and saying "It's unstoppable, we're all screwed" is not really an option.

reply to post by jude11


Ironically, doing "nothing wrong" is about the wrongest thing you can do these days.

One day they'll kill people for being "potential terrorists"

reply to post by NoSoul


Haven't they already done that with (American citizen) Al-whatshisname's 15 year old son?
Second line.

ganjoa

These data/privacy issues are not going away. It is just getting stated.

Perhaps if every Congress person, the Supreme Court and most of the typical DC hires are replaced, there might be chance. We know that won't happen so it is here to stay. Enjoy.

The idea of a war on terror worked.

Call content, email content, tweets, text messages, web page content, etc.

reply to post by SkepticOverlord


Now we can add everything we buy at the store including pharmacy.

Everywhere we drive is on video complete with license number collection.

Every time we use our ATM a complete record of what we bought and cash received.

Not to mention every time we travel complete with what is in our shoes.

My questions SO., are how long until our cash strapped government is selling this information?

Could a guy with a thumb drive capture any sensible data?

Originally posted by SkepticOverlord
reply to post by Archie

 

Yes, that was focused on data collection. I wanted to focus on data analysis.

With human intelligence's (HUMINT) credibility often questionable regardless of nationality and/or ethnicity, this is perhaps the only way to process, clean and transform data based on the NSA's data models. This might perhaps be the only way for a quick turnaround in identifying possible scenarios ahead of time. How the trending analysis and its information is used is important (For good or for bad). Generally people used to collect information, enter them manually and dish out the survey/statistics on a yearly basis. Be it census or be it social security. With the use of computers, the task has become very easy and simple. Obviously most of the technology is exploited by the bad guys these days.

There are different ways to look at the data analysis. Data mining, Business Intelligence, Statistics, exploratory data analysis, confirmatory data analysis, predictive analysis, text analysis, unstructured data (images, audio etc) analysis. I would assume that NSA is doing nothing different than a company would to improve their products/services. I get tonnes of marketing calls based on the information I provided to certain businesses. Should I be pissed? Well I do because its a nuisance to receive phone calls in the evenings after work. However I do feel that the marketing team is doing their job to understand their customers. What is private these days? When someone makes a phonecall, the number is assigned by the telephone company or service provider. It has to be managed and administered as its not god given or created by nature. It is a identification number used specifically to route the signals accordingly when you wish to dial someone. The very moment you accept the number, you should forget about privacy. Same goes with Internet connection and a IP address. I'm sure there are positive aspects to the analysis which the ISP's and Software vendors can benefit as well but most people value their privacy for some reason. I mean if I'm making love to my wife and if it was filmed and broadcasted secretly, then I would worry. But for everything such as shopping habits, viewing habits, eating habits are all collected by business all the time. If not the NSA, the banks and IRS certainly know my income and taxes and expenses. So what if one agency collects the data and possibly can provide better analysis to IRS or private banks if needed be? BTW I'm getting into Hadoop, MongoDB & Teracotta. Already work with Teradata . Hopefully the Big Data will keep me employed for another 20 years? Who knows.

whyamIhere
Now we can add everything we buy at the store including pharmacy.

That's been the case for a long, long time.

Everywhere we drive is on video complete with license number collection.

This data is far from complete.

Every time we use our ATM a complete record of what we bought and cash received.

This is also been the case for a long time.

Not to mention every time we travel complete with what is in our shoes.

Travel data is still incomplete and not normalized enough for PRISM/big-data analysis.

My questions SO., are how long until our cash strapped government is selling this information?

To whom?

The "reaction" from the government has been that the type and amount of data being collected and retained is a high-level top secret. Selling the data would reveal what is supposedly secret.

Originally posted by JBA2848
nsa.gov1.info...

Utah Data Center Technical Specifications Data Storage Capacity The storage capacity of the Utah Data Center will be measured in "zettabytes". What exactly is a zettabyte? There are a thousand gigabytes in a terabyte; a thousand terabytes in a petabyte; a thousand petabytes in an exabyte; and a thousand exabytes in a zettabyte. Some of our employees like to refer to them as "alottabytes". Learn more about the domestic surveillance data we plan to process and store in the Utah Data Center. Also, view our strategy for using the PRISM data collection program, nationwide intercept stations, and the "Boundless Informant" mapping tool to gather and track this data.

Code-Breaking Supercomputer Platform
NSA Utah Data Center supercomputer
The Utah Data Center will be powered by the massively parallel Cray XC30 supercomputer which is capable of scaling high performance computing (HPC) workloads of more than 100 petaflops or 100,000 trillion calculations each second.

Code-named "Cascade", this behemoth was developed in conjunction with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) to meet the demanding needs of the Intelligence Community.

They say they will pump more then 170 million gallons of water through there just for cooling per day. This is no simple meta data storage facility. And who knows how many super computers are going to be in this building? They say what it can do but they don't say how many are planned. The Utah Data Center will be the Cloud that all intelligence agencies get there data from. And NSA will control who gets what.

edit on 30-6-2013 by JBA2848 because: (no reason given)

Im not sure this is a real gov site.
Scroll down and look at the pic of the "general". Lol
nsa.gov1.info...

BTW...Metadata is Data about Data. Big difference. Data contains 'what' and Metadata contains 'how and where'.

If it helps, below are couple of links explaining what Metadata is.
METADATA_1
METADATA_2