|
I'd like to request that we stop using "metadata" as if it's somehow different from "data" in any meaningful way. It lets the pro-surveilence side off by diminishing the severity of intrusion (like, who cares about "metadata" what even is that anyway?). It's also a functionally meaningless difference. If the NSA has a list of all the people that I've emailed, they call it "metadata", but if I write down the names of everyone that I've called this month on a Post-It and the NSA gets a hold of it, it suddenly becomes "data". There's no legal or technical basis for what is "metadata" vs "data", except for author-asserted circumstances (i.e., circumstances that don't apply in this case).
|
#
¿
Oct 11, 2013 14:55
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 24, 2024 13:30 |
|
|
KOTEX GOD OF BLOOD posted:What? Are you seriously suggesting that there is no legal or technical distinction between metadata and data? Do you understand what a pen register is and why it is legal? Kind of surprised to see this thread jump back to life. Good thing, though. You're getting hung up on the details in this. Information in just that; it is information. Whether we call it "data" or "metadata" doesn't matter a whit, inasmuch as it might be useful for something. I'm complaining about the (stupid) rhetorical use of "metadata" in this discussion. People discredit privacy concerns because the government is collecting "metadata" instead of "data" without realizing that the only arbiters of what is "metadata" is the government itself. And further, whether people are charged on the basis of "data" or "metadata" doesn't matter either! So, we have two terms, which have no meaningful difference, but one of which keeps popping up in these discussions because it obfuscates the details of the discussion by introducing jargon, and minimizes the loss of privacy by euphamism. Consider my previous example, and this one: Let's say that I call 99 people and talk about whatever with them. Then, I call 1 person and only say that I've called these other 99 people before hanging up. What's the metadata here? The practical definition used throughout these discussions is, the list of all 100 people that I've called. If the CONTENTS of my last call are surveiled, though, the government has a reasonable expectation that it could use the CONTENTS of the call in one of these cases. At the very least, they could use it as corraborative evidence. All while ignoring the line in the sand that they drew when originally laying out the differences between "metadata" and "data". And further, this is how the government actually goes about collecting this so-called "metadata". The government, itself, doesn't pen register peoples' phones. They ask the provider, a third party, for that information. Effectively, in all cases, the government is surveiling the CONTENTS of that last call in my example. The difference also has a problem in that it ONLY applies to certain types of communications, when in fact we can be sure that the government is surveiling a much larger pool of communications. Sure, telephone and email is the common example, but how does this regime play out in, say, handwritten communications? Will the government only collect the addresses on the outside of envelopes? If they use the side of a pencil on a notepad to determine what was written on the previous note, is that "metadata"? If they ask the Post Office to carry out their surveilence for them, is everything they gather "metadata" by mere virtue of being handed to them from a third party? "Metadata" is a popular term that's used in programming the computer science. However, it's the data structure author that makes the distinction between what is "data" and what is "data about the data", and the it's the user that does what he can with the distinction, not the other way around. It's being misused in this discussion for, what appears to me to be, nefarious purposes. I'm perfectly open to the idea that a surveilence regime that collects who calls/emails who might be necessary or even good, but the rhetorical use to "metadata" here to get around the obvious privacy concerns makes me instinctively think that proponents are not arguing in good faith. And if that's the case, then why take anything proponents say at face value? They say that they understand the privacy concerns and that they're technically capable of pulling this off in the way they describe, and yet they fall back on jargon, euphamism, and abusing terms of art which by the nature of their work they should know not to?
|
|
#
¿
Oct 24, 2013 10:21
|
|