Metadata is difficult to define as well. Perhaps they don't store a full phone conversation - but is the source and destination metadata? It's very hard when the definition of metadata is 'A set of data that describes and gives information about other data'. So, perhaps I might say, who I call is not metadata, it is final data, but they might say, 'no it's not, we didn't store your entire convo'.
With the term 'meta', it is impossible to know what they are storing. I'm also kind of too apathetic to do anything about it. This is mostly because I don't believe that the flow of information that they are receiving can result in anything meaningful, because the firehose is too large, and will only get larger as more devices are added to the stream. Using that for any type of real analysis is a total pipe dream. At the same time I don't want to defend it, and discuss it often in personal conversations with other people, trying to get them to care. That's why I say almost too apathetic.
Slashdot Mirror
Metadata is difficult to define as well. Perhaps they don't store a full phone conversation - but is the source and destination metadata? It's very hard when the definition of metadata is 'A set of data that describes and gives information about other data'. So, perhaps I might say, who I call is not metadata, it is final data, but they might say, 'no it's not, we didn't store your entire convo'. With the term 'meta', it is impossible to know what they are storing. I'm also kind of too apathetic to do anything about it. This is mostly because I don't believe that the flow of information that they are receiving can result in anything meaningful, because the firehose is too large, and will only get larger as more devices are added to the stream. Using that for any type of real analysis is a total pipe dream. At the same time I don't want to defend it, and discuss it often in personal conversations with other people, trying to get them to care. That's why I say almost too apathetic.