Zentachain — Metadata
What is metadata?
Metadata or meta information is structured data that contains information about other information resources. Metadata therefore describes the actual data in away. Meta information is required when there is a large amount of data to manage. A distinct characteristic of metadata is therefore often that it is machine-readable and evaluable.
There are three categories of metadata related to image files: Technical metadata, descriptive metadata, and administrative metadata. As far as technical metadata is concerned, it is automatically generated by the digital camera. They contain the camera data, camera settings such as aperture, shutter speed, image resolution, date and time, geographical position, file size, and file format. This may involve metadata in Exchangeable Image File (EXIF), International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), Extensible Metadata Platform (XMP), Exchangeable Image File (EXIF), Dublin Core Metadata Initiative (DCMI and Picture Licensing Universal System (PLUS) act.
The descriptive metadata is about information for image processing. This data is entered manually and contains the name of the person taking the picture, keywords for the picture, the picture title and descriptions. And as far as administrative metadata is concerned, it includes copyright notices, sharing and licensing notices, and contact information.
Metadata is used for the administration, archiving and management of stored user data. For example, metadata can contain information about the data structure, file size, file format, storage location, etc. of the stored user data.
The advantage of metadata is that it can be stored separately from the actual user data in memories with short access times and can be called up quickly and economically via its own metadata management. In contrast, the user data is stored on storage media with a longer access time. An example of this is object storage.
The metadata can be used to access the payload database, but this presupposes that the structure of the metadata is defined and standardized for all database systems.
What is the dangerous thing about metadata and how do I protect myself?
Metadata says more about us than most of us are aware of — and the monitors know it.
Secret services collect metadata about the communication of all citizens. Politicians want us to believe that these data don’t say too much. A Dutchman checked and demonstrated the opposite: Metadata reveals much more about your life than you think.
Many monitoring programs target metadata. This includes, for example, the data retention practised in large parts of Europe (but currently suspended in Germany). This provides for the telecommunications service providers to store all connection data for several months without any reason. If a criminal offence is suspected, the investigating authorities may access the retention data.
The infamous secret services NSA (USA) and GCHQ (Great Britain) also collect metadata on a large scale. And only recently it became known that the German Foreign Intelligence Service (BND) also carries out such data collections on a large scale — and then passes the information on to the NSA.
The secret services know exactly what they are doing with metadata and to what extent they allow conclusions to be drawn about people. If these data were as harmless as is often claimed, they would hardly be of interest to secret agents.
Many people believe that as long as the contents of conversations and other messages are not touched, surveillance is harmless and their privacy is still somewhat protected. Of course, this is encouraged by the advocates of surveillance in the political landscape.
However, this view is a dangerous error. Just take the fact that metadata already reveals our social network to a dangerous extent by documenting with whom we communicate, when, how often and for how long. If it is only about our circle of friends and acquaintances, such a disclosure may be unpleasant, but still somewhat harmless. However, it becomes more serious when we make contact with people who are subject to professional secrecy and contact a lawyer, a doctor or a psychological counseling center, for example. It’s bad enough if the monitors find out about it and they can possibly use it against us later. But it gets worse. What if the data is not sufficiently secure — not an unlikely scenario given the flood of reports of spectacular hacker attacks in recent years — and criminals fall into the hands? Or what if people know that they are being monitored in contact with such interlocutors and are afraid and ashamed of not getting urgently needed help?
Not only our social network is revealed through metadata. In the age of increasing mobile communication — hardly anyone nowadays can do without a smartphone — metadata also shows where we are and who we meet. It has already been shown several times that extensive movement profiles of a person can be created with connection data alone.
This monitoring is extensive and therefore risky. Even those who have done nothing wrong have something to hide. We all have little secrets, human weaknesses that we might prefer to keep to ourselves, or simply value the feeling of being completely for ourselves in certain situations. This is neither abnormal nor reprehensible. Add to that the risks of data misuse, hacker attacks and mistaken suspicion from the flood of data that is emerging and it becomes clear why monitoring metadata is anything but harmless.
In addition, this form of surveillance — like any other, as soon as it is conscious of people and frightens them — carries the risk of self-censorship. Controversial actions are avoided, fear and conformity gain the upper hand. This can have serious consequences for the individual if, as mentioned above, the help of certain trusted third parties, for example, is dispensed with. But society as a whole also suffers in the long run because it needs freedom of expression, courageous behavior and creative impulses to grow and change for the better.
