Even basic phone logs can reveal deeply personal information, researchers find; Guardian, 5/16/16

Ian Sample, Guardian; Even basic phone logs can reveal deeply personal information, researchers find:

"The results highlight the extraordinary power of telephone metadata – the number called, when, and for how long – particularly when it is paired with public information available from services such as Google, Yelp and Facebook. The value of the data, which is not subject to the same legal protections as the content of people’s communications, has long been recognised by the security services. As Stewart Baker, the former general counsel at the US National Security Agency put it in the aftermath of Edward Snowden’s revelations: “Metadata absolutely tells you everything about somebody’s life.”

Patrick Mutchler, a computer security researcher at Stanford, said that while the power of metadata was understood by those gathering the information, the public was largely in the dark because so few published studies have revealed how rich the data are. “That makes it difficult for people with strong opinions about these programs to fight them. Now we have hard evidence we can point to that didn’t exist in the past,” he said...

“All of this should be taken as an indication of what is possible with two graduate students and limited resources,” said Mutchler, who argues that the findings should make policymakers think twice before authorising mass surveillance programs. “Large-scale metadata surveillance programs, like the NSA’s, will necessarily expose highly confidential information about ordinary citizens,” the scientists write, adding: “To strike an appropriate balance between national security and civil liberties, future policymaking must be informed by input from relevant sciences.”"