Two Stanford Students Reveal NSA Metadata Threat Is Bigger Than Admitted

One of the main issues concerning  metadata is  that data  does not overtly identify the caller or the content of the call.  Two graduate students at Stanford University decided to  conduct a small study and quickly determined that it was irrelevant whether the NSA database of metadata had names, because the associated names were readily obtainable. The study was conducted using 5,000 phone numbers obtained from interested participants via crowd sourcing. Using just Facebook, Google Places and Yelp, the two were able to put names with 27.1% of the numbers. 

They then took 100 random names from their crowdsourced list, 13 of which had names attached from the  social media hunt, and ran various Google searches on them. They nailed another 60 names. Then they ran the 100 numbers through Intelius, a cheap (and not always reliable) online aggregator, and snagged another 18 names.

So after spending a few hours of research and even fewer dollars, the student snoopers identified names for 91 out of 100 numbers.

Their conclusion? “If a few academic researchers can get this far this quickly, it’s difficult to believe the NSA would have any trouble identifying the overwhelming majority of American phone numbers.”