Experiment shows connecting names with phone metadata is easy

(Phys.org) —What kind of telephone activity does the NSA collect on people? Metadata. How harmful is it to your privacy health? Nada. It is only metadata. That has been the line drawn in the sand by government supporters of NSA activities in monitoring calls. Now a Stanford study by two researchers at Stanford has its own message: Individuals can be easily identified through phone numbers. Connecting metadata with individual names is not just easy; they found it was "trivial." Jonathan Mayer along with Patrick Mutchler, the researchers, earlier this week on the blog Web Policy, which covers technology, policy, and law, posted their findings under the headline, "MetaPhone: The NSA's Got Your Number."

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