"Using Metadata to Find Paul Revere"
From Kieran Healy:
London, 1772.
I have been asked by my superiors to give a brief demonstration of
the surprising effectiveness of even the simplest techniques of the
new-fangled Social Networke Analysis in the pursuit of those
who would seek to undermine the liberty enjoyed by His Majesty’s
subjects. This is in connection with the discussion of the role of
“metadata” in certain recent events and the assurances of various respectable parties
that the government was merely “sifting through this so-called
metadata” and that the “information acquired does not include the
content of any communications”. I will show how we can use this
“metadata” to find key persons involved in terrorist groups operating
within the Colonies at the present time. I shall also endeavour to show
how these methods work in what might be called a relational manner.
The analysis in this report is based on information gathered by our field agent Mr David Hackett Fischer and published in an Appendix to his lengthy report to the government.
As you may be aware, Mr Fischer is an expert and respected field Agent
with a broad and deep knowledge of the colonies. I, on the other hand,
have made my way from Ireland with just a little quantitative training—I
placed several hundred rungs below the Senior Wrangler during my time
at Cambridge—and I am presently employed as a junior analytical scribe
at ye olde National Security Administration. Sorry, I mean the Royal
Security Administration. And I should emphasize again that I know
nothing of current affairs in the colonies. However, our current
Eighteenth Century beta of PRISM has been used to collect and analyze
information on more than two hundred and sixty persons (of varying
degrees of suspicion) belonging variously to seven different
organizations in the Boston area.
Rest assured that we only collected metadata on these
people, and no actual conversations were recorded or meetings
transcribed. All I know is whether someone was a member of an
organization or not. Surely this is but a small encroachment on the
freedom of the Crown’s subjects. I have been asked, on the basis of this
poor information, to present some names for our field agents in the
Colonies to work with. It seems an unlikely task....MUCH MORE
