Wikileaks and Metadata
January 7, 2011
ITReseller’s “Working to Prevent Being the Next Wikileak? Don’t Forget the Metadata.” is worth a look. The write up calls attention to indexing as part of an organization’s buttoning up its document access procedures.
ITReseller says this about metadata:
A key part of the solution is metadata – data about data (or information about information) – and the technology needed to leverage it. When it comes to identifying sensitive data and protecting access to it, a number of types of metadata are relevant: user and group information, permissions information, access activity, and sensitive content indicators. A key benefit to leveraging metadata for preventing data loss is that it can be used to focus and accelerate the data classification process.. In many instances the ability to leverage metadata can speed up the process by up to 90 percent, providing a shortlist of where an organisation’s most sensitive data is, where it is most at risk, who has access to it and who shouldn’t. Each file and folder, and user or group, has many metadata elements associated with it at any given point in time – permissions, timestamps, location in the file system, etc. – and the constantly changing files and folders generate streams of metadata, especially when combined with access activity. These combined metadata streams become a torrent of critical metadata. To capture, analyze, store and understand so much metadata requires metadata framework technology specifically designed for this purpose.
Some good points here, but what raised our eyebrows was the thought that organizations have not yet figured out how to “index”. Automation is a wonderful thing; however, the uses of metadata are often anchored in humans. One can argue that humans need play no part in indexing or metadata.
We don’t agree. Maybe organizations will take a fresh look at adding trained staff to tackle metadata. By closing in house libraries, many organizations lost the expertise needed to deal with some of the indexing issues touched upon in the article.
Stephen E Arnold, January 7, 2011
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Nogacom a start up company develop a very nice tool called nogalogic, which handle metadata and also automate index.
worth to check.