Litigator's Guide to Metadata - Codemantra.net

A lawyer’s ability to advise a client about how to find, preserve and produce metadata, or to objectto its production and discuss or forge agreements about metadata, hinges upon how well he orshe understands metadata.It’s Just Ones and ZeroesUnderstanding metadata and its importance in e-discovery begins with awareness that electronicdata is, fundamentally, just a series of ones and zeroes. Though you’ve surely heard that before,you may not have considered the implications of information being expressed so severely. Thereare no words. There are no spaces or punctuation. There is no delineation of any kind.How, then, do computers convert this unbroken sequence of ones and zeroes into information thatmakes sense to human beings? There has to be some key, some coherent structure imposed todivine their meaning. But where does it come from? We can’t derive it from the data if we can’tfirst make sense of the data.It’s EncodedConsider that written English conveys all information using fifty-two upper- and lowercase lettersof the alphabet, ten numerical digits (0-9), some punctuation marks and a few formattingconventions, like spaces, line feeds, pages, etc. You can think of these collectively as a seventyoreighty-signal ―code.‖ In turn, much of the same information could be communicated or stored inMorse code, where a three-signal code composed of dot, dash and pause serves as the entire―alphabet.‖We’ve all seen movies where a tapping sound is heard andsomeone says, ―Listen! It’s Morse code!‖ Suddenly, thetapping is an encoded message because someone hasfurnished metadata (―It’s Morse code!‖) about the data (tap,tap, pause, tap). Likewise, all those ones and zeroes on acomputer only make sense when other ones and zeroes—themetadata—communicate the framework for parsing andinterpreting the data stream.All those ones and zeroeson a computer only makesense when other ones andzeroes—the metadata—communicate theframework for parsing andinterpreting the datastream.So, we need data about the data. We need information that tells us the data’s encoding scheme.We need to know when information with one purpose ends and different information begins. Andwe need to know the context, purpose, timeliness and origin of information for it to help us. That’smetadata.The Metadata ContinuumSometimes metadata is elemental, like the contents of a computer’s master file table detailingwhere the sequences of one and zeroes for particular files begin and end. This metadata isinvisible to a user without special tools called hex editors capable of peering through the walls ofthe Windows interface into the utilitarian plumbing of the operating system. Without file locationmetadata, every time a user tries to access a file or program, the operating system would have toexamine every one and zero to find it. It’d be like looking for someone by knocking on every doorin town!3