UPDATE: looks like this is being discussed in a similar thread linking to nature.com. See: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5871269" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5871269</a><p><pre><code> --
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Very cool paper, but the title is wrong on this link, and here is why, it [the paper - 1] did not predict the scandal. It predicted the method by which the NSA can uniquely identify persons from four points of metadata. It also predicted this in 2012, but the NSA has been doing this since ~2007 or earlier.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130325/srep01376/pdf/srep01376.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.nature.com/srep/2013/130325/srep01376/pdf/srep013...</a>
This idea that the NSA must resort to statistical inference techniques in order to associate call metadata with individual Americans is ludicrous.<p>Has Foreign Policy never heard of Caller ID?<p>Why are people going to such mental contortions to avoid the plain facts?: They. Are. Spying. On. Americans.