Your emails say a lot about you. That’s the focus of a recent MIT project called Immersion, which analyzes your email metadata and visualizes it to create a detailed picture of your relationships and emailing habits.
Email metadata includes things like who you’re sending messages to, how often, what’s in the subject lines, and who else is CC’d. Contrast metadata with email content, which is the actual text of your emails themselves. Metadata may not sound like much, but when analyzed over the lifespan of an email account and thousands of messages, it can be very revealing.
Email metadata. Image: TheGuardian.com
For example, I analyzed my 2.5 year-old Abine email account with Immersion. Looking at the chart below, it’s immediately clear who the people I talk to most are…and who they talk to most:
It’s not much of a leap to assume that the people I talk to most are also the most important to my work.
I also got some overall stats, showing that I’ve sent almost 50,000 emails to about 430 people:
I also had Immersion analyze my personal email account, which I’ve had for over 6 years:
I was amazed to see how closely each colored group represented the people in a different an area of my life. Green are my friends from high school and college (I’m lucky that they all became friends themselves, so the connection shows that they all email each other). Red are my law school friends. Blue are my family members.
Again, all this is visible from “simple” email metadata, info that the NSA has easy access to. The next time that someone tells you that you shouldn’t care that the NSA is spying on you because they “only get metadata,” you can show them Immersion. Metadata matters.
If you want stronger privacy for your email, check out VanishingRights.com, which is pushing to ramp up out-of-date privacy laws (specifically the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, or ECPA). You can also use a disposable email service like MaskMe to help blur the metadata picture that emerges from your email records.
Hi From Bermuda,
It would be Really Great if Abine allowed Android Phone users to download Mask Me for email and have the option to purchase the Premium Version.
As for the question: “What does my E-mail reveal about me?” I know what my emails SAY (I do try to be polite.Its good business. AND THE RIGHT THING to do.) I use a caption that states: This E-mail does not contain any embedded image’s or data. I include a watermark to authenticate my E-mail’s. That’s all it is. Seriously. On the other hand, when I want to include “embedded data,” (usually textual in format), it’s not to be secretive, it’s about efficiency. It’s amazing how much text you can cram into a digital microdot. Using different optical/acoustic frequencies, one page is like an iceberg; Most of it is not seen, unless you have the “key” (more like an address/identity) specific to the technology used. Or under water, in which case unless your in a submarine, my E-mail is not all that important. I have an ego, but it’s not THAT ridiculous. God willing.
As for how I do this? Hopefully, that will soon be proprietary. And any God/god has nothing to do with it. When I screw up, it’s MY fault. But I have no problem attributing any success to a creator. It’s just very shallow, IMO.
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