Traffic analysis is the process of intercepting and examining messages in order to deduce information from patterns in communication, which can be performed even when the messages are encrypted. In general, the greater the number of messages observed, or even intercepted and stored, the more can be inferred from the traffic. Traffic analysis can be performed in the context of military intelligence, counter-intelligence, or pattern-of-life analysis, and is a concern in computer security.
Traffic analysis /meta data can tell everything about an individual without ever knowing real world identities. Where we shop, how we vote, or if we vote, why. If a subject's identity matters, it is trivial to 'unmask'and identify by name, social security number or any other registry system.
But there's no reason to care about our real world identities. An opponent doesn't need to have a name to manipulate an individual news feed and to provide specially prepared media content that will prompt the target to voluntarily choose a given course of action - to act and think in ways harmful to that individual and the community they are part of.
Media news content can make us angry or sad, stimulate us sexually, make us recall old grievances, encourage us to drink or take drugs, make us feel more threatened by, or less conscious of, race, religion and economic status. Using out metadata allows marketers and digital enemies to modify that news and media content that shapes our beliefs and forms our understanding of the world.
To defeat traffic analysis and remove the possibility of this type of control we need to engineer a specific type of advanced network.
An identity based secure network which use a series of specially configured servers called a "mix net" which scrambles the data of millions of users messages at the same time; encrypting, mixing and routing the messages through multiple servers, re mixing and encrypting at each stage, making it impossible for others to determine where a message came from, defeating "traffic analysis."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mix_network
(The former data limitation of mixnets has been largely overcome.)
Mix nets are only one component of a secure information distribution system, one that the world needs to secure our common information supply and prevent the most common and widely used forms of surveillance, manipulation and social control.
The chief requirement of a secure network is identity. We need a single, permanent lifetime identity in virtual space for the same reason we need one in the real world.
If our friends or neighbours could switch identities and appear to be someone else in the real world we would not know who to trust. We'd be surrounded by shapeshifters -like the internet -where there is no fixed or permanent identity. On an anonymous insecure network it is possible to spoof credentials and present a convincing and deceptive appearance to cheat and manipulate others.
We need a single permanent life time identity - but we also need assured anonymity.
There are lost of good reasons for someone to want to be anonymous. To make a gift. To blow the whistle on crime. To buy and sell without giving your real world identity to a merchant who sells it to others.
On a secure "identity based" network it is possible to do everything anonymously - credentials can be split many ways. If an anonymous user wants to offer proof of expertise while remaining anonymous it is possible to do that. We can display credentials and others can see they are real without revealing any more of ourselves.
Networks are not secure for anybody until they are secure for everybody.
We need to build the information system of the future as an international engineering project, so the safety and engineering are open to all the nations who will depend on this infrastructure to support civilization.
We can not allow an enemy to capture our information systems again. The way to prevent this happening is to make the network a public utility owned and controlled by users used to provide media content provided by trusted individuals or companies, unmanipulated by anyone else. Secure for all, because it is secure from all, even the people who build it.