data vs metadata what is more difficult to handle when cond

data vs metadata - what is more difficult to handle when conducting a digital investigation? Why?

Solution

Meta data is a data that explains other data, in short we can say metadata contains information about other data. So while conducting digital investigation handling data will be more difficult compared to metadata, because it is easy to handle data which is precise, compact and more meaningful. Metadata is like indexing about data that is why it is easy to handle meta data while conducting digital investigation. Metadata is used to create program, procedures, controls and queries to manipulate data in database. Suppose you are looking for something in a book what you will do is first checkout the index whether that topic/chapter is available inside that book or not and if it is available you will look for page number on which the content which you are looking for is present and then you will visit that page. Similarly in digital investigation first metadata will be checked and then data will be manipulated accordingly. That is why it is difficult to handle data compare to metadata. Please checkout one more definition of metadata below:

Metadata is also known as the System Catalog. It describes how, when and by whom certain data was collected as well as the format and context of the data. A data dictionary is a centralized collection of data information.