I loved how the big bad bogeymen we all know (Palantir, Facebook) are mentioned a few times (Google is never even mentioned), but the anonymous organizations that many of us would never give a second thought to- Thomson-Reuters, the DMV, court records, and a bewildering variety of smaller data brokers like Appriss Safety, Vigilant Solutions, R.L. Polk etc. - are the real threats. Reverse engineering how ERO agents found and identified their targets like this is really important for showing how minimal our privacy really is.
> I loved how the big bad bogeymen we all know (Palantir, Facebook) are mentioned a few times (Google is never even mentioned), but the anonymous organizations that many of us would never give a second thought to- Thomson-Reuters, the DMV, court records
Outside the HN bubble, Palantir is far less recognized as a intrusive entity from which security services might get your private info than the DMV, court records (and other already-part-of-the-government entities/processes) are...
Heck Palantir is much less recognized as even a thing that exists than those other things are recognized as threats.
That wasn't searching for "Palantir ICE", that was a straight google news for just Palantir, and the first 20-odd hits had 5 specifically about the companies relationship to ICE. No other customer mentioned, it's all IPO and ICE.
I loved how the big bad bogeymen we all know (Palantir, Facebook) are mentioned a few times (Google is never even mentioned), but the anonymous organizations that many of us would never give a second thought to- Thomson-Reuters, the DMV, court records, and a bewildering variety of smaller data brokers like Appriss Safety, Vigilant Solutions, R.L. Polk etc. - are the real threats. Reverse engineering how ERO agents found and identified their targets like this is really important for showing how minimal our privacy really is.