Karp in a Paella: Palantir Banned in Spain
July 10, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
What does one do with a snapping carp? Put it in a basket. Let it run out of fish frenzy and then, “Order up.” A tasty paella de mariscos, right?
Okay, MidJourney. Good enough I suppose.
I thought about carp when I read “Spain Orders Blacklist of US Tech Giant Palantir From Public and Private Companies.” The write up in the Clash Report has a snappy subtitle too:
The Spanish government has blacklisted U.S. data analytics giant Palantir Technologies from public and private state-controlled companies due to growing concerns over the potential misuse of classified national security information.
Palantir and its seeing stones may have forgotten that Francisco Franco evidenced a keen level of paranoia. Some government officials may be tinged with some of that leader’s concerns.
The write up states:
the [Spanish] prime minister’s office communicated the ban to listed companies to prevent any contracts that could jeopardize Spanish national sovereignty. The political intervention has already disrupted advanced procurement pipelines, including a near-finalized project with Navantia and a negotiated collaboration agreement with the Guardia Civil that was vetoed by Interior Minister Fernando Grande-Marlaska. The restrictions mirror recent regulatory and political pushback against Palantir elsewhere in Europe.
What makes this announcement semi-interesting is tucked toward the end of the write up; to wit:
The firm holds a €16.5 million contract signed in 2023 with the Armed Forces Intelligence Center (CIFAS), which is scheduled to expire this upcoming November. Military leadership, including the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Navy, has lobbied Defense Minister Margarita Robles to renew the contract, citing the platform’s operational superiority.
In Spain, the military is a reasonably influential entity. The question becomes, “Will the Spanish military get to keep their next generation, super duper, forward deployed engineering loving intelware system?”
Several observations:
- In June 2026, France dumped Palantir either shortly before he left a “summit” or as the wheels of Air Force One left the tarmac. The timing, based on my experience working in France, cannot be dismissed with a puff of breath and the phrase “C’était un pur hasard.”
- Spain’s government seems to be divided on an important issue.
- Palantir’s seeing stone must not have been working because it entered into a deal that should have been easy to tag with the key word “problematic.” Hey, I thought the seeing stone thing was real, not a puff pastry cooked by one of those French chefs in Madrid.
For now, the carp is in the basket. What will the fish’s fate be? I don’t have a seeing stone, but a fish kept too long in the canasta might expire and leave a telltale stench behind.
Stephen E Arnold, July 10, 2026
Palantir: A Techy Fish Has Been Hooked and Fights Like Crazy
July 7, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Palantir? Meh.
Sorry. I just cannot evidence the excitement many evidence for a company founded in 2003. My dinobaby recollection is that it used the lingo of intelware companies, open source software, and some orthogonal metaphors from the pen of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien. The good professor was in my opinion eccentric. Keep in mind that this is among a faculty composed of other eccentrics and possibly just killer whale crazy.
A fighting Karp resists being converted to high value fast food fish sandwiches. Thanks, MidJourney. Lame, but good enough.
Palantir, the seeing stone stuff, and the injections of philosophical thinking from esteemed thinkers like René Girard, who was into me-too thinking; that is, just imitate something that works and go for it, baby. I bumped into Palantir as part of research project related to the firm that developed Analysts Notebook, one of the precursors to today’s policeware and intelware revolution. I poked around and learned that Palantir was accused of doing some me-too work related to the file format of Analysts Notebook. Well, the Karps settled and wrangled the information related to the dance moves sealed. None of the Aires de Milonga documentation. The dance steps have been disappeared.
With that, I just thought about other intelware / policeware outfits. Believe me, these companies sprout like weeds in a field in Lexington, Kentucky.
But then I spotted in my newsfeed this story:
Yep, that’s the title. I want to be clear. I did not read the “nine point post on X.” Sorry, Mr. Karp. I simply scanned the story and noted this passage:
The sharpest barb targets the frontier labs. Palantir attacks “tokenmaxxing,” the habit of spending as much as possible on AI. It calls the practice “the addictive feeling of false progress.” Heavy token use, it argues, rewards throwaway scripts over solid software. Then comes the tell: “There is a reason why those selling tokens refuse to charge based on value.” That is a direct shot at OpenAI, Anthropic, and the rest. Their businesses run on metered, per-token pricing. Chief executive Alex Karp put it more crudely in a follow-up. “Why are they charging for tokens?” he asked, if the value is really there.
My question, “Why has this pricing method hooked a Karp?”
Palantir announced that it was an AI company in a series of small printed advertisements in the Wall Street Journal. Its energetic forward deployed engineers and business development professionals worked every conduit into the US government’s procurement process. The company pooh-baahed. It lectured. It published dialectics. It fiddled the names of its “technology.” In short, it did everything possible to make its 23 year slog to fame and stock market fortune a reality.
Why is the Karp thrashing? I wish to offer several dinobaby observations:
- The current school of AI models and their pilot fish do much of the “work” that Planetarians purport to do for their clients.
- Pushback against the Palantir approach is becoming more evident in the EU and in some Hershey Chocolate type of deployments.
- Palantir, like the work my former blue chip consulting firm employer did, is wildly expensive. Value, of course, is in the eye of the beholder or in the mind of the person who bought into the sales pitch.
- Getting snagged induces stress.
Net net: The Karp is frenzied and fighting. Some fish do not thrive in the hull of a panga. I assume this is a temporary aberration from the normal operating procedure of a Palantirian. Thrashing Karp can be a net full of trouble if you get what AI mean?
Stephen E Arnold, July 7, 2026
Palantir Gets a Burned Baguette de Tradition. C’est Domage, En Effet
June 24, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
Bonjour, that’s the magic word in a boulangerie. Ignore the unwritten rules of doing the France thing, and you may find yourself puzzled why you get a burned baguette. Yep, too bad. That’s the way it is in Paris where I worked for a while.
I read “French Spies Drop AI Giant Palantir over US Overreliance Fears.” The subtitle to the France24 story states:
France’s domestic intelligence agency will stop working with American AI giant Palantir, Prime Minister Sebastien Lecornu said Tuesday, as European nations increasingly doubt the dependability of the United States.
Several points in the headline and subtitle caught my attention. First, the timing of the announcement coincided with the G7 meeting. Few of the government officials could miss the message of the termination or what I call the “burned baguette.” Second, Palantir is described as an AI company. I thought that Palantir was suggesting that it was not an AI company; it was more of an integrator and consulting outfit. Oh, well. AI can get lost in translation to IA. In fact, the news story says, “But Palantir insists it simply provides powerful data processing services that can help surface nuggets of useful information in the flood available to government agencies and big companies.”
Thanks, MidJourney. Quite a struggle to get a bakery scene with a burned baguette. Wow.
The news report continues:
The decision by the Direction Generale de la Securite Interieure (DGSI) to end its contract with Palantir follows Washington’s move last week to cut off access to AI firm Anthropic’s powerful Fable model to non-American users. France should “not depend on the good will of certain partners, who are capable of turning off the access tap” for artificial intelligence, Lecornu said.
The inquiries from France24 were ignored by Palantir as I write this at 9 16 am US Eastern time on June 16, 2026. My hunch is that Palantir will emit a statement, possibly on the twitter musk service. In the last few days, X.com has contained important essays and policy signals from Satya Nadella (Microsoft) and David Sachs (Craft Ventures and the US government). Therefore, Alex Karp may take to the X.com service to reply to France24. If this were to happen, I would find it mildly interesting that X.com is a subject of criminal scrutiny by the French judiciary. This is the same outfit pressuring Pavel Durov to tweak his Telegram service which some organizations find useful in their financial activities.
Several questions:
- Are the Five Eyes squinting at one another suspiciously?
- Europe represents an important economic engine. For some US commercial enterprises, access to those prospects and customers is probably important. Buying local could have some economic downside for certain US firms.
- In addition to business permits, are there other bureaucratic brakes that can be applied to US firms?
Net net: If more burned baguettes turn up in one’s filet à provisions, that’s a fairly clear signal in my experience.
Stephen E Arnold, June 24, 2026
Who Blew the Whistle on BlackCore
June 23, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
One of the more interesting Israeli intelware service firms is BlackCore. I know most people have not heard of the company and the firm does not exactly put up billboards on Route 101 from San Francisco to the Plastic Fantastic of Silicon Valley. However, information from France about a firm that does the Cambridge Analytica social media manipulation thing has been reported in stories from Russia to Yahoo News (“Secrets of BlackCore: Israel’s Information Warfare Now Has Few Limits or Boundaries”). In the US the news appears to pivot on sports, and that is one interesting characteristic of knowledge flow in the US of A today.
Thanks, Venice.ai. You did not hang, time out, or tell me my image prompt violated your perception of proper generated imagery. Quite a surprise!
BlackCore, also rumored to do business as Mycelium, uses a range of methods to shape or weaponized certain information. The approach is standard operating procedure for lots of companies, independent contractors, and PR outfits. Therefore, it is difficult for me to get excited about this flurry of news stories. BlackCore and its inauthentic information angle may have blipped French radar during recent elections. But I am in rural Kentucky and relying on my experience about what catches the eye of French intelligence professionals. In general, it is not a great idea to light up their radar. Things happen. Case in point: The flood of articles outing the hard working team at BlackCore and its affiliates.
I would point out that some of the information may have originated intentionally or by “accident” from an intel outfit in the French government. One of my team told me that the original chunk of information about BlackCore evolved from a unit possibly affiliated with Secretariat-General for Defense and National Security (SGDSN). This outfit reports directly to the French prime minister.
Several questions occur to me:
- Why is Meta fixated on NSO Group? That is, in my opinion, a precursor to more sophisticated intelware operations. Perhaps Meta does not know who is doing interesting things on Meta. The Zuck just falls back on his perception about the Pegasus crowd.
- What sparked the flurry of news stories about an outfit that has done a pretty good job of remaining off the grid occupied by journalists, do-gooders, and civilians? Why now?
- What will be done about BlackCore and similar entities operating in other countries; for example, China and Russia? My thought is that not much has been done and not much will be done. The fact that Cambridge Analytica left a game plan for every misinformation operation worldwide is one of its stellar contributions. Why was it allowed to operate with considerable freedom for several years?
Net net: Snappy name aside, BlackCore is just one of a flock of similar intelware operations. A bit of poking around on LinkedIn-type services provide plenty of hints about who is doing what.
PS. Last time I was in France I tried to get a hat with the entity name “Viginum” on it. I failed.
Stephen E Arnold, June 23, 2026
Is the Oura Ring Thing a Handy Dandy Data Sucker Upper?
June 5, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I read a zero-slop article titled “Oura Says It Gets Government Demands for User Data. Will It Share How Many?” The Oura is a fitness device that gathers data about its wearer. The idea is that wearing a smart ring is better than wearing a big, clunky watch, toting a super sized mobile phone, or just being a person of interest with a black SUV following along as you go from home to Starbuck’s to your workplace in Managua.
The article includes some interesting factoids; for example:
- In 2026, “… health wearable maker Oura became embroiled in a social media shitstorm after inking a deal with the Department of Defense and Palantir.”
- …”many (if not most) companies design their systems to allow their staff to access user data, perhaps for troubleshooting customer issues or because it was the easiest and cheapest setup for a once cash-strapped startup.”
- … “Oura data is not end-to-end encrypted.”
- “Oura has sold over 5.5 million rings to date” …
But the most intriguing comment in the article, in my opinion, is this passage:
A spokesperson told me at the time [September 2025] that while Oura does not publish a transparency report, the company said it was “actively evaluating how to share aggregate data in a way that maintains security and does not introduce risk to our members.” It’s been eight months, dear reader. I recently reached out to Oura again to see if it would release a transparency report, and after several follow-up emails, the once-responsive Oura has not yet replied to any of my inquiries, or committed to releasing the numbers.
The pattern of taking an inquiry and offering a vague comment and then going radio silence is not unusual when [a] a firm is working with certain government entities, [b] lacks the PR savvy to spin a response that does not create more problems for a company, or [c] has something it does not want to be known by its 5.5 million customers, investigative journalists, or its staff.
Which is it? I have no clue. But like South Korea, each step in data acquisition seems to lead to an us versus them. The “us” are the organizations and professionals working for or in government entities. The “them” is any individual or group that allows paranoia or a threat to a mission to exist.
The longest journey begins with a single data broker. Where does it end? Ponder that.
Stephen E Arnold, June 5, 2026
US Intel Agency Wants Active Intelligence 24×7
May 27, 2026
Space News has an interesting story about how the: “NGA Pushes AI Adoption As Demand Grows For ‘Always-On’ Intelligence.” It has the subheading:
“The demand signal to know more with precision and timeliness is going to continue to grow…”
What does that mean?
I interpreted the statement to mean that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency is embracing smart software. Plus, the pursuit of “continuous, real-time” insights seems to be locked in. However, this begs the question: “Won’t there be latency in a mapping systems.”
My experience suggests that marketing has nudged the NGA toward AI dependence and a pursuit for something that may like the Silicon Valley hype killer. That’s unobtanium. Zap. The quest fails due to the impossibility of achieving real-time inputs and outputs on existing systems.
Because AI has readily been adopted, it has made expectations very high for geospatial intelligence. The expectations are that near-constant awareness, compressing the time between data collection and analysis, is possible. Expectations seem to be outpacing the ability to deliver. The hope is that AI will do the impossible. The write up states:
“A key area of development is the use of multimodal AI models. These are systems that combine multiple data types into a single analytic pipeline. In geospatial intelligence, that can include optical satellite imagery, synthetic aperture radar, infrared data and non-imagery sources such as text reports or signals metadata. The approach is designed to increase analysts’ productivity. Optical imagery can be obscured by weather or darkness, while radar data produces a different representation of the same scene. By integrating inputs, multimodal systems can maintain analytic continuity when one source is degraded.”
Let’s talk real beef, not lab-growth flank steak. AI is a powerful technology it’s not a magic wand. It hallucinates and now some of the supporters of AI have forgotten that their systems make errors. A mapping error can be a bit of a problem when a kinetic is involved.
Whitney Grace, May 27, 2026
BAIT Does Not Attract the UK Fish
May 25, 2026
Is American big tech becoming a bit of a problem in the UK? Probably not, some of the BAIT folks would say. BAIT is my jargon for big AI tech. Perhaps “attitude” may be more of an issue? The do-what-we-tell-you approach may be unpalatable in some countries. After working in the UK on a number of projects over the years, in my experience saying “excuse me” when someone steps on your shoes indicates a different mental approach that stepping on a person’s toe and snarling excuse me at the individual whose 10 pound shoe shine has been besmirched.
Thanks, Midjourney. I did not know knees could speak. Good enough, of course.
I noted a BBC report a couple of weeks ago. The story “Millions’ Of Pounds Saved By Replacing Palantir Tech In Refugee System” suggests that the Palantir Technologies Tolkien infused intelware was not working for The Homes for Ukraine. That group replaced Palantir’s seeing stone with software designed by its own team. What began as a free service morphed into a US government procurement scale invoice.
Instead of paying the bill, the Ministry of Housing, Communities, and Local Government (MHCLG) said its new in-house system was equipped to handle high standards of security and was more flexible. The BBC pointed out that is was proud to have supported the project and helped to resettle 157,000 refugees displaced from the Russia “special operation.” The decision to step away from Palantir was celebrated:
“That message may be particularly welcome to those who have criticized Palantir and its contracts across UK public services – including with the NHS, the Ministry of Defense (MoD), the Financial Conduct Authority and 11 police forces. Some argue the firm’s success is because its tech is badly needed and works well. But others contend Palantir’s involvement with US immigration enforcement and Israel’s military, as well as the beliefs of its two most prominent founders, make it an unsuitable partner. There are also concerns the UK is relying too much on large US tech suppliers.”
On May 22, 20266, the Guardian online service published “Palantir Hits Back at Sadiq Khan after £50m Contract with Met Police Blocked.” The article reported:
Palantir has accused Sadiq Khan of “putting politics above public safety” after the London mayor blocked its £50m contract with the Metropolitan police in a move that has also led to tensions inside Labor over its involvement with the US tech company. Louis Mosley, who heads Palantir in the UK and Europe, accused Khan of politicizing procurement after he rejected a two-year deal for Scotland Yard to use AI to process intelligence in criminal investigations, as first revealed by the Guardian. Mosley said: “What Londoners value is not being mugged, not being raped by a serving police officer.”
According the the article, Palantir has been raising the hackles of some in the UK. Here’s how the Guardian presents Palantir’s sales suavity:
Last year, when the company’s chief executive, Alex Karp, was challenged that “Palantir kills Palestinians” in Gaza, he said: “Mostly terrorists, that’s true.” Khan’s stance puts him at odds with the UK government which has a £330m NHS England deal with Palantir and a £240m deal with the Ministry of Defense.
Instead of beating the anti-BAIT tambourine, the article presents this:
Ministers say they are aware of the need for less reliance on foreign AI companies as the technology becomes increasingly applied in the delivery of public services. Kyle said: “We need to have more British AI companies that can do those kinds of things, which is why I’ve taken equity stakes in British AI firms and British tech firms, so that we can scale them up much, much faster.”
I think this is part of the “pardon me” offered by the person who is looking at a ruined shoe shine. The polite phrase does not mean, “Hey, you baseball-cap wearing American, I am at fault.” Nope, the excuse me means that the rude oaf is a social menace. But it sounds nice, doesn’t it?
Stephen E Arnold, May 25, 2926
Take the Information. Then What? Spy, Sell Ads, Extort People?
April 24, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I just read a content marketing piece that is the equivalent of the Gloria in a choral mass titled “Google’s New Deep Research and Deep Research Max Agents Can Search the Web and Your Private Data.” If you are not into choral masses, the Gloria is a hymn of praise and thanksgiving to God. An 18th century Gloria would have been joyful; the Gloria about I shall comment is smarmy. Once I present my reaction to “Google’s New Deep Research and Deep Research Max Agents Can Search the Web and Your Private Data.”
Here’s a dinobaby wondering what the heck is in his email after a 40 year work career. What business is it of Google’s to process these data. Forty years ago, information that was unclassified may be classified today. What’s the purpose of this? Palantir moved in HQ twice in a short time. California to Colorado, Colorado to Florida. Can’t these people stick in one place and contribute to the community. Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
This essay is long one, and it blends an improvement in Google’s AI capabilities. That’s okay. The description strikes me as overwrought. What caused me to stand up and rage at the empty home office was the rhetoric and tone. Google’s agent can search the Web (or what’s left of it after paywalls, AI slop, and information weaponization). But the big news is that Google can and will process your files, cloud resources, data sets. With these data tucked into your profile on Mother Google, the kindergarten-color outfit will output a report with charts.
With a mindless repetition, this baroque content marketing write up presents the innovation as progress. Consultants, med tech professionals, or any knowledge worker has the Google and its AI standing at your side. The good news for Google is that the content resides on Mother Google’s servers. This is a feature for you. Trust Mother Google.
Google is normalizing its access to billions of users’ information. Google will do a much better job of presenting “your” information than you, a mere Google user and Google advertising consumer, could ever achieve. The essay blasts Gloria structure for Googzilla. Deep integration, broad personal information, and a hoped-for dependence on Mother Google. Google is just doing what is logical. What’s the problem?
Answer: I don’t trust BAIT (big AI tech) outfits. These firms do what they want, dismiss annoying regulators, pay lobbyists, and follow Mother Google’s vision of what is right, true, and fair.
I am annoyed because a few days ago, I spotted a weird X.com post. I also read “Palantir: Why Its Political Manifesto Is Causing a Stir.” Let me quote from the German publication DW.com:
Economist and former Greek Finance Minister Yanis Varoufakis shared the original post with the comment: “If Evil could tweet, this is what it would!”
What’s interesting is that these Palantirians have some of their fellow travelers in influential positions. How is that working out? From my point of view, it is working out for some Palantirians; for example, Palantir, an intelware vendor, is now protecting America’s foods. Hey, isn’t there supposed to be a government agency riding herd on beverages that feature lots of caffeine?
Here’s another statement from DW.com:
Dutch populism researcher Cas Mudde described Palantir’s thread as a call for a world dominated by an authoritarian United States and controlled by tech surveillance companies, labelling it “Technofascism pure!” On LinkedIn, Mudde said its worldview disqualifies Palantir as a business partner. Europe should not only halt any new cooperation but “should divest from this technofascist company ASAP!”
When I consider the smarmy Google write up with the techno-militant attitude of Palantir, the issue becomes more serious than indexing emails.
Stephen E Arnold, April 24, 2026
Palantir Technologies: Nicked by Sharp Marketing and Metaphors
March 24, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
I learned about an article by reading a March 13, 2026 report titled “It Beggars Belief: MoD Sources Warn Palantir’s Role at Heart of Government Is Threat to UK’s Security.” The write up says:
Palantir, the US AI surveillance and security firm with hundreds of millions of pounds in UK government contracts, poses “a national security threat to the UK”, according to two anonymous high-level sources working with the Ministry of Defence.
My problem is that the sources are anonymous. The UK has struggled with certain types of software. One example comes to mind: The British Post Office. Another is the National Health Services’ arm wrestling with software. Plus, I am not familiar with the online publication The Nerve.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
One of the anonymous sources in The Nerve’s write up allegedly said:
“Allowing a single entity, foreign or domestic, to have such far-reaching, pervasive access is inherently dangerous. How our national cybersecurity center has allowed this beggars belief.”
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, allegedly told The Nerve:
“If the US has detailed insights across everything that the MoD does, then in the event of us being recalcitrant about helping the US bomb some country, they can remind us – subtly or unsubtly – what they might do in retaliation. “The Ministry of Defence or the prime minister must have some inkling of the risks, but now we find ourselves hitched to an erratic, dangerous, megalomaniac power in denial of its own limits. If Palantir knows everything, it just gives them huge extra leverage.”
What’s interesting is that a personage using the alias sschueller provided a pointer to a February x, 2026, article in the Swiss online publication Republik. Its article “How Tenaciously Palantir Courted Switzerland” provided some additional color about Palantir Technologies.
Here’s are some quotes from the Republik write up. Are they accurate? I have no idea. I find them interesting, however.
“Palantir is here to disrupt. (…) and, when it’s necessary, to scare our enemies and occasionally kill them.”
and
“The rise of the West has not been made possible by the superiority of its ideas, values, or religion, but rather by its superiority in the use of organized violence.”
and
CTO Shyam Sankar said that Palantir products help “optimize the kill chain.”
I find Palantir somewhat amusing. The company named itself after a seeing stone, a fictional creation in the fantasy novel, The Lord of the Rings by J..R.R. Tolkien. The palentiri are not likely to save whales and snail darters.
Several observations seem to be warranted:
- Palantir’s PR is either doing its job or it is failing in its effort to present the firm in a positive manner
- Specialized software companies may find their marketing methods turn off certain commercial and government customers
- The company seems to engender fear, not just concern. (Is that a reason why most specialized software companies walk softly and market without becoming poster kids like NSO Group for questionable practices.)
Net net: My view is that some US technology companies are feeding negative perceptions about American business, technologies, and trustworthiness. But I am a dinobaby in rural Kentucky. What do I know about American firms selling to non-US entities? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Why worry?
Stephen E Arnold, March 24, 2026
Has Paragon Knocked NSO Group Off the Leader Board for Great Marketing?
March 2, 2026
Another dinobaby post. No AI unless it is an image. This dinobaby is not Grandma Moses, just Grandpa Arnold.
NSO Group has been a good example of what happens when PR and marketing is viewed as no big deal. These two soft functions are definitely significant in certain contexts; for example, public awareness of mobile security.
I am not sure if the information in “The Israeli Spyware Firm That Accidentally Just Exposed Itself” is 100 percent accurate. I have not seen many references to this article published on February 12, 2026. I am writing this short blog post on February 23, 2026. It is possible that the write up simply is not that significant in the midst of some kinetic outfits near Iran and the constant refrains of Epstein Epstein Epstein.
Thanks, Venice.ai. Good enough.
What does the write up say as actual factual.
Here’s the main point of the story from Ahmedeldin’s report:
Israeli surveillance company Paragon Solutions briefly exposed its own spyware dashboard on LinkedIn, revealing the hidden architecture of a billion-dollar surveillance empire built on the backs of journalists, activists, and ordinary people.
Yep, good old LinkedIn. I am not 100 percent certain why spyware, intelware, and policeware vendors [a] have a LinkedIn page or [b] why those working as contractors or employees at these *ware firm allow individuals to put any information on any social media about what is secretive products for specialized applications. The fact that LinkedIn was a conduit strikes me as a big time mistake in governance. I personally have not felt comfortable with *ware outfits pitching their “products” after egregious security breaches have taken place when these types of systems were up and running. The problems range from commercial nightmares like SolarWind to nation state issues like the October attack on festival goers in Israel. Yep, governance is more important than marketing or over confidence.
Here’s a secondary point in the write up:
Once spyware achieves device-level persistence, access pathways inevitably extend beyond the narrow confines vendors claim and describe. The technical reality is clear: if you can compromise a device, you can access everything…. The $900 million valuation of Paragon Solutions reveals the brutal economics of surveillance capitalism.
The article wants to make darned sure the reader knows that governments cannot be trusted with sophisticated *ware. In the context of certain nation states going all in for smart software from third parties, the idea is planted that bad things will happen. News flash: Bad things have already happened and regulators and law makers have not been able to do much about these “leaky” systems.
What’s the fix? What’s the reader supposed to do?
Here’s the conclusion to the write up:
This is a crisis of global proportion, a threat to human dignity that crosses borders and transcends politics. The question is no longer whether we should be concerned about surveillance. The question is whether we will allow this system to continue unchecked, whether we will demand accountability from those who profit from our vulnerability, whether we will reclaim our digital lives from those who would turn our devices into tools of control.
Where’s the fix? Where’s the citizen pressure on elected officials? Where’s the external repair person for the damaged moral compasses in the leadership of certain big tech companies?
I hear crickets.
Stephen E Arnold, March 2, 2026
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