The Mozilla Foundation is calling upon 30 technology companies, social networks, and websites to block web scraping by an ICE surveillance contractor called ShadowDragon after 404 Media published a list of sites that the contractor pulls data from.
…ShadowDragon sells a tool called SocialNet that streamlines the process of pulling public data from various sites, apps, and services. Marketing material available online says SocialNet can “follow the breadcrumbs of your target’s digital life and find hidden correlations in your research.” In one promotional video, ShadowDragon says users can enter “an email, an alias, a name, a phone number, a variety of different things, and immediately have information on your target. We can see interests, we can see who friends are, pictures, videos.”
Serious question: how do they avoid siphoning up data from states or countries with data protection regulations?
Easy: you don’t.
Nobody has the balls to chase these ghouls down for illegally accessing information, most especially because our government is the ones enabling them to do this.