| ShadowDragon | |
|---|---|
| Original author(s) | Daniel Clemens |
| Initial release | 2016 |
ShadowDragon is an internet surveillance (OSINT) tool used by law enforcement.
Its founder and CEO is Daniel Clemens. [1] It was founded in 2016 as a spinoff of his Packet Ninjas security consulting company. [2]
Their SocialNet product was launched in 2009 and collects data from over 200 sources, [3] including BabyCenter, BlackPlanet, Bodybuilding.com, FetLife, Fortnite, PornHub, Telegram, and Tinder, which allows law enforcement to find open source intelligence on targets. It is connected through the Maltego platform. It links a person's accounts between sites and creates a social network graph. [4] [1] [5]
ShadowDragon's OIMonitor product alerts law enforcement based on predictions of behavior and relationships. [6]
Eva Galperin of the Electronic Frontier Foundation said there were privacy concerns, including the risk of discussions of pregnancy in an environment where abortions are prosecuted. [1]
Jeramie D. Scott of the Electronic Privacy Information Center stated "This type of mass surveillance, which is available to the government and other entities, creates a chilling effect on online activities." [1]
Samantha Floreani of Digital Rights Watch said it is "exceptionally invasive, generally operates without people’s knowledge, [and] is potentially inaccurate". [5]
Kade Crockford of the American Civil Liberties Union said "People shouldn’t be afraid to voice their political opinions or speak out against the police themselves because they fear the police are watching them". [8]
Arisha Hatch of Color of Change said tools are "often introduced under the false premise that they are public safety and accountability tools. In reality, they endanger Black and marginalized communities". [6]
The Mozilla Foundation requested major companies block the ShadowDragon scraper, including Amazon, Apple, Discord, Facebook, Google, Nextdoor, OnlyFans, YouTube and others. Many of these companies said the scraping violates their terms of service. [11] [12]
Today organizations are struggling to identify, understand and stop the malicious actors and threats targeting them. We have been asked frequently by our customers if they could purchase the tools we use to investigate and analyze these threats," said Daniel Clemens, President and CEO of Packet Ninjas. "In order to meet this demand, we spent 2015 packaging our tools for sale under a separate company we named ShadowDragon.