[HN Gopher] OpenAI, the US government and Persona built an ident...
       ___________________________________________________________________
        
       OpenAI, the US government and Persona built an identity
       surveillance machine
        
       Related ongoing thread: _Discord cuts ties with identity
       verification software, Persona_ -
       https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47136036 - Feb 2026 (282
       comments)
        
       Author : rzk
       Score  : 379 points
       Date   : 2026-02-24 18:23 UTC (4 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (vmfunc.re)
 (TXT) w3m dump (vmfunc.re)
        
       | RiverCrochet wrote:
       | Is this the mark of the beast?
        
         | zoklet-enjoyer wrote:
         | No
        
         | outside1234 wrote:
         | No, the mark of the beast is everyone in the Epstein files
        
           | johnnyanmac wrote:
           | So, less a mark and more an abyss to stare into?
        
           | tinfoilhatter wrote:
           | What do the people in the Epstein files have to do with a
           | mark that people need to receive in order to participate in
           | society? I'm confused.
        
         | billfor wrote:
         | Yes
        
         | blurbleblurble wrote:
         | They rhyme
        
         | throw4847285 wrote:
         | Well if you will turn your attention to my Straussian reading
         | of the most popular comic books and anime, you may find that...
        
       | MattDaEskimo wrote:
       | What can those do from a separate country, who unfortunately had
       | their identity verified through Persona (LinkedIn in my case).
        
         | drac89 wrote:
         | From the blog post I've recently read;
         | https://thelocalstack.eu/posts/linkedin-identity-verificatio...
         | 
         | 1. Request your data. Email idv-privacy@withpersona.com or
         | privacy@withpersona.com. Under GDPR, they have 30 days to
         | respond.
         | 
         | 2. Request deletion. The verification is done. LinkedIn already
         | has the result. There is no reason for Persona to keep your
         | passport scan and facial geometry on their servers. Ask them to
         | delete it.
         | 
         | 3. Contact their DPO. dpo@withpersona.com -- that's their Data
         | Protection Officer. If you want to object to them using your
         | documents as AI training data under "legitimate interests,"
         | this is where you do it.
         | 
         | 4. Think twice before verifying. That blue badge might not be
         | worth what you're trading for it. A checkmark is cosmetic.
         | Biometric data is forever.
        
           | hbcondo714 wrote:
           | As heavily discussed here 3 days ago (Persona is the same
           | company LinkedIn uses for their ID verification process):
           | 
           |  _I verified my LinkedIn identity. Here 's what I handed
           | over_
           | 
           | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47098245
           | 
           | 1.4K+ points, 490+ comments
        
         | shimman wrote:
         | Organize in your country and advocate for data deletion
         | jubilees, organize in your country to champion new taxes
         | against US digital services, organize in your country to
         | advocate for homegrown solutions over US tech.
         | 
         | If you aren't actively organizing you aren't going to
         | accomplish anything.
         | 
         | Remember that people power trumps monetary power, but you have
         | to commit for people power to work.
        
           | giancarlostoro wrote:
           | > advocate for homegrown solutions over US tech.
           | 
           | Some sweet irony about this btw.
        
             | shimman wrote:
             | Why? Every country on Earth is capable of creating and
             | maintaining software. There is nothing unique about America
             | or Silicon Valley (outside of the massive amounts of
             | corporate welfare), devs can be found anywhere and who
             | better to write software for local citizens than the local
             | citizens themselves?
             | 
             | We know how useful open source software is, there's no
             | reason why this can't be replicated across the planet.
        
               | giancarlostoro wrote:
               | Not because they cannot do it, but because why they're
               | doing it, which in turn becomes what they're doing.
               | America is being perceived as isolationist, so countries
               | solve that by becoming isolationist about what software
               | they use, whether its open source or not is kind of
               | irrelevant, though in several cases the software will
               | primarily be focused on the countries own language.
               | 
               | The better alternative in my eyes is to contribute to
               | existing open source, and only if the US becomes hostile
               | against this, fork said code and move on.
        
       | ArchieScrivener wrote:
       | Why the myspace music?
        
         | OneDeuxTriSeiGo wrote:
         | whimsy
        
       | cloverich wrote:
       | Going to copy paste my comment from today's other thread[3] that
       | linked to this:
       | 
       | Note also there's a direct response from Persona's security team
       | here[1], and a lot of back and forth from Rick on Twitter[2].
       | 
       | [1]: https://withpersona.com/blog/post-incident-review-source-
       | map...
       | 
       | [2]: https://x.com/Persona_IDV/status/2025048195773198385?s=20
       | 
       | [3]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47136036
        
         | aeldidi wrote:
         | The withpersona.com URL seems to return 404.
        
           | cloverich wrote:
           | fixed ty
        
         | kelvinjps10 wrote:
         | They did good damage control with that post
        
       | pharos92 wrote:
       | It seems like at every technological step, we're sold the dream
       | and delivered the meme. We always end up with the worst possible
       | combination of players, ideas and outcomes; with the promise of
       | what the said technology delivers in terms of additional freedom
       | or free time never realised. How many more broken social
       | contracts can society endure before it crumbles?
        
         | ferguess_k wrote:
         | From my understanding, we are pretty close to a Dystopian world
         | where all elites of a certain group collaborate to run a Super
         | Leviathan. We still gotta choose our flavors, which may not be
         | feasible in maybe 5-10 years when those leviathans clash into
         | each other.
        
           | measurablefunc wrote:
           | Goliath's Curse by Luke Kemp covers it pretty well I think.
        
             | ferguess_k wrote:
             | Thanks for the recommendation.
        
           | dylan604 wrote:
           | It's not like this is surprising, there have been plenty of
           | sci-fi books/movies that have predicted this very thing. How
           | many movies have the haves lived above ground/off planet,
           | while the have nots have lived underground or stuck on a
           | apocalyptic planet.
           | 
           | This is just furthering the previous history. Currently, the
           | lords have just been able to keep the serfs appeased to a
           | longer extent. Every time in history or in sci-fi, the serfs
           | reach a breaking point and rise up.
        
             | measurablefunc wrote:
             | This time is different. The global system is not going to
             | fall apart like isolated kingdoms in the past.
        
               | dylan604 wrote:
               | You seem very confident. This seems to imply you feel the
               | _haves_ will know when to leave enough on the table for
               | the _have nots_ to still feel like they are a part of the
               | _haves_. I 'm not so confident in that.
        
               | measurablefunc wrote:
               | People in technologically advanced societies have more
               | than enough & the people who are not as advanced can not
               | do anything that will have any effect on the people who
               | own the fighter jets, missiles, robot factories, &
               | "internet" satellites. The current system has no
               | historical precedent. It is very close to an almost
               | perfect panopticon w/ an associated media & police
               | apparatus to keep everyone docile & complacent. Like I
               | said, this time is different.
        
               | atmavatar wrote:
               | Far more likely is that we head back to a feudal era
               | where data mining tech is used to identify and eliminate
               | potential rabble-rousers. Once enough production is
               | automated, all remaining have-nots are exterminated.
        
               | neuralRiot wrote:
               | The weak link is that for "the haves" to have, the "have
               | -nots" are needed. To have or to not is just a
               | comparison, a millionaire needs the poor to be rich and
               | to feel special otherwise when everyone is special nobody
               | is.
        
               | neuralRiot wrote:
               | " Whatever it is you're seeking won't come in the form
               | you're expecting - Haruki Murakami"
        
             | ferguess_k wrote:
             | I don't think they are going to rise up this time. Maybe
             | laying down flat is more realistic.
        
             | mistrial9 wrote:
             | > Every time in history or in sci-fi, the serfs reach a
             | breaking point and rise up.
             | 
             | this is a completely "WEIRD" outlook.. more than half of
             | humanity has no illusions about "proletarians" they do not
             | even discuss it that way
             | 
             | source: born and raised WEIRD
        
         | whynotmaybe wrote:
         | Ever read 1984?
         | 
         | Who wins at the end?
        
           | ramuel wrote:
           | Winston, obviously. He left behind his free-thinking and
           | became unwavering to Big Brother. Truly a winner
        
             | dylan604 wrote:
             | Why, oh why, didn't I take the blue pill?
        
         | nehal3m wrote:
         | All these memes are burning through our natural reserves at an
         | ever increasing rate so it will crumble when the bread baskets
         | fail anyway.
        
         | dlenski wrote:
         | It's "socializing the losses and privatizing the gains"... but
         | now alarmingly supercharged well beyond purely _financial_
         | realms, and into really basic and fundamental matters of
         | individual physical autonomy and liberty.
        
         | xg15 wrote:
         | > _How many more broken social contracts can society endure
         | before it crumbles?_
         | 
         | Having any kind of agency in those things would be a start.
         | 
         | If <FAANG bigcorp of your choice> announces with great fanfare
         | "We're building this totally awesome new technology that will
         | make everything better! And the best thing? You won't have to
         | do anything, we will auto-update all your devices/accounts/etc
         | with it for free! Trust us!", then whether you personally
         | believe their enthusiastic predictions or not doesn't really
         | matter a lot - you will get it anyway, unless you spend a lot
         | of energy to deliberately avoid the new technology.
        
         | ctoth wrote:
         | The story here is that a FedRAMP-authorized system had 53MB of
         | Vite dev source maps exposed on a production government
         | endpoint. That's not "sold the dream, delivered the meme,"
         | that's a specific auditable compliance failure. Meanwhile a
         | fintech engineer explaining that this is all standard legally-
         | mandated KYC infrastructure got flagged to death. The
         | interesting question isn't whether technology betrays us, it's
         | why US law requires this surveillance apparatus in the first
         | place and why the security assessment apparently missed
         | checking for /vite-dev/ on a government system.
         | 
         | Also every technological step? Ever? Really? This wouldn't
         | happen to be typed on a computer from a climate-controlled room
         | on a nice global network or anything?
        
           | cthalupa wrote:
           | Except it wasn't a production endpoint and there's no actual
           | security risk in having source maps available. It's more
           | annoying to read source code that has been minified, but if a
           | security professional tells you that minifying source code is
           | something that increases security, you should be wondering
           | what other bullshit they've pedaled you.
           | 
           | I'm not a fan of persona and have gone out of my way to not
           | provide my details to them even before this, and I _really_
           | dislike Thiel, but... let 's be honest about the stuff we're
           | complaining about.
        
         | storus wrote:
         | I think that's a natural outcome of a model where sociopaths
         | climb to the top, with a layer of sycophants beneath them that
         | shield normal workers from perceiving the amount of depravity
         | going on at the top which would make them unable to continue
         | and tank the business. AI might remove the reliance on regular
         | folks and give sociopaths direct execution of all ideas they
         | have without any moral opposition, and that would explain a lot
         | of the rush for AI everywhere we see nowadays.
        
           | nemooperans wrote:
           | This is the part that doesn't get enough attention. The
           | historical check on concentrated power wasn't just democracy
           | or law -- it was that executing any large-scale agenda
           | required thousands of people who could refuse, drag their
           | feet, or leak. AI doesn't just automate tasks -- it removes
           | the human friction that was always an informal veto on the
           | worst ideas.
           | 
           | The surveillance apparatus isn't new. What's new is that you
           | need fewer people with moral objections in the loop to
           | operate it.
        
           | asdfman123 wrote:
           | I would be careful with this kind of reasoning, because it
           | suggests corruption within a corporate model is inevitable,
           | giving it implicit permission to continue existing. It's not
           | inevitable.
        
         | vpShane wrote:
         | Birds of a flock crap on everybody together.
         | 
         | > How many more broken social contracts can society endure
         | before it crumbles?
         | 
         | I wouldn't call this much of a society if people's eyes are
         | open.
         | 
         | What's that song name, they don't care about us?
        
         | asdfman123 wrote:
         | It's already crumbling. That's why we have AI-powered fascism
         | in the first place. Society destabilizes and a significant
         | fraction of the population says "perhaps authoritarianism is a
         | good thing." It's never worth it, though.
        
       | FarmerPotato wrote:
       | Is this whole unreadable article just the output from an AI
       | prompt describing a techno-thriller?
        
         | random3 wrote:
         | likely not. Being able to read and understand is a matter of
         | skill though. There are many technical terms there that may
         | make it unreadable for non-technical audience. But you can
         | solve that by having an AI explain it to you.
        
           | FarmerPotato wrote:
           | It's not my skills. I could decipher it if I spent enough
           | time (and had plain text).
           | 
           | the presentation is bad.
           | 
           | verbosity.
           | 
           | it takes many words for the writer to make a point.
           | 
           | that darn cat.
        
       | sebastianconcpt wrote:
       | Quite some time ago I said and now repeat:
       | 
       |  _Convenience is to humans, what bulb lights at night are to
       | bugs_.
        
         | esafak wrote:
         | No pain, no gain.
        
         | themafia wrote:
         | Ridiculous.
         | 
         | Stand in a hospital and say that credibly. I recommend the
         | maternity ward.
         | 
         | Our consumer markets are a wreck. We have no federal watch dog
         | exercising any authority. We have unchecked intelligence
         | agencies actively trying to enslave the world. Our desire for
         | convenience is not the problem, the people taking advantage of
         | it are.
        
           | moffkalast wrote:
           | Why a hospital? There's very little convenience at play when
           | it's a life and death situation.
           | 
           | It is what drives the market quite a bit at least. It's why
           | we've produced over 2 billion cars and use them every day to
           | pollute our own air so we don't have to walk two blocks. Most
           | home appliances are convenience personified, the dishwasher,
           | the microwave, the clothes dryer. It's why we have supply
           | chains up the wazoo to bring products from all corners of the
           | globe to everyone's nearby supermarket, a large amount of it
           | getting thrown away when it's expired unsold. We fly across
           | countries for something as pointless as a business meeting.
           | Hell people now even order a taxi for their food, so they
           | don't have to go out to get it.
           | 
           | Modern life is like at least 60% wastefulness in the name of
           | convenience. Of course people with the option to do so will
           | exploit the one thing that's easily exploitable, that's like
           | water flowing downhill.
        
       | Ancalagon wrote:
       | Why do so many engineers willingly build things bad for society?
        
         | mikestew wrote:
         | Because it generally pays well. I'd wax philosophically, but
         | you can come to your own conclusions from that little nugget.
        
           | popalchemist wrote:
           | Enough said. Since the "death of God" (per Nietzsche - the
           | collapse of the metaphysics underpinning our morals and
           | therefore cultural norms and behaviors) the modus operandi
           | has been the utilitarian "get what's yours."
           | 
           | Reprehensible.
           | 
           | Additionally, people are typically only "gifted" on one
           | domain -- if one's gifted enough in the domain of intellect
           | to become a SWE, they're typically lacking elsewhere, whether
           | that be in moral scruples or the ability to discern social
           | things such as when they're working for sociopaths.
        
             | Ancalagon wrote:
             | You'd think empathy would just be enough, its very sad.
        
             | asdfman123 wrote:
             | Every accusation is a confession
        
         | bigyabai wrote:
         | "Oh boy! I've always wanted to work at [microsoft, apple,
         | google, etc.]!"
        
           | mikestew wrote:
           | Those aren't the companies OP is necessarily talking about.
           | "I've always wanted to work at Persona!", said no one, ever.
        
             | bigyabai wrote:
             | All of them are complicit. You only need ~50 greedy
             | sociopaths to work at Persona, and 10,000 dumb-as-rocks
             | engineers hyped to work at Microsoft/OpenAI and "stop the
             | bad guys" or whatever the boogeyman du-jour is.
             | 
             | We saw it with Bitlocker, we saw it with Client Side
             | Scanning, we see it with Salt Typhoon. Most people that
             | work on weaponized surveillance systems are entirely
             | apathetic, or see themselves as righteous. Even when the
             | system is known to be bugged, obviously flawed, or outright
             | controlled by a foreign adversary.
        
               | globalnode wrote:
               | oh thats a good point, kind of like the military or how
               | propaganda demonizes the enemy during a war, its us vs
               | them.
        
         | bombdailer wrote:
         | Because the highest values of our society are non-values.
        
         | konart wrote:
         | Because they do not believe it is bad?
         | 
         | Because they believe that it's going to be build anyone by
         | someone else?
         | 
         | Because they are not entirely aware of what they are building?
        
           | Ancalagon wrote:
           | All these bright engineers can't figure out the bigger
           | picture of what they're building?
           | 
           | "Hey boss man, why does this database 'tracked_individuals'
           | have columns for license plate numbers, home addresses, and
           | political affiliations?"
           | 
           | Give me a break
        
             | bigyabai wrote:
             | Yes, many of them don't. They're fed convincing cover-
             | stories like "we need this to stop CSAM" or "this prevents
             | terrorism", and then put on a security theater about E2EE
             | and military-grade cryptography. They sleep like a baby
             | because most of them genuinely think they're the good guys,
             | hell, even people on HN appear to buy the obvious lie
             | whenever Client Side Scanning or Flock is brought up.
             | 
             | You can hire sociopaths to work the ~1% of jobs that
             | require a complete understanding of your moral bankruptcy.
             | Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Larry Ellison, none of these
             | people ever apologized for their ethical flexibility
             | because it's precisely what qualifies them for such a
             | lucrative job. Persona can be a shell org with 20 evil
             | engineers while their partners absentmindedly do the
             | integration work.
        
           | krapp wrote:
           | Because they're paid enough to retire at 30.
        
           | kaashif wrote:
           | Money can be exchanged for services.
           | 
           | Hope this helps.
        
         | Nezteb wrote:
         | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_apples
         | 
         | Immoral boot-licking human engineers are indistinguishable from
         | LLMs.
        
           | Ancalagon wrote:
           | What's crazy is I know engineers like this in real life - and
           | they're good engineers! So I know they do exist, but their
           | existence to serve their company or CEO no matter what is
           | completely foreign to me. Like, you're smart enough to
           | understand that large codebase and generally function as a
           | member of society, but you've completely given up your higher
           | level decision making for someone or something that would
           | throw you away in an instant.
        
         | FrustratedMonky wrote:
         | Evil pays more.
         | 
         | A common theme in a lot of movies, books, et..
        
         | GorbachevyChase wrote:
         | The tribe won't eat their own... probably.
        
         | biophysboy wrote:
         | Many tech execs operate under the thesis that china & the
         | democratic party are existential threats that warrant a
         | surveillance/military/police ramp up. Meanwhile, many tech
         | employees are credulous and frequently adopt self-serving
         | geopolitical narratives. The current macro trends don't help
         | (huge defense budgets, bad labor market power, China is in fact
         | more powerful)
         | 
         | Edit:forgot the most obvious... money
        
         | ej88 wrote:
         | surprised nobody responded with the most straightforward,
         | occams razor explanation
         | 
         | they think what they're doing is actually good for society
         | 
         | not everyone is in the hackerspace libertarian / socialist
         | sphere
         | 
         | i used to work for a place that used persona despite it adding
         | extra friction to signups (literally resulting in less paying
         | customers to the dismay of PMs) because it was worth it to
         | combat fraud. theres a tradeoff in everything
        
         | globalnode wrote:
         | also theyre subject to the same anonymity many other internet
         | users have and so dont feel any consequences for their actions.
        
       | 4midori wrote:
       | In response to a data request, Persona says:
       | 
       | Hi there,
       | 
       | Thank you for reaching out to Persona.
       | 
       | Please note that Persona primarily operates as a "service
       | provider" or "processor" for its customers. We act as a
       | "business" or "controller" only for specific services, such as
       | identity verification for LinkedIn, FoxCorp, and Reusable
       | Persona. To learn more about how Persona manages your personal
       | data, please refer to our privacy notices, which can be accessed
       | through the following link:
       | https://withpersona.com/legal/privacy-notices
       | 
       | If you wish to exercise your privacy rights related to services
       | where Persona is a "service provider" or "processor," please
       | contact the entity using our service, as they are the
       | "controller" of the data. We will assist the relevant customer to
       | fulfill your data subject rights, but we do not handle such
       | requests directly on their behalf.
       | 
       | For any privacy rights request related to services where Persona
       | acts as a "business" or "controller," including identity
       | verification for LinkedIn, FoxCorp, Reusable Persona, and
       | personal data related to our sales, marketing activities, or
       | website browsing on withpersona.com, please use our Data Subject
       | Request (DSAR) available at the following link:
       | https://withpersona.com/dsar
       | 
       | For all other inquiries, we will respond as soon as possible.
       | 
       | ###
       | 
       | TL;DR we're not responsible, go talk to LinkedIn.
        
         | plagiarist wrote:
         | This is the same complete bullshit trying to remove oneself
         | from political donation emails. "Oh, okay, we will remove you
         | from that one." Days later it's a "different campaign."
         | Sometimes it's the exact same people from weeks ago who have
         | just renamed their campaign and started sending again.
         | 
         | We need far stronger laws for all of it, which will never
         | happen because the rot and corruption has fully metastasized.
        
       | raincole wrote:
       | https://withpersona.com/customers/openai
       | 
       | Persona's side of the story.
        
       | tr_alts wrote:
       | The right wing went full censorship and surveillance after the
       | Charlie Kirk assassination. It is probably not a coincidence that
       | they targeted Discord first, because the suspect was in a Discord
       | group.
       | 
       | They promised freedom of speech and liberty and this is what we
       | get.
        
         | hactually wrote:
         | nothing to do with left or right. the UK is left and has the
         | most Orwellian surveillance state outside of China
        
         | jcranmer wrote:
         | The right wing went full censorship and surveillance _long
         | before_ the Charlie Kirk assassination. Anyone who believed
         | that the right wing (or the left wing, for that matter; let 's
         | not pretend that censorious dipshittery is not bipartisan) was
         | honestly promising freedom of speech as opposed to merely
         | freedom of speech they like and censorship of speech they don't
         | like was at best willfully blinding themselves to the actual
         | actions of politicians.
        
           | exceptione wrote:
           | > long before the Charlie Kirk assassination.
           | 
           | True. The free speech narratives are mere tools against
           | opposition by promoting the most childish and stupidly rigid
           | interpretations thereof, not something they really believe
           | in. The whole conservative project is doomed from the start
           | as it has to confront science and progress like the
           | emancipation by women, lgbt people and certain ethnicities.
           | > or the left wing, for that matter;
           | 
           | Both sides is uncalled for. _Far left_ and the horse shoe,
           | sure, but a) far left is very fringe, and b) lets not equate
           | them with a _well funded actual insurrection of oligarch and
           | white nationalists with a paramilitary_.
        
             | sfink wrote:
             | > > or the left wing, for that matter; > Both sides is
             | uncalled for. Far left and the horse shoe, sure
             | 
             | How so? Leftist censorship became quite popular on college
             | campuses. The _ACLU_ supported that, and got cold feet
             | about promoting free expression more generally when it
             | involves organizations or causes it doesn 't like.
             | 
             | I'm a lefty, but I absolutely believe that both the left
             | and right are deep in the "ends justify the means" weeds
             | with respect to censorship and free expression. I blame
             | partisanship. People used to have respect for someone
             | taking a principled stand that didn't necessarily align
             | with their overall political position. Now, that's just
             | seen as a weak maneuver in the all-important "my team vs
             | your team" culture war.
             | 
             | > The whole conservative project is doomed from the start
             | as it has to confront science and progress like the
             | emancipation by women, lgbt people and certain ethnicities.
             | 
             | I have no idea what you're talking about. There is no
             | scientific or natural law that says that every human should
             | have equal rights. You can totally make a stable society
             | that discriminates on color of skin or possession of
             | certain documents or account balance. It's been done many
             | times. Science does not tell you whether votes should be
             | extended all the way to ducks but not chickens, nor whether
             | unauthorized presence in a country should enable arbitrary
             | search and seizure. Plus, "conservative" covers a lot of
             | ground and someone can legitimately be extremely
             | conservative and completely opposed to (eg) white
             | nationalism at the same time.
             | 
             | Sure, conservatism is always going to drag its heels to
             | recognize and accommodate the sorts of progress in science
             | and other understanding that I'm guessing you're thinking
             | of, but progressives can just as easily go too far too fast
             | and be blind to the tradeoffs and principles involved. The
             | "conservative project" _can 't_ be doomed; it will always
             | be a different point on a continuum from the "progressive
             | project", and we'll always be able to argue over where the
             | right point is.
             | 
             | Well, at least until we're all dead or so infantilized by
             | our technology that we stop even asking the questions.
        
         | exceptione wrote:
         | > The right wing went full censorship and surveillance after
         | the Charlie Kirk assassination.
         | 
         | No, earlier. US tech is mostly surveillance tech, with Thiel
         | being sponsor and broker for authoritarian right. The doge
         | operation started around day 1, and was a breach into the
         | government to steal data that was yet out of reach for certain
         | plotters.
        
       | dang wrote:
       | Comments moved to https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47140632.
        
       | edverma2 wrote:
       | This is a hilarious personal website! Love it. Even better that
       | it's paired with quality content.
        
         | spacebacon wrote:
         | I felt alive again as I used my physical volume button down to
         | focus on the text.
        
       | int32_64 wrote:
       | Based on the Anthropic distillation news yesterday I wonder if
       | the AI companies are going to get much tighter with KYC.
        
         | disgruntledphd2 wrote:
         | I get the KYC concerns for API access, but I'm sortof baffled
         | at why they'd need all of the AML stuff, given that they're not
         | payment processors/financial institutions.
         | 
         | Or does Persona provide that by default? Don't know much about
         | their service...
        
       | yoyohello13 wrote:
       | This website really is incredible!
        
       | dylan604 wrote:
       | "what is Fivecast ONYX? an AI-powered surveillance platform
       | purchased by ICE for $4.2 million and CBP for additional license
       | costs. according to Fivecast's own documentation and EFF's
       | reporting, they do automated collection of multimedia data from
       | social media and dark web, build "digital footprints" from
       | biographical data, tracks shifts in sentiment and emotion,
       | assigns risk scores, searches across 300+ platforms and 28+
       | billion data points, identifies people with "violent tendencies""
       | 
       | Glad to know that my tinfoil hat wasn't too tight when social
       | media came to be and this obvious use was predicted. How quickly
       | will _not_ having social media accounts become a crime?
        
         | varenc wrote:
         | According to Persona's damage control article[0], the subdomain
         | had "onyx" in its name because that's the internal code name
         | for the project, and it's named after the pokemon Onyx. No
         | connection to Fivecast ONYX.
         | 
         | [0] https://withpersona.com/blog/post-incident-review-source-
         | map...
        
           | crimsoneer wrote:
           | I don't really understand why ICE would have a Persona OPenAI
           | connection...?
        
             | pseudosaid wrote:
             | Really? Sounds like they are a customer.
        
         | a_victorp wrote:
         | It's already frowned upon when crossing the border
        
         | tamimio wrote:
         | We need a list of these 300+ platforms
        
       | baddash wrote:
       | thank god there's an annoying fucking cat in the way of what i'm
       | trying to read
        
         | noutella wrote:
         | Move your mouse and the cat will follow
        
           | righthand wrote:
           | On mobile the cat sits in the middle of the screen and does
           | not respond to touch input. The author has been told about
           | the distracting elements and refused to acknowledge it.
        
             | testycool wrote:
             | If I tap somewhere else the cat goes there. I like the
             | website, even though some design choices don't follow UX
             | best practices.
        
       | cedws wrote:
       | Governments in Europe should be seriously scrutinising this with
       | the background conversation of departing American tech going on.
       | Discord users globally were being coerced into handing over their
       | ID to this American surveillance tech. Are we just going to let
       | this go on?
        
         | frm88 wrote:
         | Unfortunately Persona already has a lot of contracts in the EU
         | and is about to get more https://fintecbuzz.com/persona-to-
         | launch-a-new-suite-of-solu...
        
       | tamimio wrote:
       | > 0x18 - betrayal
       | 
       | This is the most important section, as the above ones any
       | privacy-conscious person would assume most anyway. I did mention
       | before that we need an open-source platform that tracks the
       | people who work and build such systems. Those are the enablers
       | who have no morals or ethics - a greedy corporation is always
       | greedy, but when the average employee is willing to work full
       | time on building such systems, they need to be exposed publicly,
       | just as they are working relentlessly on violating private
       | people's privacy. It isn't about public humiliation; it's about
       | basic human decency and maintaining a minimum ethical code to
       | abide by. These individuals shouldn't be hired or dealt with, not
       | even a simple connection on LinkedIn.
       | 
       | These individuals are dangerous. They are like rats among us and
       | should be exposed, and I bet some of them are reading this as
       | well.
        
       | gslepak wrote:
       | Does someone have a version that doesn't force you to listen to
       | unwanted music?
        
         | Havoc wrote:
         | In FF you can click on a tab on left side to mute it not sure
         | other browsers
        
       | Havoc wrote:
       | Wonder how many lists I'm on for the unholy sin of saying the
       | glorious american leader is a moron
        
         | oth001 wrote:
         | Or for saying Israel shouldn't be committing a genocide.
        
       | standardly wrote:
       | Author was doing such a good write-up, until I saw repeated AI
       | syntax "its not x, but y" and "a is b. b is c. and, c is the
       | final thing in this series of short, punchy sentences". Really
       | tired of this. Why is it so hard to just write naturally? Maybe
       | I'm just easily triggered
        
         | firegodjr wrote:
         | That _was_ writing naturally until AI stole it from us.
        
       | Kiboneu wrote:
       | > OpenAI's disclosures reference biometric data stored "up to a
       | year." the source > code shows face list retention capped at 3
       | years. government IDs retained > "permanently" per Persona's
       | practices. which is it?
       | 
       | I keep saying this. This is the playbook -- everything is moving
       | to standardize Sam Altman's biometric authentication
       | cryptocurrency company to use internet services. This has been a
       | slow moving strategy for /years/ and every new step over that
       | period only get closer, not further from this goal.
        
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       (page generated 2026-02-24 23:01 UTC)