Oddly enough, the same thought's occurred to me of an investment firm with very strong ties to the NSA and cryptography community, with offices located in an interesting position relative to both cable landfalls and some government facilities, as well as a reputation for absolute gee-wizardry and completely-beyond-unbelievable investment returns.

To the point that I hesitate to post this even under my pseudonymic profile.

It's absolutely the stuff of very, very, very bad conspiracy theories. I'd love to prove myself wrong.

Don't know why you're being downvoted for this, it's actually pretty smart. Like leaking an unsubstantiated rumor to a reporter but probably with more legal ramifications.

Hacker News buys into Palantir.

edit: generally... but this thread is actually getting pretty vicious.

You'd hope the NYPD knows how to set up a firewall and how to detect data exfiltration at that scale.

By backchannel I meant via people. As in the Palantir analyst calls up their friends at the CIA/NSA for help. CIA/NSA data collection remains secret, Palantir justify their expense, and NYPD find the guy. The problem is that you can't reproduce your results. The other problem is the erosion of civil liberties - but I'm only speculating with a thought experiment.

I'm not sure why you'd assume that, the NYPD certainly has a history of bravery but not one of technical competence.