If I were to guess, because private companies aren't subject to FOIA requests. It's a little trick the gov't has been doing for some time now to avoid legitimate, legal scrutiny by the public.

Outsourcing to private companies also (somehow) appeases the "small government" folks, even when it costs more/works worse.

Somehow? Money the spent is money in the economy, not in the government. It’s pretty easy to understand, I think.

How is "the government" not part of the economy? Do you imagine all their employees spend their salary in some secret separate economy? Do you imagine all the toilet paper, pens, plumbing repairs and jet fighters they buy are from some magical not part of the economy source?

Alternatively, money is grifted for political patronage.

Huh i wonder how we can prevent that problem

Are you saying that the most corrupt US president ever (an individual so mentally challenged that managed to bankrupt FOUR casinos, the only money making machines where the customers literally throw money at you) grifted billion of dollars from the most valuable IP4 addresses in the world?

When you want to do some secret squirrel stuff, you start a small closely-held company.

Wait until you read about Air America - an actual airline started by Claire Chennault (of Flying Tigers fame), that was bought by the CIA in the post WW-II years and used to run missions in Southeast Asia up until the mid 1970's.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_America_(airline)

Means nothing. Companies can be a front for a government.

Well, yes, but I'm interested in "for what purpose, in this specific case".

The simplest would be to make sure the addresses are not announced by the DoD, which depending on the thinks they want to test could matter, or could be irrelevant.

If other scammers are using spoofing the ranges then another company does it, that doesn't raise alarm in the other entities abusing the same trick.

If you announce it as DoD then it may scare off the others.

In any good investigation, you want to shroud the data/intel collection. Using a front company, or series of levels of fronts, is the way you have to go about it.

In short, a honeypot.

Who are the people associated with that company? I’d like to further investigate them.

You can look up the company name on Florida's Division of Corporations: http://search.sunbiz.org/Inquiry/CorporationSearch/ByName

The Delaware company is registered there as a an "outside of the state of Florida" entity operating in Florida. Some actual people names are listed. I'm fairly confident it's the same company, as the Plantation, FL address is there.

Allow me to suggest looking up their donation history at https://www.fec.gov/data/

There's a reason it's a Florida company. Florida is the only state that provides for "double blind" corporations whereby the people associated with it can remain completely anonymous. Look it up if you aren't familiar.

I'm posting what I find here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26929926