The problem is that the obsessive focus The Intercept has on these kinds of scoops, where they've identified a "key player" in the surveillance market that nobody has heard of --- EXCLUSIVE MUST CREDIT INTERCEPT --- creates a narrative in which technical surveillance is mostly attributable to a number of small rogue companies.

But nothing could be further from the truth. The amount of money Endace made on enabling GCHQ surveillance is literally a rounding error compared to the invoices that the tech giants generated on the same projects. We are letting the giants off the hook, and hammering these doofuses from New Zealand who just want to find a way to make money building packet capture cards. I almost have a hard time blaming them: packet capture cards are fun to work on but difficult to make a viable business out of. At least I understand a sort of relatable motivation for what Endace did. No such motivation exists for the GSA/FGA sales teams of the tech giants. If their firms sold murder-robots, those teams would happily sell them to North Korea if they could.

Endace deserves the attention, but the giants deserve it more, and they're getting let off the hook.