Govt-style online surveillance opens up profitable new market for Babel Street

Washington

IN A small office in Ashburn, Virginia, ensconced among the government contractors that make up the Dulles Technology Corridor, a start-up called Babel Street is bringing government-style surveillance to an entirely new market.

The company's Web crawlers trawl some 40 online sources, scooping up data from popular sites such as Instagram and a Korean social media platform as well as inside "dark Web" forums where cybercriminals lurk.