Part 4/14:

Palunteer's origins date back to 2003, during Thiel’s tenure at PayPal. The company initially tackled credit card fraud using a tool called Eigor, which used algorithms to proactively detect and track fraudsters. Thiel envisioned repurposing this technology for national security—creating an "all-seeing eye" capable of identifying and monitoring persons of interest globally.

This initial vision painted Palunteer as a powerful surveillance tool, reminiscent of mythic "seeing stones" from Tolkien's universe. However, the real-world application proved more complex than the fictional portrayals. When the U.S. government attempted to leverage early Palunteer technology, the results were underwhelming—highlighting that messy, real-world data doesn't map neatly onto financial fraud patterns.