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Inside Palantir

buzzfeed.com

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Re: Inside Palantir

#31

Post by Nanite »

jauer wrote: post #7
CydeWeys wrote: post #5

> If you have information or tips, you can contact this reporter over an encrypted chat service such as Telegram, Signal, or WhatsApp, at 310-617-1302. You can also send an encrypted email to will.alden@buzzfeed.com, using the PGP key found here. This is the best "contact me if you have juicy insider info" slug that I have ever seen . He can take PGP-encrypted email! And this is on Buzzfeed!!!

Buzzfeed's long-form journalism is pretty good/interesting/relevant, you just have to hold your nose long enough to get past the foul stench of click-bait.

Well that or use HN to curate for you, the extremely rare well written pieces are not worth frequenting Buzzfeed, Techcrunch etc for

Re: Inside Palantir

#32

Post by danso »

FWIW, Gawker reporters have been making FOIA requests of various agencies about their contracts with Palantir...you can see the responses on MuckRock:

https://www.muckrock.com/search/?q=palantir&models=foia.foia...

Many of those requests came back empty, here's one that produced responsive documents: the NYC Department of Finance -- $150,000 for a 6-month pilot of their "Perpetual Server Core" technology to do fraud detection:

https://www.muckrock.com/foi/new-york-city-17/palantir-contr...

edit: specified that the requesters appear to be Gawker reporters doing their own investigation

Re: Inside Palantir

#33

Post by stevenbedrick »

secfirstmd wrote: post #19
nickpsecurity wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a great article but I agree with you: to heck with Palantir.

"Spies Sans Frontières? How CIA-linked Palantir is gaining ground in the aid industry (and why some humanitarians are worried)" https://www.irinnews.org/special-report/2016/03/07/spies-san...

Software like Palantir's is a classic example of a dual-use technology.

Re: Inside Palantir

#34

Post by l33tbro »

nilkn wrote: post #15
leroy_masochist wrote: post #6

This article was way, way better sourced than I thought it'd be. Especially for Buzzfeed of all places.

This is a trend I've noticed. BuzzFeed has had a number of excellent longform pieces recently.

They're diversifying their offering. The clickbait stuff won't change, but they're looking to build credibility with those longform pieces you mention to shed their poor reputation.

Re: Inside Palantir

#38

Post by beatpanda »

jauer wrote: post #7
CydeWeys wrote: post #5

> If you have information or tips, you can contact this reporter over an encrypted chat service such as Telegram, Signal, or WhatsApp, at 310-617-1302. You can also send an encrypted email to will.alden@buzzfeed.com, using the PGP key found here. This is the best "contact me if you have juicy insider info" slug that I have ever seen . He can take PGP-encrypted email! And this is on Buzzfeed!!!

Buzzfeed's long-form journalism is pretty good/interesting/relevant, you just have to hold your nose long enough to get past the foul stench of click-bait.

That's how the economics of journalism has always worked. Going after people with a lot of money at stake will never, ever pay the bills and is a great way to rack up a lot of legal fees. So in the old days you surrounded the real news with classifieds, comic strips and movie listings, and these days you surround it with cute animal videos.

Re: Inside Palantir

#39

Post by selectron »

api wrote: post #28
Analemma_ wrote: post #3

Apparently they're not doing well. Good riddance. Palantir is creepy as hell. For all the snark about how startups and places like Apple are run like cults, like in The Circle, Palantir is the one outfit I know of where the stereotype is really true. And in the post-Snowden world where we know for sure just how all-devouring the US intelligence's community's desires are regarding our privacy, the last thing we need i…

Sure it's creepy, but there's also something else I've been suspecting about all this surveillance for years: it doesn't really work. Moral, ethical, and political problems aside is mass surveillance snake oil? Is there really any credible evidence that mass surveillance has stopped any significant terror attacks? Can you really find needles in haystacks reliably without drowning in false positives?

It is possible that no significant terror attacks were even attempted against the US since 9/11. And if an attack was stopped they wouldn't necessarily want to publish how they stopped it. So it is impossible to really know if the surveillance does anything.
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