I'm starting to realize how difficult it is to compete in the tech sector without government assistance. I thought it was a free market, but it's looking increasingly like a giant clusterfuck of government intervention. It looks nothing like a free market, it looks more like a battlefield and everyone is competing for who can get the most free weapons and ammo from their respective governments (in the form of grants, contracts and beneficial regulations). That would explain why smaller companies cannot compete against the big ones in many sectors; the big players are flush with free government money; how can any small startup compete against that.
Oracle started as a CIA project (2014)
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Re: Oracle started as a CIA project (2014)
#12US startups seem to have it so easy compared to companies in other parts of the world. It seems they may have been getting a little extra help from government agencies. I'm starting to realize how difficult it is to compete in the tech sector without government assistance. I thought it was a free market, but it's looking increasingly like a giant clusterfuck of government intervention. It looks nothing like a free ma…
A good primer on the topic for the interested
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/how-the-cia-made-goo...
Re: Oracle started as a CIA project (2014)
#13Through In-Q-Tel, the CIA invested in a LOT of companies who were aiming to solve the problems they had. Google was another very early investment by In-Q-Tel on behalf of the NSA because Google's stated goal -- to collect, organize, and make sense of all of the world's data -- overlaps with what the NSA's goal is (and it's possible that Google might come up with better ideas and tech for doing it than the NSA's brain…
Re: Oracle started as a CIA project (2014)
#14The only real fix is data privacy laws, which would force the private and public outfits to discard most of their stored data (and enforceable criminal and civil penalites for not doing so).
Re: Oracle started as a CIA project (2014)
#15Slightly more interesting than this is the "Project Oracle" project description from the CIA, thanks to a FOIA request:
https://www.cia.gov/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-01794R0001002...
Re: Oracle started as a CIA project (2014)
#16Through In-Q-Tel, the CIA invested in a LOT of companies who were aiming to solve the problems they had. Google was another very early investment by In-Q-Tel on behalf of the NSA because Google's stated goal -- to collect, organize, and make sense of all of the world's data -- overlaps with what the NSA's goal is (and it's possible that Google might come up with better ideas and tech for doing it than the NSA's brain…
Note the "problems they had" aren't necessarily "they needed a better database technology". Oracle's mission is to have all bits of data in the world processed or stored on an Oracle system (source: I worked for Oracle, this was the internal mission statement). Oracle collects: 1. Who is staying in which hotels and in which rooms 2. Who is eating at which restaurants and going to which entertainment facilities 3. Who…
Re: Oracle started as a CIA project (2014)
#17This has not been true for some time.
https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/16/amazon_ditches_oracle...
Re: Oracle started as a CIA project (2014)
#18Re: Oracle started as a CIA project (2014)
#19"What books you bought on Amazon is stored in an Oracle database." This has not been true for some time. https://www.theregister.com/2019/10/16/amazon_ditches_oracle...
Re: Oracle started as a CIA project (2014)
#20Through In-Q-Tel, the CIA invested in a LOT of companies who were aiming to solve the problems they had. Google was another very early investment by In-Q-Tel on behalf of the NSA because Google's stated goal -- to collect, organize, and make sense of all of the world's data -- overlaps with what the NSA's goal is (and it's possible that Google might come up with better ideas and tech for doing it than the NSA's brain…
… If there were no CIA agents inside Google that would be a cause for concern. … If the CIA did not control Google that would be a cause for concern. …