Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link • Hacker News Board

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#11

Post by w1ntermute » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:42 PM UTC

dclowd9901 wrote: post #5

potatolicious wrote: post #2

Not really a surprise. Palantir has always been secretive about what exactly it is they do every day, though it's always been implied and rumored that a large part is government intelligence work. Also the reason why I've ignored every contact from a Palantir recruiter so far. This smells like working for the white collar, air-conditioned, catered-lunch version of Blackwater.

Well you can't deny that their developers probably take on some pretty novel and interesting challenges.

You could say that about a lot of immoral/unethical jobs.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#12

Post by sheri » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:42 PM UTC

Anderkent wrote: post #7

potatolicious wrote: post #2

Not really a surprise. Palantir has always been secretive about what exactly it is they do every day, though it's always been implied and rumored that a large part is government intelligence work. Also the reason why I've ignored every contact from a Palantir recruiter so far. This smells like working for the white collar, air-conditioned, catered-lunch version of Blackwater.

>Also the reason why I've ignored every contact from a Palantir recruiter so far. This smells like working for the white collar, air-conditioned, catered-lunch version of Blackwater. Is this because you would not like to work at a company handling such data, or because you think you are making a difference by not doing so? If the former, fair enough. If the latter, you might want to rethink the approach - refusing th…

> refusing the job only means someone else will take it,

Isn't that true for almost any moral stance? Should I stop being a vegetarian because someone else will eat the meat anyway?

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#13

Post by runjake » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

Anderkent wrote: post #7

potatolicious wrote: post #2

Not really a surprise. Palantir has always been secretive about what exactly it is they do every day, though it's always been implied and rumored that a large part is government intelligence work. Also the reason why I've ignored every contact from a Palantir recruiter so far. This smells like working for the white collar, air-conditioned, catered-lunch version of Blackwater.

>Also the reason why I've ignored every contact from a Palantir recruiter so far. This smells like working for the white collar, air-conditioned, catered-lunch version of Blackwater. Is this because you would not like to work at a company handling such data, or because you think you are making a difference by not doing so? If the former, fair enough. If the latter, you might want to rethink the approach - refusing th…

I think you need to rethink your argument. As far as i can tell, you're essentially saying "Take this job that's against your ethics or somebody else will".

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#14

Post by joezydeco » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

acchow wrote: post #6

dclowd9901 wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you can't deny that their developers probably take on some pretty novel and interesting challenges.

What kind of challenges? Please elaborate.

"The problem space we tackle is wildly diverse and growing every day. We enable the discovery of new financial relationships and strategies in capital markets. We uncover fraud rings and cyber attacks. We develop strategies for optimizing home lending default strategies. We are not domain experts; we are problem solving experts."

http://www.palantir.com/careers/OpenPosDetail?id=a0m80000000...

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#15

Post by jbooth » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:43 PM UTC

Anderkent wrote: post #7

potatolicious wrote: post #2

Not really a surprise. Palantir has always been secretive about what exactly it is they do every day, though it's always been implied and rumored that a large part is government intelligence work. Also the reason why I've ignored every contact from a Palantir recruiter so far. This smells like working for the white collar, air-conditioned, catered-lunch version of Blackwater.

>Also the reason why I've ignored every contact from a Palantir recruiter so far. This smells like working for the white collar, air-conditioned, catered-lunch version of Blackwater. Is this because you would not like to work at a company handling such data, or because you think you are making a difference by not doing so? If the former, fair enough. If the latter, you might want to rethink the approach - refusing th…

If some number of people refuse those jobs, then their pool of potential workers is smaller, meaning they have to either pay more or settle for worse engineers. At least it's something.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#16

Post by randomfool » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:44 PM UTC

welp wrote: post #8

While links are never impossible, I am ever optimistic and hope that their employees actually do watch out for the red flags they just spoke about on their blog two months ago. "Every Palantirian is trained to look out for “red flags” at deployments that might indicate activities that are antithetical to our commitment to privacy and civil liberties." http://www.palantir.com/2013/04/dont-just-trust-us&#x2F ;

And are the employees told to report these red flags directly to independent third-parties for investigation?

It's an easy thing to say but I'm extremely skeptical about it in practice.

For instance, red flag- government is scaling up for 1000x the capacity that lawful warrants would generate. You report this, but who at Palantir would take action?

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#17

Post by blendergasket » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:45 PM UTC

This is our future. A fascist with asymmetrical hair standing in front of a hip, edgy bit of art, who's funded by a fascist who calls himself a libertarian, waxing eloquently about how good a person he is because the company he founded is protecting the shire by injecting the increasingly unaccountable security apparatus into every single aspect of our lives where they will enforce conformity.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#18

Post by jmngomes » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:46 PM UTC

Hmmm, that makes it clearer why their CEO is at Bildeberg this year (http://news.rapgenius.com/The-bilderberg-group-list-of-atten...).

I once had a startup project (shot down by internal "concerns") to spin-off an intelligence software for social network exploration & analysis that I build at the company I worked for, I remember browsing through Palantir's portfolio and thinking they had quite the arsenal for surveillance and intelligence.

PS: Does this information being on RapGenius indicates something significant about their mid-term strategy?

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#19

Post by nimish » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:48 PM UTC

potatolicious wrote: post #2

Not really a surprise. Palantir has always been secretive about what exactly it is they do every day, though it's always been implied and rumored that a large part is government intelligence work. Also the reason why I've ignored every contact from a Palantir recruiter so far. This smells like working for the white collar, air-conditioned, catered-lunch version of Blackwater.

They're pretty upfront with the fact that a major portion of their business is from the US government, especially intelligence analysts. The other chunk is financial (hedge funds and the like as well as banks looking for fraud).

Not that it excuses any of it but they really don't try to hide it.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#20

Post by potatolicious » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 3:50 PM UTC

Anderkent wrote: post #7

potatolicious wrote: post #2

Not really a surprise. Palantir has always been secretive about what exactly it is they do every day, though it's always been implied and rumored that a large part is government intelligence work. Also the reason why I've ignored every contact from a Palantir recruiter so far. This smells like working for the white collar, air-conditioned, catered-lunch version of Blackwater.

>Also the reason why I've ignored every contact from a Palantir recruiter so far. This smells like working for the white collar, air-conditioned, catered-lunch version of Blackwater. Is this because you would not like to work at a company handling such data, or because you think you are making a difference by not doing so? If the former, fair enough. If the latter, you might want to rethink the approach - refusing th…

I haven't talked to any such recruiters or entertained the thought because:

- I'm uncomfortable working for a company that has this much power over private citizens but is not even nominally accountable to said citizens.

- I'm uncomfortable with the (sadly popular) tactic of shoving ugly and disdainful things onto private contractors as a way of distancing and plausible deniability. In both the government and private contexts.

- The job market for programmers is good enough that I have the freedom to be hoity toity with my morality.

I realize full well that given how much Palantir pays, they will fill the seats they need to fill to do the work they do. The world may be on an unavoidable course to hell, but I don't need to jump out and push.