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MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

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Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#181

Post by alxhill »

pjc50 wrote: post #146
crimsoneer wrote: post #74

“Palantir does not need to own the data or even have stewardship. They can extract, transform and exploit the metadata to build their own rich picture.” Sorry, but this is full on into conspiracy theory here. Are we seriously arguing that Palantir are doing very much illegal analysis on air-gapped national security systems, and somehow exporting those and aggregating them? The exact same concerns could be articulated…

> very much illegal analysis on air-gapped national security systems They're hosted by the US. It would be illegal for them not to comply with orders to hand data over to US security services. This has been a concern since the Microsoft "safe harbour" GDPR case. It's now the same thing with much higher stakes. Since this: https://www.theguardian.com/law/2026/feb/18/international-cr... , no US tech company can give a…

They are _not_ hosting UK government data in the US. They offer on-premise and self-managed cloud offerings, which are often used where data sovereignty is important. Additionally, customers often manage access control - including for Palantir employees - themselves, so it would not be a simple "pull the power plug" if the US/UK relationship went awry.

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#182

Post by Calavar »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #121

Obviously, just look at what the Palantir stones did to Saruman and Denethor. They're a corrupting force, both in the middle-earth case and in the our-earth case. Thiel has made no secret of his intent to use technology to dispense with that pesky democracy problem that billionaires have, and Palantir is pretty obviously his attempt to do just that. It's a reductio-ad-absurdum argument against listening to your citiz…

I still don't understand why Theil and Karp decided to name their surveillance tech company after a device that is best known for being used by an evil dark lord to decieve and corrupt. It's like the Mitchell and Webb skit "are we the baddies" except they're the ones who designed the uniforms with skulls on them.

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#184

Post by graemep »

persedes wrote: post #63
graemep wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Especially as multiple people in his family have had fascist sympathies. Given his ancestry wearing a black shirt for a TV interview was pretty bad judgement.

If it quacks like a duck...?

To an extent, but with caution and charity. A lot of exceptionally good people have come from bad families - one of the Borgias was a saint, for example. A lot of exceptionally nasty people seem to have perfectly nice families.

Of course sometimes people who are, for example, brought up to be racist, are racist.

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#185

Post by goku12 »

empath75 wrote: post #111
qweiopqweiop wrote: post #69

Can someone explain why Palantir are seen as such a threat? My understanding is their product is a PowerBI++ and they don't host any user data themselves. Are people scared of backdoors?

The United States is no longer a reliable ally. That is the reality that the world is having to adapt to. Even when Trump is gone, it will take a long time to rebuild that trust.

Would you trust Palantir if you're I'm the US?

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#186

Post by farisa_lives »

__MatrixMan__ wrote: post #121

Obviously, just look at what the Palantir stones did to Saruman and Denethor. They're a corrupting force, both in the middle-earth case and in the our-earth case. Thiel has made no secret of his intent to use technology to dispense with that pesky democracy problem that billionaires have, and Palantir is pretty obviously his attempt to do just that. It's a reductio-ad-absurdum argument against listening to your citiz…

[dead]

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#187

Post by efxhoy »

qweiopqweiop wrote: post #69

Can someone explain why Palantir are seen as such a threat? My understanding is their product is a PowerBI++ and they don't host any user data themselves. Are people scared of backdoors?

I’ve only had their platforms explained to me by them (palantir) at a conference but the mental model that stuck with me was more of an operating system than a single tool. Think AWS managed services + databricks + whatever library of ready made intelligence software they have already built for others.

They also have “forward deployed engineers” to help organizations actually use the platform. It looked complicated enough to probably be completely useless without these specialists, even in a “self hosted” setup.

The managed hosting also seems like a major selling point so many deployments that probably should be self hosted probably aren’t because muh managed services added value.

And the backdoors of course. There is no way it isn’t full of plausibly deniable “metrics endpoints” that helpfully spew out all the internal data if the right key comes knocking. There’s no way it’s auditable at the level of detail you would need compared to the value of the data and the sophistication of the potential attacker (NSA).

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#188

Post by rainworld »

qweiopqweiop wrote: post #69

Can someone explain why Palantir are seen as such a threat? My understanding is their product is a PowerBI++ and they don't host any user data themselves. Are people scared of backdoors?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Maxwell#Distribution_of...

It’s just the latest implementation of a winning formula.

Re: MoD sources warn Palantir role at heart of government is threat to UK security

#190

Post by pirate787 »

_joel wrote: post #62
_joel wrote: post #47

Also, LBC exclusive about £250 million contact that came about because of Mandelson breaking today. I mean if it wasn't obvious from the get go they're, well, dubious, given the grandson of Owsald Mosley is the UK CEO.

Always interesting when you criticise Palantir on here you get downvoted, almost as if they have an "outreach department"

No the downvote is from smearing an individual for the political activities of his grandfather.
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