I cannot believe the link between palantir and prism is by the mere NAME of the software package as alleged in this article. That's some weak journalism. I mean, just check out github while you're at it:
https://github.com/search?q=PRISM&ref=cmdform
Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link
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Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link
#32Hmmm, 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 surve…
Yeah, the whole 'news' section is a cool use-case pivot on the unerlying tech/UI: http://news.rapgenius.com/
Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link
#33Palantir has hundreds of employees swarming around downtown Palo Alto. Hundreds. Somebody is paying that company a LOT of money for something.
There is something very weird about the employees in Palo Alto: I never see them at local meetups, events, parties, and such. They are truly strangers who keep to themselves and don't engage with the local community... and very young. I get the feeling they come from afar and are just out in California for a short time, and don't see themselves staying here. Like expats in their own country. Maybe they are from NSA families. Maybe Palantir functions effectively like an internship program for future NSA employees.
Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link
#34Hmmm, 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 surve…
It's already well known that RapGenius are trying to expand into a more generic document annotation service (see "Enterprise Genius").
Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link
#35This 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.
I can't tell what you even mean by "fascist". The word has a specific meaning.
A good example of a fascist was Mussolini. An example of a fascist view is that the nation (which should be holy) has been taken over by degenerates, liberals, the weak and people of impure ancestries or ancestries which don't belong here, and that it must be purified through violence such as purges and wars of glory.
Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Yes: solving drug trafficking routes with several constraints, making the best scams, exploiting vulnerabilities to install a botnet.
All are very interesting challenges.
Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link
#37While 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/ ;
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?
Obviously your definition of (say) a privacy issue is correct, and nobody else is entitled to any different definition.
Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Paying more may just mean they charge taxpayers more.
Well then I guess it's my moral duty to help spy on my fellow citizens so that I will save the country money.
Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link
#39Earlier quoted context omitted.
>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…
From the recruiting efforts I've seen, I would be surprised if they aren't just hiring everyone who meets their criteria. Which would make your argument that "refusing the job only means someone else will take it" not a very good one.
Yes, if they're aiming to hire more people than are actually willing to work there, the argument breaks down. I doubt that's the case, but your point stands.
Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link
#40I told my sister-in-law (a very level-headed economist) about Palantir and she just referred to them as paramilitary thugs. It hadn't occurred to me to phrase it like that because they are a young, hip group that borrows from Lord of the Rings and evidently posts cartoons on their walls.
Karp's M.O. is to simply list off all the possible use cases of data inference, including good ones. It makes him sound like a wise judge who will exercise restraint. However, these use cases are sometimes simply incompatible with each other, no matter how you slice it. Even IF he's a well-intentioned judge (which I doubt), political forces are likely to overrule his control when the kitchen gets hot enough.
We must stop excusing bad behavior from our elites.