Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link • Hacker News Board

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#51

Post by bane » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:33 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #23

nimish wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It seems a quick run through the open positions at Palantir can tell you a lot more... http://www.palantir.com/careers/OpenPositionLanding "Embedded Analyst, Government: Canberra" "Embedded Analyst, Government: London" "Embedded Analyst, Government: New Zealand" "Engineer, Developer Support Team (McLean, VA)" "Forward Deployed Engineer: Singapore" "Forward Deployed Software Engineer, Government: Berlin" "Forward Depl…

Ugh, a quick review on glassdoor makes their hiring practices sound soul sucking

http://www.glassdoor.com/Interview/Palantir-Technologies-Int...

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#52

Post by mpyne » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:34 PM UTC

_delirium wrote: post #10

Anderkent wrote: post #7

Earlier 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…

> refusing the job only means someone else will take it If he's the only person who refuses the job, yes. But the overall effect depends on how many people refuse the job. If a significant percentage of technologists with in-demand skills refuse to do a particular kind of work, it will become harder for a company to hire that kind of employee. Lots of companies in the Valley are already having trouble hiring enough s…

That logic is nice, but when you have the resources Palantir will have available to them, they can afford to train people themselves if need be. Then they don't need knowledge, skills, or abilities, merely talent.

That's how the military does it after all, even in very technically demanding occupations.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#53

Post by 0xdeadbeefbabe » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:34 PM UTC

joezydeco wrote: post #14

acchow wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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...

> We are not domain experts; we are problem solving experts

Eeek!

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#54

Post by wavefunction » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:35 PM UTC

aridiculous wrote: post #40

I 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…

Just keep in mind who abused the Palantir.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#55

Post by ryanx435 » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:35 PM UTC

finally a topic comes up on HN that I'm an expert in, and yet I'm legally unable to talk about it.

... crap.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#56

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:38 PM UTC

jmngomes wrote: post #18

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 surve…

[deleted]

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#57

Post by Spooky23 » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:41 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.

Be careful with moral judgements like that. You basically work in an industry that exists due to it's role in preparing for nuclear war.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#58

Post by bane » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:42 PM UTC

Makkhdyn wrote: post #4

Semi related: http://wikileaks.org/gifiles/docs/745547_re-ct-tactical-pala...

it's a stronger link than the article supposes

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#59

Post by HudsonMauer » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:43 PM UTC

Of course there's a link.

Palantir basically allows for analysis across federated data sources. It's a data fusion platform along the lines of other C4ISR programs.

One of those federated sources is now SNA (Social Network Analysis) and/or other Internet sources.

One way for Facebook to share information the gov't requests is through this: https://www.facebook.com/safety/groups/law/guidelines/

This next part is speculation, but if you were servicing many of these requests, wouldn't you just create an API to help you out? You aren't getting paid (much? Note: "Cost Reimbursement" section in above link) to help them out.

Re: Palantir and Prism: A Possible Link

#60

Post by mjolk » Fri, Jun 07, 2013, 4:44 PM UTC

nimish wrote: post #19

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.

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

Exactly. I had a chat with a recruiter a couple years ago and he was upfront about contracts with government agencies and data mining. But sure, someone internet gumshoe totally _cracked the case_ by going to Palantir's official website and clicking 'What we do' ( https://www.palantir.com/what-we-do/ )