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The basic point is that Palantir's ties with intelligence and military branches are quite extensive -- and at one point they openly boasted about the success in

The basic point is that Palantir's ties with intelligence and military branches are quite extensive -- and at one point they openly boasted about the success in helping both the Marines and Special Forces get various kinds of stuff (never exactly specified) done on the ground in Afghanistan -- such that it'd be surprising if they weren't involved in the Drone program in some fashion, at this stage.

BWStearns 11y ago
All very true. If you really couldn't sleep at night knowing that it was a really useful tool for US/US aligned military and intel operations, you probably don't want to work there, but I'm not even sure their devs need clearances for the most part. I just wanted to point out that their product is pretty awesome and I sometimes feel compelled to try to temper what I perceive as innuendo (vice fact) powered comments towards the national security community. There's plenty of real cause for anger (including billions wasted on software that doesn't work), a really good network analysis tool isn't one. Perhaps I saw innuendo where none existed, but certainly agree with what you've said here.
floppydisk 11y ago
One of their big projects was helping forces predict the locations of IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan [1]. It did a better job at aggregating all the intel they were getting on IEDs into a unified interface and platform that let ground commanders ensure their soldiers left knowing all the risks and possible bomb locations. [1] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/16/military-has-to-fight-to-purchase-lauded-ied-buste/?page=all http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/16/military-has...
- kafkaesq 11y ago
  OK - but what do we about the extent to which they (may be) involved in drone attacks? Or in identifying "terrorist" targets generally?
  - floppydisk 11y ago
    I think I'm missing the gist of your argument and I see it going one of two ways. 1) Drone Program / Terrorist Hunting / intelligence = bad therefore companies helping with intelligence gathering / processing = bad/nefarious? 2) Software used by the government to execute programs some might disagree with is tainted/bad therefore we should boycott it/protest against it? There are hundreds if not thousands of government contractors providing similar services to the Govt, albeit quietly and behind the scenes. The only reason Palantir gets a lot of press is they do it better than most other people and they aren't based in the DC area. If we're supposed to "do something about Palantir" what are we supposed to do about the rest of them? Palantir et al. aren't in the control room pushing the big red button or even doing the actual terrorist "hunting". They provide a platform that lets the people doing the analyzing/hunting to quickly and efficiently process data they already have. As the article points out, Palantir didn't add data to the system, it just made searching it and sorting it more efficient than having to log into 3 separate systems and search them out.

BWStearns 11y ago

All very true. If you really couldn't sleep at night knowing that it was a really useful tool for US/US aligned military and intel operations, you probably don't want to work there, but I'm not even sure their devs need clearances for the most part. I just wanted to point out that their product is pretty awesome and I sometimes feel compelled to try to temper what I perceive as innuendo (vice fact) powered comments towards the national security community. There's plenty of real cause for anger (including billions wasted on software that doesn't work), a really good network analysis tool isn't one. Perhaps I saw innuendo where none existed, but certainly agree with what you've said here.

floppydisk 11y ago

One of their big projects was helping forces predict the locations of IEDs in Iraq and Afghanistan [1]. It did a better job at aggregating all the intel they were getting on IEDs into a unified interface and platform that let ground commanders ensure their soldiers left knowing all the risks and possible bomb locations. [1] http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/16/military-has-to-fight-to-purchase-lauded-ied-buste/?page=all http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/jul/16/military-has...

kafkaesq 11y ago
OK - but what do we about the extent to which they (may be) involved in drone attacks? Or in identifying "terrorist" targets generally?
- floppydisk 11y ago
  I think I'm missing the gist of your argument and I see it going one of two ways. 1) Drone Program / Terrorist Hunting / intelligence = bad therefore companies helping with intelligence gathering / processing = bad/nefarious? 2) Software used by the government to execute programs some might disagree with is tainted/bad therefore we should boycott it/protest against it? There are hundreds if not thousands of government contractors providing similar services to the Govt, albeit quietly and behind the scenes. The only reason Palantir gets a lot of press is they do it better than most other people and they aren't based in the DC area. If we're supposed to "do something about Palantir" what are we supposed to do about the rest of them? Palantir et al. aren't in the control room pushing the big red button or even doing the actual terrorist "hunting". They provide a platform that lets the people doing the analyzing/hunting to quickly and efficiently process data they already have. As the article points out, Palantir didn't add data to the system, it just made searching it and sorting it more efficient than having to log into 3 separate systems and search them out.