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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 we

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.

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.