3 ms·

It's making it worse until something bad happens to someone you value. If Obama's daughters (or Trump's if you are on the other side) were killed in some horri

It's making it worse until something bad happens to someone you value. If Obama's daughters (or Trump's if you are on the other side) were killed in some horrific racist incident, wouldn't you approve the usage of such software if it was the only hope of getting the perpetrator? Or would you say "as much as I am saddened, I cannot approve such massive invasion of privacy".

_iyig 7y ago
Are you alleging that Palantir enables or encourages "horrific racist incidents"? Could you be more specific? EDIT: I see what you mean. I had mistaken the meaning of OP. Please ignore this comment.
- pm90 7y ago
  I think the reference here is to the problem of fatal shooting of minorities by police in the US. The OP is attempting to draw attention to the problem by an exaggerated situation in which the former first daughters are involved in such an incodent.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- daveFNbuck 7y ago
  They're saying the opposite. They're saying that Palantir is helping catch violent racists after they commit crimes.
chance_state 7y ago
>If Obama's daughters (or Trump's if you are on the other side) were killed in some horrific racist incident, wouldn't you approve the usage of such software if it was the only hope of getting the perpetrator? Or would you say "as much as I am saddened, I cannot approve such massive invasion of privacy". The latter, every time. The nature of principles is that they do not change with changing circumstances. I find your example extremely unpersuasive.
mindcrime 7y ago
Or would you say "as much as I am saddened, I cannot approve such massive invasion of privacy". Yes, I would take that stance every time, and twice on Sunday.
- zarathustraa 7y ago
  Funny, you seem to be working on systems very similar to Palantir (twitter handle on HN profile): https://twitter.com/FogbeamLabs/status/1086757478312960002 https://twitter.com/FogbeamLabs/status/1086757478312960002 What safeguards do you have in place to make sure that personally identifiable information of customers that companies using your tech have is not aggregated and pulled together for nefarious use? For example very targeted lead sourcing or targeted advertisement? Oh, none, you actually advertise that you are mining all the databases for: > Prospect and identify leads But I understand that it can be hard to see certain things when your income depends on you not seeing them.
  - mindcrime 7y ago
    At the end of the day, the only aspect of what we do that is really anything like Palantir is that we build a search index, using Lucene. That's it, an inverted text index. There really is no meaningful way to know that the data being put in is PII, or to regulate how the orgs that use it, do so. And even if we did put in any such safeguard, all our stuff is Open Source, meaning anybody could rebuild it without the safeguard, and we'd be none the wiser. The differences between us and Palantir then: 1. We don't pitch our software to intelligence agencies, law enforcement, etc., or encourage it's use for these kinds of ends. But we can't specifically block those uses, or we'd be in violation of the OSD. 2. We've been very public with our unwillingness to embrace working with intelligence agencies and the like. See, for example: https://www.wraltechwire.com/2014/04/30/why-a-triangle-tech-ceo-just-said-no-to-cia-investment/ https://www.wraltechwire.com/2014/04/30/why-a-triangle-tech-... 3. Everything we do is Open Source, meaning that at least the public can take a look inside and see what's going on... modulo any changes a given end user organization makes and keeps private. 4. Our technology is positioned primarily for internal knowledge management / collaboration use inside organizations. But, again, we have no means, legal or technical, to stop somebody from using it for other purposes. And even if we did, they could just download Lucene, ManifoldCF, blah, blah, etc., and build up their own Nefarious Indexing System. But I understand that it can be hard to see certain things when your income depends on you not seeing them. There is nothing in this regard that we "don't see". Taking your argument to it's logical conclusion, even a worker mining sand somewhere, to use to fabricate silicon chips, which can be used to power computers, which can be used to run privacy violating software, is "guilty". I don't think I need to point out the absurdity of that position. Furthermore, if we really just cared about "get all the money at any cost" we would have immediately jumped at a chance to talk to In-Q-Tel and the possibility of juicy, rich contracts supplying the CIA and their brethren with technology.

_iyig 7y ago

Are you alleging that Palantir enables or encourages "horrific racist incidents"? Could you be more specific? EDIT: I see what you mean. I had mistaken the meaning of OP. Please ignore this comment.

pm90 7y ago
I think the reference here is to the problem of fatal shooting of minorities by police in the US. The OP is attempting to draw attention to the problem by an exaggerated situation in which the former first daughters are involved in such an incodent.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
daveFNbuck 7y ago
They're saying the opposite. They're saying that Palantir is helping catch violent racists after they commit crimes.

chance_state 7y ago

>If Obama's daughters (or Trump's if you are on the other side) were killed in some horrific racist incident, wouldn't you approve the usage of such software if it was the only hope of getting the perpetrator? Or would you say "as much as I am saddened, I cannot approve such massive invasion of privacy". The latter, every time. The nature of principles is that they do not change with changing circumstances. I find your example extremely unpersuasive.

mindcrime 7y ago

Or would you say "as much as I am saddened, I cannot approve such massive invasion of privacy". Yes, I would take that stance every time, and twice on Sunday.

zarathustraa 7y ago
Funny, you seem to be working on systems very similar to Palantir (twitter handle on HN profile): https://twitter.com/FogbeamLabs/status/1086757478312960002 https://twitter.com/FogbeamLabs/status/1086757478312960002 What safeguards do you have in place to make sure that personally identifiable information of customers that companies using your tech have is not aggregated and pulled together for nefarious use? For example very targeted lead sourcing or targeted advertisement? Oh, none, you actually advertise that you are mining all the databases for: > Prospect and identify leads But I understand that it can be hard to see certain things when your income depends on you not seeing them.
- mindcrime 7y ago
  At the end of the day, the only aspect of what we do that is really anything like Palantir is that we build a search index, using Lucene. That's it, an inverted text index. There really is no meaningful way to know that the data being put in is PII, or to regulate how the orgs that use it, do so. And even if we did put in any such safeguard, all our stuff is Open Source, meaning anybody could rebuild it without the safeguard, and we'd be none the wiser. The differences between us and Palantir then: 1. We don't pitch our software to intelligence agencies, law enforcement, etc., or encourage it's use for these kinds of ends. But we can't specifically block those uses, or we'd be in violation of the OSD. 2. We've been very public with our unwillingness to embrace working with intelligence agencies and the like. See, for example: https://www.wraltechwire.com/2014/04/30/why-a-triangle-tech-ceo-just-said-no-to-cia-investment/ https://www.wraltechwire.com/2014/04/30/why-a-triangle-tech-... 3. Everything we do is Open Source, meaning that at least the public can take a look inside and see what's going on... modulo any changes a given end user organization makes and keeps private. 4. Our technology is positioned primarily for internal knowledge management / collaboration use inside organizations. But, again, we have no means, legal or technical, to stop somebody from using it for other purposes. And even if we did, they could just download Lucene, ManifoldCF, blah, blah, etc., and build up their own Nefarious Indexing System. But I understand that it can be hard to see certain things when your income depends on you not seeing them. There is nothing in this regard that we "don't see". Taking your argument to it's logical conclusion, even a worker mining sand somewhere, to use to fabricate silicon chips, which can be used to power computers, which can be used to run privacy violating software, is "guilty". I don't think I need to point out the absurdity of that position. Furthermore, if we really just cared about "get all the money at any cost" we would have immediately jumped at a chance to talk to In-Q-Tel and the possibility of juicy, rich contracts supplying the CIA and their brethren with technology.