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Given that Palantir is involved, I'd not touch it with a long stick https://tech.newstatesman.com/coronavirus/palantir-covid19-datastore-coronavirus https://te

Given that Palantir is involved, I'd not touch it with a long stick https://tech.newstatesman.com/coronavirus/palantir-covid19-datastore-coronavirus https://tech.newstatesman.com/coronavirus/palantir-covid19-d...

AJRF 7y ago
Oh wow I had no idea Palintir was involved, I feel like I've finally turned in to the paranoid old fool that people laugh at, but this really upsets me to think of the millions of people who are going to install this without so much as a thought.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- uoaei 7y ago
  The thing about those paranoid old fools is that some of them are right. But where they are stuck at the level of trying to convince others to just "look with your eyes, see the truth right in front of you!" those with actual experience with praxis know it's much more fruitful to put your efforts toward political campaigns. Grassroots is a thing but it's always some weird combination of coercion and rhetoric about morals and ethics, because most people don't care so you have to make them care before the movement picks up steam.
  - EGreg 7y ago
    Talk is cheap. Have vegetarians converted a lot of people to give up meat? No, you need viable alternatives for people to switch. Like the Impossible Burger and so on. Until then talking won’t change anything. Not even Snowden level revelations would change it. Sure you can try to use government to fight government. Or... just build the alternative. We built the Web. We killed AOL MSN and Compuserve. Build open source, end to end encrypted, self healing and rebalancing networks that use a version of Kademlia DHT that removes IP addresses from each hop. And also run consensus in small groups about stuff. That’s the future right there. Trouble is, we are only seeing its infancy. I can think of about 2-3 projects that are pulling it off. And they have been working for years. PS: When this happens, user accounts and quotas will be replaced with crypto, and centralized servers and databases will be only by opt in. They wouldn’t automatically be a thing just because they provide the infrastructure. Infra should become completely commoditized. PPS: But. You’ll have to worry massivelu about botnets, sybil attacks and massive disinfo campaigns and reputationao attacks by sleeper AI bots. “Fun” times ahead ...
thelittleone 7y ago
Seems like many countries have contact tracing apps (Australia is one) are they all based on Palantir?
- incompatible 7y ago
  The Australian app is reportedly based on an open source app from Singapore. The Australian government said it would release the source for its own version in a couple of weeks. The code is GPL, if it's this one: https://github.com/OpenTrace-community https://github.com/OpenTrace-community.
TLightful 7y ago
Palantir involvement? Yup ... I'll take the coronavirus, please.
- pmiller2 7y ago
  I'll take 2 coronavirus.
taywrobel 7y ago
Having worked at Palantir, I’m curious which outdated misconceptions you’re still harboring? It’s a giant federated search engine... that’s about it. They don’t even hold any data themselves, it all stays on site with the customer.
- SSLy 7y ago
  I'll use an analogy: they might not be the warlords, but they are the weapon traffickers.
  - taywrobel 7y ago
    I disagree with that analogy. Palantir isn’t getting them more data. It’s helping them use it more effectively. The organizations already have all the data recorded. If you don’t like the data that organizations record, I’m right there with you, but demonizing the tools that allow them to access data more effectively is an absurd stance to take. Their system also does things like add an immutable audit log, or enforce requirements on how data can be accessed. Working with law enforcement, before Palantir there was nothing preventing an officer from looking up their ex husband or wife, or celebrities, or anyone at random. With it, there’s an audit trail of every search, and most of them need a case number as justification. Even then, certain searches would automatically get flagged for review. We can go back to giving people direct and unaudited SQL access if you’d like, but I’d prefer some more accountability, even if the downside is organizations being able to use data _they already have_ more effectively.
    - conanbatt 7y ago
      A rationalization at best. Facilitating an immoral act is active participation.
      - taywrobel 7y ago
        Do you buy things from amazon? They treat their warehouse employees terribly, so I hope not, lest you facilitate an immoral act. Do you ever use uber? They work to keep their drivers legally declared as contractors, despite treating them employees in all other regards. That’s pretty immoral, so I hope you don’t encourage it by supplying them with business.
iamnotarobotman 7y ago
P A L A N T I R. I would treat this app as advanced kleptographic malware after knowing that they're developing this app with the NHS to contact trace millions of people to 'stop the spread' on a centralised server.
disappearance 7y ago
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-using-confidential-patient-data-in-coronavirus-response https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-...
andrepd 7y ago
> Palantir is involved Holy shit, and I didn't think that this whole contact tracing bullshit could look even worse.
- EGreg 7y ago
  Can someone please explain to me how a “libertarian” like Peter Thiel could start and run one of the most anti libertarian companies? What are his beliefs, exactly? I mean besides “zero to one” and “competition is for losers, build a monopoly”? I wonder how much effect he had on Zuck early on. He was the first big check in. Seems it was a great match there.
  - IG_Semmelweiss 7y ago
    I will venture a guess. Principles dont matter if you dont have the money to put them into practice. If palantir is what it takes for him to fund/back a visionary company or leader that will create a truly freer society, then that investment was well worth it.
  - ljm 7y ago
    Because his wealth isn't enough and he can still insert himself into other policies to obtain more influence, more power, and more money? My question to you is why you care what Thiel thinks and why you're dissapointed. As far as I'm concerned, these guys are the lowest of the low and they only hold their position through gross exploitation. Nobody should be amassing this impossible wealth and seeking to gain more and these CEOs are basically economic despots to my mind.
  - int_19h 7y ago
    There's libertarians, and then there's libertarians. Thiel is a huge fan of Hans Hermann-Hoppe, who writes things like: "In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They – the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism – will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order." This quote is from Hoppe's "Democracy: The God That Failed", which Thiel has referenced before. The overall thesis there is that economic freedom is the cornerstone of libertarianism, and it's fundamentally incompatible with democracy, so libertarians have to explore other options. It specifically promotes monarchy, on the basis that a monarch is more like a business owner with a vested long-term interest. You might argue that this isn't really libertarianism - indeed, many libertarians don't consider Hoppe to be one. This is basically proto-neo-reaction, at the point where it still hasn't explicitly rejected libertarianism altogether. But regardless of where you draw the line, this all is the evolution of Murray Rothbard's strain of libertarianism, after it moved away from social liberalism towards paleoconservatism - it's not just some random people coming and declaring their politics to be "libertarian" out of the blue. Nor is there any shortage of ex-libertarians in NRx circles, so it's clearly a common path, not unique to Thiel. Needless to say, the libertarian paradise described above could use something like Palantir to implement the "covenant".
tomp 7y ago
Can anyone point to some articles of how Palantir is abusing data? The reason I ask is, I also thought that it's "just supreme evil" until I listened to a podcast with Thiel (Dave Rubin podcast) recently... In it, he said that he started Palantir as an experiment, what can be done against organised crime/terrorism while respecting civil liberties and privacy. His argument was, that we do need to stop terrorism, because people (not HN crowd, but the public at large) are obviously not willing to compromise safety for privacy, so each terrorist attack results in privacy- & civil liberties-curtailing laws - so the question is, can we use data/ML/etc. to safeguard our society while preserving as much privacy & liberty as we can. But I've almost no real (and insider) info about Palantir to judge whether that's actually what the organisation is, 10 years or so later.
- GekkePrutser 7y ago
  That's called PR and spin. Having said that I know nothing of Palantir, today was the first time I heard of it. But I would never ever believe anything a CEO says in the media that can't be validated. Their very job is setting the company in a positive light above all else. Especially when it comes to vague terms about company ideals that can't be proven. And 10 years is an eternity in IT. Remember Google had their motto "Don't be evil". Look how that turned out.

AJRF 7y ago

Oh wow I had no idea Palintir was involved, I feel like I've finally turned in to the paranoid old fool that people laugh at, but this really upsets me to think of the millions of people who are going to install this without so much as a thought.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
uoaei 7y ago
The thing about those paranoid old fools is that some of them are right. But where they are stuck at the level of trying to convince others to just "look with your eyes, see the truth right in front of you!" those with actual experience with praxis know it's much more fruitful to put your efforts toward political campaigns. Grassroots is a thing but it's always some weird combination of coercion and rhetoric about morals and ethics, because most people don't care so you have to make them care before the movement picks up steam.
- EGreg 7y ago
  Talk is cheap. Have vegetarians converted a lot of people to give up meat? No, you need viable alternatives for people to switch. Like the Impossible Burger and so on. Until then talking won’t change anything. Not even Snowden level revelations would change it. Sure you can try to use government to fight government. Or... just build the alternative. We built the Web. We killed AOL MSN and Compuserve. Build open source, end to end encrypted, self healing and rebalancing networks that use a version of Kademlia DHT that removes IP addresses from each hop. And also run consensus in small groups about stuff. That’s the future right there. Trouble is, we are only seeing its infancy. I can think of about 2-3 projects that are pulling it off. And they have been working for years. PS: When this happens, user accounts and quotas will be replaced with crypto, and centralized servers and databases will be only by opt in. They wouldn’t automatically be a thing just because they provide the infrastructure. Infra should become completely commoditized. PPS: But. You’ll have to worry massivelu about botnets, sybil attacks and massive disinfo campaigns and reputationao attacks by sleeper AI bots. “Fun” times ahead ...

thelittleone 7y ago

Seems like many countries have contact tracing apps (Australia is one) are they all based on Palantir?

incompatible 7y ago
The Australian app is reportedly based on an open source app from Singapore. The Australian government said it would release the source for its own version in a couple of weeks. The code is GPL, if it's this one: https://github.com/OpenTrace-community https://github.com/OpenTrace-community.

TLightful 7y ago

Palantir involvement? Yup ... I'll take the coronavirus, please.

pmiller2 7y ago
I'll take 2 coronavirus.

taywrobel 7y ago

Having worked at Palantir, I’m curious which outdated misconceptions you’re still harboring? It’s a giant federated search engine... that’s about it. They don’t even hold any data themselves, it all stays on site with the customer.

SSLy 7y ago
I'll use an analogy: they might not be the warlords, but they are the weapon traffickers.
- taywrobel 7y ago
  I disagree with that analogy. Palantir isn’t getting them more data. It’s helping them use it more effectively. The organizations already have all the data recorded. If you don’t like the data that organizations record, I’m right there with you, but demonizing the tools that allow them to access data more effectively is an absurd stance to take. Their system also does things like add an immutable audit log, or enforce requirements on how data can be accessed. Working with law enforcement, before Palantir there was nothing preventing an officer from looking up their ex husband or wife, or celebrities, or anyone at random. With it, there’s an audit trail of every search, and most of them need a case number as justification. Even then, certain searches would automatically get flagged for review. We can go back to giving people direct and unaudited SQL access if you’d like, but I’d prefer some more accountability, even if the downside is organizations being able to use data _they already have_ more effectively.
  - conanbatt 7y ago
    A rationalization at best. Facilitating an immoral act is active participation.
    - taywrobel 7y ago
      Do you buy things from amazon? They treat their warehouse employees terribly, so I hope not, lest you facilitate an immoral act. Do you ever use uber? They work to keep their drivers legally declared as contractors, despite treating them employees in all other regards. That’s pretty immoral, so I hope you don’t encourage it by supplying them with business.

iamnotarobotman 7y ago

P A L A N T I R. I would treat this app as advanced kleptographic malware after knowing that they're developing this app with the NHS to contact trace millions of people to 'stop the spread' on a centralised server.

disappearance 7y ago

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-using-confidential-patient-data-in-coronavirus-response https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/12/uk-government-...

andrepd 7y ago

> Palantir is involved Holy shit, and I didn't think that this whole contact tracing bullshit could look even worse.

EGreg 7y ago
Can someone please explain to me how a “libertarian” like Peter Thiel could start and run one of the most anti libertarian companies? What are his beliefs, exactly? I mean besides “zero to one” and “competition is for losers, build a monopoly”? I wonder how much effect he had on Zuck early on. He was the first big check in. Seems it was a great match there.
- IG_Semmelweiss 7y ago
  I will venture a guess. Principles dont matter if you dont have the money to put them into practice. If palantir is what it takes for him to fund/back a visionary company or leader that will create a truly freer society, then that investment was well worth it.
- ljm 7y ago
  Because his wealth isn't enough and he can still insert himself into other policies to obtain more influence, more power, and more money? My question to you is why you care what Thiel thinks and why you're dissapointed. As far as I'm concerned, these guys are the lowest of the low and they only hold their position through gross exploitation. Nobody should be amassing this impossible wealth and seeking to gain more and these CEOs are basically economic despots to my mind.
- int_19h 7y ago
  There's libertarians, and then there's libertarians. Thiel is a huge fan of Hans Hermann-Hoppe, who writes things like: "In a covenant concluded among proprietor and community tenants for the purpose of protecting their private property, no such thing as a right to free (unlimited) speech exists, not even to unlimited speech on one's own tenant-property. One may say innumerable things and promote almost any idea under the sun, but naturally no one is permitted to advocate ideas contrary to the very purpose of the covenant of preserving and protecting private property, such as democracy and communism. There can be no tolerance toward democrats and communists in a libertarian social order. They will have to be physically separated and expelled from society. Likewise, in a covenant founded for the purpose of protecting family and kin, there can be no tolerance toward those habitually promoting lifestyles incompatible with this goal. They – the advocates of alternative, non-family and kin-centered lifestyles such as, for instance, individual hedonism, parasitism, nature-environment worship, homosexuality, or communism – will have to be physically removed from society, too, if one is to maintain a libertarian order." This quote is from Hoppe's "Democracy: The God That Failed", which Thiel has referenced before. The overall thesis there is that economic freedom is the cornerstone of libertarianism, and it's fundamentally incompatible with democracy, so libertarians have to explore other options. It specifically promotes monarchy, on the basis that a monarch is more like a business owner with a vested long-term interest. You might argue that this isn't really libertarianism - indeed, many libertarians don't consider Hoppe to be one. This is basically proto-neo-reaction, at the point where it still hasn't explicitly rejected libertarianism altogether. But regardless of where you draw the line, this all is the evolution of Murray Rothbard's strain of libertarianism, after it moved away from social liberalism towards paleoconservatism - it's not just some random people coming and declaring their politics to be "libertarian" out of the blue. Nor is there any shortage of ex-libertarians in NRx circles, so it's clearly a common path, not unique to Thiel. Needless to say, the libertarian paradise described above could use something like Palantir to implement the "covenant".

tomp 7y ago

Can anyone point to some articles of how Palantir is abusing data? The reason I ask is, I also thought that it's "just supreme evil" until I listened to a podcast with Thiel (Dave Rubin podcast) recently... In it, he said that he started Palantir as an experiment, what can be done against organised crime/terrorism while respecting civil liberties and privacy. His argument was, that we do need to stop terrorism, because people (not HN crowd, but the public at large) are obviously not willing to compromise safety for privacy, so each terrorist attack results in privacy- & civil liberties-curtailing laws - so the question is, can we use data/ML/etc. to safeguard our society while preserving as much privacy & liberty as we can. But I've almost no real (and insider) info about Palantir to judge whether that's actually what the organisation is, 10 years or so later.

GekkePrutser 7y ago
That's called PR and spin. Having said that I know nothing of Palantir, today was the first time I heard of it. But I would never ever believe anything a CEO says in the media that can't be validated. Their very job is setting the company in a positive light above all else. Especially when it comes to vague terms about company ideals that can't be proven. And 10 years is an eternity in IT. Remember Google had their motto "Don't be evil". Look how that turned out.