<story><title>HBGary, Palantir, Prism, Facebook and The Industrial Surveillance Complex</title><url>http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/23/1218189/-HBGary-Palantir-Prism-Facebook-The-Industrial-Surveillance-Complex</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Permit</author><text>&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  A company that profits from violence and war really can&amp;#x27;t be expected to be terribly trustworthy. 
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
Their business does not center around tracking down terrorists. They do all things &amp;quot;Big Data&amp;quot;. That includes finance and tracking the source of E-Coli outbreaks. The problem is that people like yourself know nothing about the company, yet still feel qualified to condemn them.</text></item><item><author>glesica</author><text>Just as we should approach Palantir itself with a great deal of skepticism... A company that profits from violence and war really can&amp;#x27;t be expected to be terribly trustworthy. I realize this community loves the idea of Palantir and many people probably know people who are involved. But why should Palantir get a free pass to go about their business with excessive secrecy in an area that features massive abuse without the additional scrutiny that must accompany such behavior?</text></item><item><author>Permit</author><text>I cannot believe we are doing this again. Just because Palantir was asked by Aaron Barr to use their technology against Greenwald does not mean that they did. Palantir later confirmed that their technology didn&amp;#x27;t even have the ability to do what Aaron Barr was asking.&lt;p&gt;This is the second smear against Palantir in three days that cites an email without even showing the email to give you some context. They also don&amp;#x27;t link to Palantirs response to these claims.&lt;p&gt;Please approach this with some level of skepticism.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>freyr</author><text>&amp;gt; ... tracking the source of E-Coli outbreaks&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s great, but it&amp;#x27;s more likely a publicity play than a notable source of revenue.&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;Early investments came in the form of $2 million from the CIA&amp;#x27;s venture arm In-Q-Tel.&amp;quot; They&amp;#x27;ve been catering to the defense industry from the beginning. That&amp;#x27;s not inherently bad, and there&amp;#x27;s no reason to skirt around the issue.&lt;p&gt;One of Palantir&amp;#x27;s cofounders was recently interviewed (&lt;a href=&quot;http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3052&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;ecorner.stanford.edu&amp;#x2F;authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=3052&lt;/a&gt;). He reminisced about pitching the product to two defense industry suits who actually high-fived each other at the end of his presentation. That was when he knew he had made it.&lt;p&gt;If you want to find examples about how the military uses Palantir&amp;#x27;s software, you don&amp;#x27;t have to look far. For instance, &lt;a href=&quot;http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2012/11/no-spy-software-scandal-here-army-claims/&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.wired.com&amp;#x2F;dangerroom&amp;#x2F;2012&amp;#x2F;11&amp;#x2F;no-spy-software-scan...&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>HBGary, Palantir, Prism, Facebook and The Industrial Surveillance Complex</title><url>http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/06/23/1218189/-HBGary-Palantir-Prism-Facebook-The-Industrial-Surveillance-Complex</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>Permit</author><text>&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  A company that profits from violence and war really can&amp;#x27;t be expected to be terribly trustworthy. 
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
Their business does not center around tracking down terrorists. They do all things &amp;quot;Big Data&amp;quot;. That includes finance and tracking the source of E-Coli outbreaks. The problem is that people like yourself know nothing about the company, yet still feel qualified to condemn them.</text></item><item><author>glesica</author><text>Just as we should approach Palantir itself with a great deal of skepticism... A company that profits from violence and war really can&amp;#x27;t be expected to be terribly trustworthy. I realize this community loves the idea of Palantir and many people probably know people who are involved. But why should Palantir get a free pass to go about their business with excessive secrecy in an area that features massive abuse without the additional scrutiny that must accompany such behavior?</text></item><item><author>Permit</author><text>I cannot believe we are doing this again. Just because Palantir was asked by Aaron Barr to use their technology against Greenwald does not mean that they did. Palantir later confirmed that their technology didn&amp;#x27;t even have the ability to do what Aaron Barr was asking.&lt;p&gt;This is the second smear against Palantir in three days that cites an email without even showing the email to give you some context. They also don&amp;#x27;t link to Palantirs response to these claims.&lt;p&gt;Please approach this with some level of skepticism.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>pqqqqq</author><text>&amp;gt; Their business does not center around tracking down terrorists. They do all things &amp;quot;Big Data&amp;quot;.&lt;p&gt;The company is a defense contractor. Yes, they&amp;#x27;ve successfully commercialized their technology for law enforcement, bank fraud detection, disaster recovery, and whatnot, but you&amp;#x27;d be silly to think that intelligence (and &amp;quot;tracking down terrorists&amp;quot;) is not central to their business. They were funded by the CIA&amp;#x27;s VC firm.</text></comment>