Comments on: Palantir Knows Everything About You

Palantir Knows Everything About You

Existential Dread — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:18:49 -0800

Peter Thiel's secretive surveillance company, Palantir, has been linked recently to the Cambridge Analytica data scandal. Bloomberg BusinessWeek explores how Palantir was used by a team at JPMorgan to spy on employees and senior execs, how much data they can access on ordinary citizens, and how that data is used, including use by LAPD to "...monitor and stop the pre-crime suspects as often as possible, using excuses such as jaywalking or fix-it tickets."

By: turtlebackriding

turtlebackriding — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:26:22 -0800

Literally, the device that Sauron used to corrupt Saruman to evil. Are we surprised at how this turned out?

By: GenjiandProust

GenjiandProust — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:30:14 -0800

Is it too late for the pitchforks and stakes? Citizen Guillotine?

By: selfnoise

selfnoise — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:33:52 -0800

This guy has a volcano laser, doesn't he.

By: Celsius1414

Celsius1414 — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:35:09 -0800

Is it too late for the pitchforks and stakes? Citizen Guillotine? Yeah, we're going to have to deal with Uruk-Hai pouring put of Isengard soon - make sure somebody remembered to reforge the sword that was broken, raise Rohan, and send some hobbits to talk to Treebeard.

By: howfar

howfar — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:38:49 -0800

Literally, the device that Sauron used to corrupt Saruman to evil. Are we surprised at how this turned out? Peter Thiel is the Morrissey of the business world: a tiresome, attention-seeking little prat who sees the repulsion he arouses in others as a vindication of how special he is. He's Richard III stripped of every ounce of imagination, wit or charm, until all that's left is a smirking bag of bad, boring, annoying ideas.

By: Existential Dread

Existential Dread — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:39:04 -0800

It's pretty unsurprising that these tools are being used by police for increasing harassment of youth of color in poorer neighborhoods. "Pre-crime" is a cringey euphemism used by the journalists, but they do a good job later in the piece looking at the impacts of such pseudo-Minority-Report antics by the cops. Notable too that JPMorgan only fired their surveillance lead when it became clear that he was spying on higher-ups.

By: tommasz

tommasz — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:48:09 -0800

It's confirmation bias I'm sure but it seems like everything that sucks is somehow connected to Peter Thiel.

By: AnhydrousLove

AnhydrousLove — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:54:58 -0800

Pitchforks and stakes start with pickets and strikes. If we ever want these repulsive companies to change or come to an end, we need to organise and build movements up.

By: entropicamericana

entropicamericana — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 11:57:11 -0800

something named after sauron's tool of surveillance and deception could only have been built with the best of intentions

By: Foosnark

Foosnark — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 12:05:57 -0800

It's confirmation bias I'm sure but it seems like everything that sucks is somehow connected to Peter Thiel. Your favorite band is somehow connected to Peter Thiel.

By: kokaku

kokaku — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 12:19:07 -0800

If the Police were truly interested in pre-crime, they'd disband themselves since they seem to commit an awful lot of crimes.

By: bouvin

bouvin — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 12:20:34 -0800

They are all over, too. Two weeks back, we had Career Day at my CS department in Aarhus, Denmark (~100 CS MSc. candidates, 230 recruiters), and Palantír was there as well.

By: AFABulous

AFABulous — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 12:37:03 -0800

I declined to apply for an analyst job because they used either Palantir or similar software (didn't specify in the job description, but the responsibilities made it clear). It literally sickens me that people's lives are being disrupted and destroyed by software. Data analysis is great for things and theories. Predicting forest fires or building transportation models, for example. I believe it is morally wrong to use it on people except for public health reasons (e.g. tracking epidemics), and you don't need this much data to do that. I don't know if this has anything directly to do with Palantir, but one of my heroes is Jordon Dyrdahl-Roberts, who quit his state job rather than supply information to ICE.

By: Sangermaine

Sangermaine — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 12:52:03 -0800

Your favorite band is somehow connected to Peter Thiel. The Riddle of Thiel is just a coincidence, damn it.

By: meowzilla

meowzilla — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 12:56:54 -0800

Hearing about Palantir outside of the tech world is always interesting. The most common opinion I see about Palantir in the tech world is "their tech isn't very good, they just have an army of consultants" which seems to completely miss the point.

By: Lynsey

Lynsey — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:11:53 -0800

I just knew that anything in real life named after something in fantasy that was once considered to be helpful, but then became an tool for subjugation (thanks Sauron, you jerk!) was destined to become a feared tool IRL, too, and for good reason, it seems. JPMorgan's experience remains instructive. "The world changed when it became clear everyone could be targeted using Palantir," says a former JPMorgan cyber expert who worked with Cavicchia at one point on the insider threat team. "Nefarious ideas became trivial to implement; everyone's a suspect, so we monitored everything. It was a pretty terrible feeling."

By: clawsoon

clawsoon — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:17:34 -0800

The list is distributed to patrolmen, with orders to monitor and stop the pre-crime suspects as often as possible, using excuses such as jaywalking or fix-it tickets.

A libertarian, huh? Huh.

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:18:11 -0800

No one even mentions how epistonyrical this is? And, we allow this stuff to happen, then we can't complain when it is used for EVULLLLLL! This is capitalism, chaps/ettes.

By: Existential Dread

Existential Dread — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:21:07 -0800

A libertarian, huh? Huh. How else are you going to secure the liberty and property rights of the wealthy if not for a massive, oppressive security apparatus to subjugate the poors

By: clawsoon

clawsoon — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:22:07 -0800

Samizdata: This is capitalism, chaps/ettes. Given that the company has had such a hard time making money in the open market, and such a good time making money from the various surveillance arms of the state, I'd say that it leans more in the direction of fascism. (Not that the two are necessarily in opposition.)

By: Phlegmco(tm)

Phlegmco(tm) — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:26:01 -0800

Did someone say Peter Thiel? A darawing I did last month of the affectless jackanapes.

By: schadenfrau

schadenfrau — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:38:13 -0800

Is it too late for the pitchforks and stakes? Citizen Guillotine? Never too late. Thiel, the Mercers, Erik Prince and Betsy de Vos, and the Kochs should stand trial. I mean, their crimes are too big for any one court (particularly the Kochs), but I'm sure we can make it work. I mean, I say this as someone who does think highly regulated capitalism is probably the most efficient organizing tool for an economy (as long as the obvious things, like health care, housing, etc are freaking provided). Never stop pushing the Overton window, is what I'm saying. I want to get these fuckers good.

By: bradbane

bradbane — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:45:39 -0800

Just going to link to this Fortune article on Palantir because I did the images and any day where I get to make evil tech bros look like weirdos is a good day. This company is basically like "1984 is a great idea for a startup" and Silicon Valley will throw money at any white boy in dumb track pants apparently.

By: CosmicRayCharles

CosmicRayCharles — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:52:04 -0800

Thiel, the Mercers, Erik Prince and Betsy de Vos, and the Kochs should stand trial. I mean, their crimes are too big for any one court (particularly the Kochs), but I'm sure we can make it work. Nuremberg is a good model. And I'd add people like Mitch McConnell, Steve Bannon, etc to the mix. All these people are skirting a cliff edge, they are more or less advocating damaging or overthrowing the current democratic systems in one way or another. Doing it with technology, money, or contorted governance instead of guns and knives doesn't make it any less of a threat.

By: chesty_a_arthur

chesty_a_arthur — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:54:46 -0800

Bradbane, I guess if you say "Piaget and Hobbes" enough, nobody will think of Bentham and the panopticon.

By: chesty_a_arthur

chesty_a_arthur — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:55:06 -0800

(Only addressed to you because you posted the article.)

By: rhizome

rhizome — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 13:57:03 -0800

Silicon Valley will throw money at any white boy in dumb track pants apparently. Let's not fly off the handle, it also depends on what the institution name is on your diploma.

By: panglos

panglos — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 15:04:47 -0800

First they came for the gangbangers, and I said nothing, because I wasn't a gangbanger.

By: Samizdata

Samizdata — Thu, 19 Apr 2018 21:22:46 -0800

> clawsoon: "Given that the company has had such a hard time making money in the open market, and such a good time making money from the various surveillance arms of the state, I'd say that it leans more in the direction of fascism. (Not that the two are necessarily in opposition.)" All I am saying if there weren't people willing to pay for this sort of information, there really wouldn't be a Palantir. You can say they are soulless mercenary fascist facilitators, certainly.

By: This Guy

This Guy — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 04:38:36 -0800

I had a brush with the company a couple years ago and the thing that creeped me out the most (besides their consultants/engineers in essentially matching Palantir tracksuits) was that they owned all the data. Once you gave them the data in your databases it resided on their servers and any new data you collected to use with their service resided on their servers. If you stopped paying their (incredibly hefty) yearly fee you lost access to not only their services but also ALL YOUR DATA. For that and several other reasons we decided to go another direction.

By: clawsoon

clawsoon — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 05:10:16 -0800

Silicon Valley will throw money at any white boy in dumb track pants apparently.
Let's not fly off the handle, it also depends on what the institution name is on your diploma. Imma get me some Stanford track pants!

By: wibari

wibari — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 23:47:10 -0800

He's ditching his longtime base in San Francisco and moving his personal investment firms this year to Los Angeles welcome, fucko! listen, let's not overthink it. this guy created a computer program that organizes data of a scale that has never been previously available into a picture that other authoritarian morons can understand and use to harm people. cool. how long you think that business plan is gonna work?