Slashdot Mirror
How a Team of Geeks Cracked the Spy Trade
drunken_boxer777 sends us to The Wall Street Journal for a lengthy article on a small tech company, Palantir Technologies, that is making the CIA, Pentagon, and FBI take notice. The submitter adds, "And yes, their company name is a reference to what you think it is." "One of the latest entrants into the government spy-services marketplace, Palantir Technologies has designed what many intelligence analysts say is the most effective tool to date to investigate terrorist networks. The software's main advance is a user-friendly search tool that can scan multiple data sources at once, something previous search tools couldn't do. That means an analyst who is following a tip about a planned terror attack, for example, can more quickly and easily unearth connections among suspects, money transfers, phone calls and previous attacks around the globe. ... With Palantir's software 'you can actually point to examples where it was pretty clear that lives were saved.'"
But what is the reference?
> ..a small tech company, Palentir Technologies..
> ..Palantir Technologies has..
> The submitter adds, "And yes, their company name is a reference to what you think it is."
A spellcheck company?
It was the seeing stone that Sauron used in Lord of the Rings.
That is the tool the evil guy used to control the world. Sounds appropriate.
With a name like Palentir, it sounds like trojan spy program, not a Google like search tool.
"He's lost in a 'floyd hole"
Palantir Technologies has designed what many intelligence analysts say is the most effective tool to date to investigate terrorist networks
What? a crystal ball to fight the terrorist:
A palantír (sometimes translated as Seeing Stone but actually meaning "Farsighted" or "One that Sees from Afar") is a stone that functions somewhat like a crystal ball.
Slashdot ya no es que lo era!
The actual product seems MUCH more interesting than the silly summary. It compartamentalizes secret info, so if you are classified for level 5, you can still search and find info that is level 6, even if the file also has level 4 information. It can also tag information so that if your level 5 clearance is not enough to tell you how person A is connected to person B, you can still know that the connection exists.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
What happens when you aim the same tool at ordinary people like Slashdotters? You will discover sexual orientation, adultery, etc.
In other words, the same tool saving us from the terrorists can also defeat the last barriers protecting our privacy. If an intelligence officer in the government hated a particular SlashDotter (due to her articles in this forum), that officer could easily identify her address, her friends, her bank accounts, her adulterous lover, etc. Can you say, "blackmail"?
No, it's a Tolkien reference. IOW, they really are geeks.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
... we hatesss it, Preciousss, yesss we doesss.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
but as TFA points out, the people they're looking for often do things that should get them caught, like using the same address and phone number when buying the plane tickets in the case of the 9/11 hijackers. The basic idea is to find a better way to process the data they already have, and to give people the ability to process data that will help them, even when they don't necessarily have access to it (ie the use of data classified at a level higher than the searcher has access to).
The problem generally hasn't been (so far anyway) that the data wasn't there, it was just that no one had the time or ability to process the information in a useful manner to make these connections. Supposedly this tool does a much better job of it than previous tools, but even if it does, we probably won't hear much more about it either way.
-PainKilleR-[CE]
In case you forgot the term engineer originally applied to constructors of military engines. Engineers have a long and healthy tradition of being clever and morally bankrupt.
mmmm...forbidden donut
Except, despite all of this, they still exist in a trackable world. They live and have stuff delivered to addresses, they access information that leaves a data trail, and use identifiers which do the same. If they share anything, or a field observer notices a meeting then it gets tagged as a meeting and connection; then any activity at all is tracked back to a single node (bank account, address, person, phone number, etc) then you can link ALL connected nodes to that activity. Cash, disposables, and other "untrackables" still have temporary information: GPS on phone calls, messages intercepted with keywords or names, or phone numbers used for a material order. The info might not be permanently valid, but the connections it makes between nodes are.
Good guys used it too. To defeat Sauron AND to "keep the world safe".
In fact... Good guys made all 7 Palantir mentioned in LotR.
Sauron got his hands on one of those and used it to corrupt Saruman and Denethor.
So... No. It is not "the tool the evil guy used to control the world."
The message would be that "power corrupts". In this case - power in the form of knowledge or information.
What Palantir really lacked was a decent firewall. No protection whatsoever.
Very intuitive user interface though. And they were practically indestructible.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
It's not like as though the company was named "Rusty Trombones Inc." or something
That would be a Commander Riker reference?
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
... a badly written child's fantasy world ....
Now now, Tolkien's Middle-earth was a badly-written ADULT'S fantasy world.
i'm guessing you thing Twilight and Harry Potter are works of genius?
i'm surprised more people haven't taken your flamebait.
"If still these truths be held to be
Self evident."
-Edna St. Vincent Millay
They've plastered the Pentagon with banners practically claiming they single-handedly brought down GhostNet when they were at best on the periphery of the rather large collection of organizations responsible for it.
I thought it went down differently than that. Zelaya was trying to rewrite the constitution to allow him more than two terms as president, a step in the direction of dictatorship.
A judge issued a warrant for his arrest because he had no right to call a vote to rewrite the constitution. The military followed the Judge's order but expelled him from the country instead of arresting him. They later said they did this to prevent his followers from getting access to Zelaya.
The military was never in charge of the government.. with the order for removal of the President, the Vice President was promoted to full president. The current president of Honduras did not claim power, it was thrust upon him by the line of succession.
The same thing could happen in the United States.. the Military swears an oath to the Constitution FIRST, then the president. The process to remove the president from power would be different though. He would have to be impeached.. which again comes from the judicial side of the house. The Chief Justice would preside over it and congress would do the voting.
http://soylentnews.org/~tibman
Please turn in your geek card.
No, that would be nerd card. Geeks have social skills.
You obviously didn't READ the books.
neither did I. I tried - I really tried.. but they were so horribly boring and long-winded it was impossible for me to make it through even part of the first one.
Q: Why did the chicken cross the road?
A by Tolkein: The chicken, sunlight coruscating off its radiant yellow-white coat of feathers, approached the dark, sullen asphalt road and scrutinized it intently with its obsidian-black eyes. Every detail of the thoroughfare leapt into blinding focus: the rough texture of the surface, over which countless tires had worked their relentless tread through the ages; the innumerable fragments of stone embedded within the lugubrious mass, perhaps quarried from the great pits where the Sons of Man labored not far from here; the dull black asphalt itself, exuding those waves of heat which distort the sight and bring weakness to the body; the other attributes of the great highway too numerous to give name. And then it crossed it.
...and the battles. When I saw the movies and the battles started rolling, I had a vivid memory of how boring I had found these in the book too (and that was 25 years in the past)