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.
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
... 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
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.