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Palantir, the War On Terror's Secret Weapon

Posted by Soulskill on from the i-blame-the-elves dept.

hessian tips a story in BusinessWeek about Palantir, a system designed to aggregate disparate data points gathered by intelligence agencies and weave them into a more useful narrative. The article summarizes it thus: "Depending where you fall on the spectrum between civil liberties absolutism and homeland security lockdown, Palantir’s technology is either creepy or heroic." "The day Fikri drives to Orlando, he gets a speeding ticket, which triggers an alert in the CIA's Palantir system. An analyst types Fikri's name into a search box and up pops a wealth of information pulled from every database at the government's disposal. There's fingerprint and DNA evidence for Fikri gathered by a CIA operative in Cairo; video of him going to an ATM in Miami; shots of his rental truck's license plate at a tollbooth; phone records; and a map pinpointing his movements across the globe. All this information is then displayed on a clearly designed graphical interface that looks like something Tom Cruise would use in a Mission: Impossible movie."

7 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Hello by russotto · · Score: 4, Funny

    He prefers to be called "Lord Sauron" now.

  2. This springs to mind by Dexter+Herbivore · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Onion has a lot to answer for; http://www.theonion.com/video/cias-facebook-program-dramatically-cut-agencys-cos,19753/

  3. Awesome! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can't wait until this War on Terror is over and there is no more terrorism. Remember when the USA had a drug problem and it declared War on Drugs and now you can't buy drugs anymore? It's going to be just like that, right?

    (apologies to Get Your War On)

  4. Re:Hello by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    WARN: THERE IS ANOTHER SYSTEM

  5. Re:Hello by SpzToid · · Score: 4, Funny

    And like every other I.T. project it is behind schedule. Probably way over budget too, but who knows?

    At least Mark Zuckerberg is helping out in the free sector, showing everyone how well it can be done. If nothing else his company sets the bar for us all to see.

    --
    You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
  6. Re:Who is the one pulling the jokes here? by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 2, Funny

    Most people call it a "wedding band". Coincidental resemblance? You decide.

  7. Re:Been going that way for a while. by darthdavid · · Score: 3, Funny

    Unjust lies and slander, tarnishing the good name of Catholic Priests everywhere. They wouldn't be after your daughter.