Under the guise of National Security, the Tech wizards at Palantir appear to be raking-in Billions -- turning your online life into easy to consume McNews Nuggents.
How much are you willing to bet they are getting it right? (Have you read your own comments page lately? No worries the CIA will do it you, free of charge.)
PRISM Is Also The Name Of A Product From Palantir, A $5 Billion Tech Startup Funded By The CIA
by Nicholas Carlson, businessinsider.com -- Jun. 7, 2013,
[...]
According to documents obtained by the Post, PRISM allows the NSA to tap directly into the central servers of 9 big Internet companies: Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.
A source told the Post that with PRISM, the NSA can "quite literally can watch your ideas form as you type."
[...]
One company that would be able to provide such tools is Silicon Valley tech firm called Palantir.
Not a lot is known about Palantir, a private company that does not say much about who it works with.
[...]
[U-h .. o-h. W-a-i-t .. W-h-a-t !?]
[larger image -- Team Themis-Palantir Proposal for the Chamber of Commerce.]
Palantir’s Software is so Good its First Client Was the CIA
by Sam Volkering, Technology Analyst, Money Morning -- May 26, 2013
[...]
Palantir sprung from an idea by Dr. Alex Karp, a Stanford graduate with a PHD in Social Philosophy. His idea, to create software that can ‘make sense of massive amounts of disparate data.‘
Teaming up with his friend (and PayPal founder) Peter Theil, they started Palantir.
Palantir’s first client was the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). They now provide their software to a range of industries. Financial, Medical, Government and Not-For-Profit.
‘Palantir software represents the intersection of data, technology and human expertise. Our data fusion platforms sit above traditional data systems and enable people to ask the questions they need answered in a language they understand.‘ – Palantir
Well are least with our
personal Credit Ratings assigned to us by faceless remote monoliths, at least with them we can demand copies, we can try to correct the record -- when they get it wrong.
How about with our personal PRISM security ratings assigned to us by super-secret data-sniffing monoliths, where does one go to correct the record THEN? -- just in case they happen to get it wrong miss your ironic wit or sardonic satire?
Does PRISM Software have a built-in, automatic Snark-detector too? Twittering minds should really want to know.
Palantir, Palantir -- Where have I heard that name before?
Oh yes, now I remember, there was a strange espionage episode a few years ago, involving the Chamber of Commerce and likely the Koch Brothers too, where the Palantir super-snooping claims were front and center:
HBGary, Themis, bloggers, and traditional media: What a tangled Web
by Joan McCarter for Daily Kos -- Feb 15, 2011
[...] it's a fascinating story, and not just a little disquieting. The Chamber of Commerce, of course, denies any involvement in the scheme, claiming "that HBGary's proposal 'was never discussed with anyone at the Chamber' and that 'the Chamber was not aware of these proposals until HBGary's e-mails leaked.'"
[Themis leaked emails ... documenting their COC project proposal ...]
And this is just from a small portion of the e-mails that have been read so far. The possibility of the damaging revelations to still come as the e-mails are sifted through seem limitless. But one important revelation to come out so far isn't necessarily that damaging to either the Chamber or BOA or Hunton Williams as much as it is to traditional media. This is revealed in the PowerPoint one of Team Themis -- Palantir -- created referencing Glenn Greenwald [...]
Are YOU remotely linked somehow within that Glenn Greenwald blurry web of influence? (How would you know? and/or Why should you care?)
Here's another PowerPoint explaining "the technology capabilities" that Team Themis was promising to deliver, not so many years ago:
Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell
(pdf)
Team Themis
Purpose:
Develop a corporate information reconnaissance service to aid legal investigations through the open source collection of information on target groups and individuals that appear organized to extort specific concessions through online slander campaigns.
Solution:
Develop collection solutions for information on individuals and groups of interest
-- Standardize and store information in common DB for structured analysis
-- Analyze digital artifacts and social links within common visual framework
-- Report correlated information in individual and organizational profiles
[...]
[larger image -- Themis-Palantir system Intelligence Architecture.]
Here's the Sales Pitch that 'Team Themis' gave to its Corporate clients, before landing that killer gig with the CIA. It's the same "Information Reconnaissance" Plan, which as the leaked emails confirm, the Chamber of Commerce was in the midst of implementing, when the "ChamberLeaks Scandal" broke -- forcing the Chamber's many adamant denials. In which they insisted for weeks that: "We know NOTHING! Come on, Just trust us."
SOOO, "Pay no attention, to those Social Media 'infiltrators' behind those Internet Application windows, people ..." Afterall our data is just free for the taking. (Except for the astronomic Contractor Collection Fees of course.)
Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell (pdf)
November 3, 2010
Berico Technologies, LLC
HBGary Federal, LLC
Palantir Technologies, Inc.
Submitted to:
Hunton and Williams, LLP
Berico Technologies -- Be Smarter. Be Faster.
Corporate Information Reconnaissance Cell
Hunton & Williams, LLP
[Pg 2]
Background
Internet based communications, most predominately the growing spectrum of social media platforms, allow people to coordinate and communicate in a highly efficient and collaborative manner, even when vastly geographically distributed. These same services and technologies can also make it difficult to attribute information to specific entities. Anonymizing and misattribution technologies used to mask location and identity have become commonplace. In many cases, people and/or organizations use the inherent insecurity in Internet communications to conduct criminal or unethical activities. This represents a paradigm shift in the capability of individuals and small groups to conduct effective planning and execution of asymmetric operations and campaigns that can have major impacts on large organizations or corporations.
[...]
[Pg 5]
Data Collection
Team Themis consistently uses a combination of open source tools and data subscriptions combined with custom data collectors and pre-processors. Our unique methodology for collection is tailored for the social media environment; an iterative process of traditional data collection and social media link and artifact collection and analysis that allows us to link information correlations.
[...]
Primary information resources:
1. Background Checks
2. LexisNexis
3. LinkedIn
4. Facebook
5. Twitter
7. Other social media and location services
6. Subject specific sites, blogs, and forums
7. Well crafted search queries to search for digital artifacts
8. Other digital information discovered or given access to during the investigation
Social media encompasses vast amounts of information, much of it potentially ambiguous, so comparative analysis between information sources is key to derive accurate intelligence. The key to successful open source Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance (ISR) is to iterate that would not otherwise be apparent. through the lifecycle quickly and accurately for as much complete data collection as possible. We have significant experience in this type of analysis and our methodology has proven out in real operations.
If/when Hunston & Williams LLP needs or desires web-content production, Team Themis will create realistic, useable web content to engage specific audiences for the purpose of gathering relevant, in-depth information. Direct target engagement can provide valuable information that cannot be acquired through other means: the detailed, focused task encompasses persona creation, [...]
[Pg 6]
Data Integration
Team Themis developers and engineers will leverage their extensive knowledge of Palantir's development and data integration environments to integrate all relevant data in one single, robust analytics layer. All of the data collected will be integrated seamlessly into the Palantir analysis framework to enhance link and artifact analysis. The platform's powerful approach to data integration will enable enterprises to unify data schemas, thus allowing analysts to depict and query otherwise disparate pieces of information in a secure and collaborative environment. Thanks to Palantir's sophisticated data integration capabilities, analysts within the CIRC will also be able to ingest both structured and unstructured data and perform real-time entity resolution against user-defined criteria on the fly, culminating with the fusion of multiple data sources and enrichment of single-source data feeds.
Palantir's open and dynamic ontology capability will provide Hunton & Williams LLP the flexibility to store and contextualize all types of data for analysis. Team Themis will work closely with the customer to conceptualize and implement a tailored ontology that considers the specific problem set and maps data into human-oriented models – this approach will drive effective decisionmaking grounded in deep understanding.
By providing high-value context and data enrichment, analysts will be empowered to develop robust link analysis between people, organizations, and/or other digital artifacts that will begin to form trends and allow statistical analysis. Team Themis will also develop specific helpers to further automate some data ingestion from commercial data sources as well as social media services and Google queries. [...]
[Pg 7]
Leverage the leading analytical platform. Team Themis will utilize the powerful Palantir platform as the centerpiece of the CIRC – empowering our collector/analysts with a cutting-edge analytical capability that enables rapid search and discovery, effective collaboration, and intuitive knowledge management.
Palantir is recognized as the market-leading analytical platform for counter-intelligence (CI), counter-terrorism (CT), counter-narcotics (CN), and counter-proliferation (CP), currently deployed across elements of the intelligence, defense, and law enforcement communities that include SOCOM, DIA, CIA, and JIEDDO. The platform's proven record of success is grounded in the Palantir philosophy of augmenting and empowering analysts with a flexible, intuitive set of tools and capabilities that allow for analysis of data across relational, temporal, and geospatial domains.
It's a
Brave New World out there people ... well on second-thought really NOT so "Brave."
The Palantir-Themis way is really kind of despicable when to stop to think about it. It's like the grand implementation of so many Big Brother decider-type dreams. On auto-pilot.
Is Big-Data simply the trap-door to Big-Brother? And who's really bothering to watch the watchers?
And where do these Personal-Profile fishing expeditions ever end? Whenever; If ever.
Where is the Palantir opt-out button? ... or the Palantir Complaint Window?
Source
Unfortunately, Nowhere to be seen. Not in our brave new Themis-Palantir behind-the-scenes world ... SO for now, I'll just wish us all .. G-o-o-d .. L-u-c-k !