this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2026
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Showerthoughts

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Just occured to me that functionally that seems to be their role. Conspiratorially, super troubling. Viewed this way, it's essentially the NSA without political oversight (what little the NSA had to begin with).

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[–] mydude@lemmy.world 80 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Also, plausable deniability and no public transparency (because copyright)...

[–] 9point6@lemmy.world 66 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

Worse, the NSA is (theoretically) below the government in the pecking order

Palantir are trying to elevate themselves above governments

That's a bad thing because ostensibly democracy allows us to influence the government, there's very little we can do to influence palantir

[–] favoredponcho@lemmy.zip 20 points 1 week ago

This post makes that case.

https://ope1.substack.com/p/peter-thiels-panopticon-when-cia

Palantir has Intel on every country and every world leader. They are more powerful than the governments that they have contracts with.

[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

we could try setting their data centers on fire. that would most certainly influence them.

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You can try, but datacenters usually have robust fire suppression and are extremely difficult to gain unauthorized access to.

[–] ChaoticEntropy@feddit.uk 10 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Everyone was so in love with the idea of a new world order and an illuminati that Thiel and friends decided to become it.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 4 points 1 week ago

thiel has been quite obssesed with mass surveillance, hes literally like Memnarch from mtg lore, who spys on th whole plane using scrying pools and myrs.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

It would be more accurate to say that Palantir functionally runs the intelligence agencies of every country it embeds itself in.

Just not 'officially'.

Welcome to the cyberpunk dystopia, corporations run everything, nation-states are basically just bureaucracies and propoganda devices, with guns.

Of course we've had PMCs for quite a while now, so corpos have the guns too.

[–] DillDough@lemmy.zip 8 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Far more than just intelligence agencies, that was one part of their original plan and it has expanded exponentially. Look at how the US just gave them control of the entire food supply.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

And Law Enforcement / Police... yep.

Their business model is 'be Skynet'.

... and it is working.

[–] BattleGrown@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Skynet launched already, there just was no countdown.

[–] Drusas@fedia.io 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I think I missed the food part. Can you elaborate or share a link about it?

[–] moonshadow@slrpnk.net 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Handling payments/"farm security" for USDA now. Whole-ass press release about being proud to defend the breadbaskest of the fatherland. I'm sleepy but "palantir usda" should get you there

[–] Drusas@fedia.io 1 points 1 week ago

Great. Thanks, I'll check it out.

[–] 20cello@lemmy.world 28 points 1 week ago (2 children)

They name everything after the lord of the ring, can't be unseen

[–] BentiGorlich@gehirneimer.de 13 points 1 week ago

I think they have a software suite named Gotham, so they do not just anger fans of one franchise 😅

[–] lennee@lemmy.world 11 points 1 week ago

into mount doom with the whole thing

[–] pineapplelover@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Basically but kinda worse because they don't have as much regulation. So they kinda work in conjunction with the NSA to bypass warrants and stuff

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 16 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Future is going to be awful for everyone except the owner class.

[–] ThunderQueen@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago (1 children)

There is an easy solution that you are ignoring :3

[–] 1984@lemmy.today 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Become the owner class? :p

[–] ThunderQueen@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

Not what i had in mind... ╾━╤デ╦︻(✦ ‿ ✦)

[–] Sektor@lemmy.world 4 points 1 week ago

The past was the same.

[–] hypna@lemmy.world 10 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Palantir is a data analysis company. Data analysis is just one part of what the NSA does. Other important functions of the NSA include cyber warfare, cryptography, and data collection. I have not read that Palantir does any of that.

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 25 points 1 week ago (1 children)

You're not paying very much attention.

CyberWarfare:

https://myprivacy.blog/australias-cyber-warfare-division-signs-largest-ever-palantir-contract-what-it-means-for-national-security-and-digital-sovereignty/

Conventional Warfare Kill Chain / Communications

https://time.com/6293398/palantir-future-of-warfare-ukraine/

As far as cryptography goes... cryptography basically is data analysis, in many respects. Obviously they work with and in the field of cryptography, certainly their live military comm networks need to... be encrypted.

Data collection?

They get all the data of everything they are plugged into, everyone who sells data to them, like Oura, for example.

https://techcrunch.com/2025/09/09/smart-ring-maker-ouras-ceo-addresses-recent-backlash-says-future-is-a-cloud-of-wearables/

[–] hypna@lemmy.world -2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I guess if you wanna go off at people like that, I have to go through your links and point out that

  1. Providing services to a cyber warfare organization does not make one a cyber warfare company. I bet they contract out their cafeteria services too. The article specifically states the contract is for data analysis.
  2. Doing data analysis for target selection also does not make one a cyber warfare company.
  3. Data analysis is not cryptography. Also, my personal computer is encrypted. Am I a cryptographer?
  4. Receiving data from your customers does not make you a data collection company, and the article points out that the data is being collected by Oura. Compare that with the NSA who for example have internet backbone splitters installed at the major telcos, or put cell spoofers in cities.

Why is doing data analysis for unethical ends not enough?

[–] sp3ctr4l@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I just gave you what took me about 60 seconds to web search.

You could maybe do your own actual research, you know be active, and find way way way more information, fairly easily, than what I linked here, to just illustrate the point that you aren't paying attention.

Also, to your points:

1] It does, actually. If you provide your services to a cyber warfare outfit, you are now involved with and facilitating cyberwarfare.

2] You apparently don't know what a kill chain is, look it up. Palantir has directly been doing target identification, tracking, and assignment of lethal munitions toward Palestinians, and others. That's not cyberwarfare, its just warfare, the comms network behind coordinating it. It has to be harderned against cyberwarfare, via encryption and other kinds of security measures.

3] This is either a non-sequitir or you don't anything about cryptography. Yes, yes indeed, massive data analysis capabilities are used in cryptography, to decrypt things. You look for patterns, in data, and then try to reverse engineer a semantic structure. This is a kind of data analysis... called cryptographic analysis.

4] Right, I'm sure that Palantir doesn't keep their own copy of the data they recieve, or the analytic results that the derive from it.

... Have you worked in tech much? I'm guessing no. Look up 'data broker' as well.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 9 points 1 week ago

the palantir AI famously is being used in israel for giving targets of palastine and iranian targets for bombings. its also being used in ukraine apparently.

most recently thiel (Karp is just his puppet) is trying to get most governments, US, and EU to use for LEO to sureveillance political dissidents under the guise of age verification and children protection.

[–] Bloomcole@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago

They started out with the CIA as their first and only client.

[–] kbal@fedia.io 4 points 1 week ago

I'm not much of a fan of the NSA or anything, but that comparison seems unfair to the NSA. I imagine Palantir is more like a souped-up bullshit-ridden profit-driven Stasi.

[–] zr0@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 1 week ago

No. The NSA is not just developing, but mainly executing orders (actual intelligence work). Palantir is a software/platform/service provider. It is very likely that no employee of Palantir gets to see any sensitive data at all.