frontpage.
newsnewestaskshowjobs

Made with ♥ by @iamnishanth

Open Source @Github

fp.

Open in hackernews

How Palantir is mapping the nation’s data

https://theconversation.com/when-the-government-can-see-everything-how-one-company-palantir-is-mapping-the-nations-data-263178
117•mdhb•2h ago

Comments

s5300•2h ago
Very cool how we’re letting a private company become the modern day SS. Especially hilarious when the dude in charge literally grew up in an ex-Nazi stronghold in Namibia.

Should be an absolute red mark to have this company or any affiliated with it in your CV. Absolutely anti-societal.

Xmd5a•31m ago
>Should be an absolute red mark to have this company or any affiliated with it in your CV. Absolutely anti-societal.

The seeds of the surveillance apparatus are already present in what you prescribe.

yesbut•2h ago
What a garbage company pushing this precrime crap. No thanks.
Spooky23•2h ago
A: By acting in contempt of the law.
bobbane•1h ago
Only partially. As long as the third-party doctrine is valid in the US, they can claim that they're just integrating data from private companies with existing government records.

And those third party companies can, if they choose, tell Palantir to pound sand if they don't have warrants.

The real problem is those third parties know a LOT about us, and it's essentially impossible to opt out of their data gathering. License plate scanners and credit bureaus, anyone?

coldtea•20m ago
>And those third party companies can, if they choose, tell Palantir to pound sand if they don't have warrants.

And then those third party companies, if they're interesting enough to Palantic or those using Palantir, might get cancelled state contracts, or surprise tax audits, and other pressures... totally unrelated "of course"

ChrisArchitect•1h ago
Techdirt was a repost of a The Conversation article from August.

Some more discussion on a related story then:

What does Palantir actually do?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44894910

tomhow•1h ago
> Techdirt was a repost of a The Conversation article from August.

Thanks, redirected from https://www.techdirt.com/2025/09/11/how-palantir-is-mapping-...

0points•1h ago
One of the most elusive big companies today, imo.

The CEO was present on the most recent Bilderberg meeting.

AIorNot•1h ago
I mean look at the name of the company for pete's sake: Palantir? Sauron indeed..so much of the valley is enabling the surveillance state at all levels of society.

Silicon valley was supposed to do no evil, no wonder this generation hates tech bros

anthem2025•1h ago
lol, Silicon Valley has always been evil.
LastTrain•41m ago
/Almost/ always
coldtea•19m ago
I'll give you Xerox.

The rest ...

slt2021•1h ago
garbage company with a garbage business model
sporkxrocket•45m ago
Worth watching the interview with Palantir CEO Alex Karp where he's confronted about their role in the genocide of Palestinians: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mhNLTy5pbQ
thegainz•31m ago
Ew, even his response is so gross. Blames Palestinians for their own genocide and casually dehumanizes the protestor.
mrlongroots•39m ago
I think Palantir is highly misunderstood.

As a technology, it is just database joins. It is just that they are able to pull in data from everything from S3 to SAP to ArcGIS, and provide analytics, visualization etc. on top to provide global visibility into any system.

The visibility can be "show me all illegal immigrant clusters" or "show me bottlenecks and cost sinks in CAHSR construction".

When we offload the moral impetus for society from politics to technology, we also squander control. Tech is tech and can be used for both good and bad. It is not that a strategy that aims to cap downsides by preventing the proliferation of technology is inherently bad, but it is doomed to fail. The evidence for dysfunction is not the existence of Palantir but in the failure of the watchdog layer of society (also called the government).

mgh2•35m ago
They are just a data company capitalizing on the AI hype - when the AI bubble pops, they will too.

When ChatGPT launched, Palantir's stock started climbing by selling its "AI platform".

The cycle follows a marketing funnel: AIDA - awareness, interest, decision, action. https://www.smartinsights.com/traffic-building-strategy/offe...

FUD: Awareness and interest (AI) - at the initial stages, doomer marketing by big tech to government about its dangers and regulations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear,_uncertainty,_and_doubt

FOMO: Decision and action (DA) - After selling, it is all about investing in infrastructure and adopting the technology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fear_of_missing_out

Sentiment shift: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44870777

mingus88•22m ago
The palantir bubble will not pop as long as Thiel and his folk are embedded in USG. The stock took off when Trump/Vance came in and Vance is thiels pick

Their primary technology predates any AI hype by a decade at least, and their strength has always been in deploying great engineers.

mgh2•11m ago
Compare all data companies profit performance before AI came along: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44741151
irishloop•35m ago
Yes. But also, all technologies will eventually be used as weapons. And so its important for us to understand how they can be weaponized and to consider the social cost of that weaponization.
coldtea•23m ago
>Tech is tech and can be used for both good and bad

It's not that simple, since tech also enables bad that was previously not possible.

ojbyrne•15m ago
Just quibbling, but obviously tech also enables good that was previously not possible.
nakamoto_damacy•18m ago
This feels like a thread to gather info on trouble makers, and an opportunity to gaslight, especially with such a title.

Top model scores may be skewed by Git history leaks in SWE-bench

https://github.com/SWE-bench/SWE-bench/issues/465
268•mustaphah•4h ago•90 comments

Fartscroll-Lid: An app that plays fart sounds when opening or closing a MacBook

https://github.com/iannuttall/fartscroll-lid
34•gaws•48m ago•9 comments

Danish supermarket chain is setting up "Emergency Stores"

https://swiss.social/@swaldorff/115186445638788782
29•sohkamyung•54m ago•2 comments

Claude's memory architecture is the opposite of ChatGPT's

https://www.shloked.com/writing/claude-memory
165•shloked•4h ago•85 comments

Unusual Capabilities of Nano Banana (Examples)

https://github.com/PicoTrex/Awesome-Nano-Banana-images/blob/main/README_en.md
132•SweetSoftPillow•2h ago•74 comments

Rails on SQLite: new ways to cause outages

https://andre.arko.net/2025/09/11/rails-on-sqlite-exciting-new-ways-to-cause-outages/
73•ingve•4h ago•24 comments

Bulletproof host Stark Industries evades EU sanctions

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2025/09/bulletproof-host-stark-industries-evades-eu-sanctions/
138•todsacerdoti•5h ago•44 comments

Building my childhood dream PC

https://fabiensanglard.net/2168/
23•joexbayer•3d ago•1 comments

AirPods live translation blocked for EU users with EU Apple accounts

https://www.macrumors.com/2025/09/11/airpods-live-translation-eu-restricted/
171•thm•11h ago•189 comments

Behind the scenes of Bun Install

https://bun.com/blog/behind-the-scenes-of-bun-install
307•Bogdanp•10h ago•102 comments

How Palantir is mapping the nation’s data

https://theconversation.com/when-the-government-can-see-everything-how-one-company-palantir-is-ma...
117•mdhb•2h ago•24 comments

NT OS Kernel Information Disclosure Vulnerability

https://www.crowdfense.com/nt-os-kernel-information-disclosure-vulnerability-cve-2025-53136/
94•voidsec•7h ago•22 comments

'Robber bees' invade apiarist's shop in attempted honey heist

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/robber-bees-terrace-bc-apiary-1.7627532
100•lemonberry•6h ago•59 comments

Doorbell prankster that tormented residents of apartments turns out to be a slug

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/sep/08/doorbell-prankster-that-tormented-residents-of-germ...
30•robin_reala•3d ago•2 comments

Making io_uring pervasive in QEMU [pdf]

https://vmsplice.net/~stefan/stefanha-kvm-forum-2025.pdf
42•ingve•4h ago•2 comments

Adam (YC W25) Is Hiring to Build the Future of CAD

https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/adam/jobs/q6td4uk-founding-engineer
1•HetengAaronLi•5h ago

CRISPR offers new hope for treating diabetes

https://www.wired.com/story/no-more-injections-crispr-offers-new-hope-for-treating-diabetes/
151•manveerc•9h ago•42 comments

Show HN: Making a cross-platform game in Go using WebRTC Datachannels

https://pion.ly/blog/making-a-game-with-pion/
48•valorzard•1d ago•1 comments

Launch HN: Ghostship (YC S25) – AI agents that find bugs in your web app

36•jessechoe10•4h ago•14 comments

A Web Framework for Zig

https://www.jetzig.dev/
52•nivethan•5h ago•2 comments

Conway's Game of Life, but musical

https://www.hudsong.dev/digital-darwin
141•hudsongr•9h ago•27 comments

From burner phones to decks of cards: NYC teens adjusting to the smartphone ban

https://gothamist.com/news/from-burner-phones-to-decks-of-cards-nyc-teens-are-adjusting-to-the-sm...
150•geox•9h ago•142 comments

Samsung taking market share from Apple in U.S. as foldable phones gain momentum

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/08/16/samsungs-us-market-share-apple-rivalry-foldable-phones.html
139•mgh2•14h ago•202 comments

A tech-law measurement and analysis of event listeners for wiretapping

https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.19825
61•lapcat•6h ago•7 comments

Adjacency Matrix and std:mdspan, C++23

https://www.cppstories.com/2025/cpp23_mdspan_adj/
21•ashvardanian•3d ago•12 comments

Public Suffix List

https://publicsuffix.org/
60•mooreds•3d ago•16 comments

ApeRAG: Production-ready GraphRAG with multi-modal indexing and K8s deployment

https://github.com/apecloud/ApeRAG
19•earayu•3d ago•8 comments

An engineering history of the Manhattan Project

https://www.construction-physics.com/p/an-engineering-history-of-the-manhattan
112•rbanffy•10h ago•61 comments

Reshaped is now open source

https://reshaped.so/blog/reshaped-oss
247•michaelmior•13h ago•42 comments

GrapheneOS and forensic extraction of data (2024)

https://discuss.grapheneos.org/d/13107-grapheneos-and-forensic-extraction-of-data
284•SoKamil•10h ago•157 comments