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US Government Now Working With Peter Thiel's Palantir On Covid-19 Tracking Tool (theverge.com) 93

Posted by EditorDavid from the bug-hunt dept.
With a little help from Peter Thiel's controversial company Palintir, America's Department of Health and Human Services is building a powerful new tool to track the spread of the coronavirus. The Verge reports: The tool, which is reportedly called HHS Protect Now, is already up and running as of April 10th and it helps officials compile reports on the coronavirus' spread through the U.S. by collecting data from state and local governments, healthcare institutions, and colleges. It is unclear what exactly this data is, where it comes from, or how it's being used. It's also unclear if Palantir is the sole technology provider of the tool, or if other partners are involved...

According to a new report from The Daily Beast, here's an at least partial description of the kind of data we're talking about here:

HHS said it has 187 data sets integrated into the platform, with inputs that include hospital capacity and inventories, supply chain data from the government and industry, diagnostic and geographic testing data, demographic statistics, state policy actions, and coronavirus and flu-like emergency department data. The spokesperson also said HHS was relying on "private sector partner contributions of data."

"We are using the data aggregated... to paint a picture for the Task Force, and state and local leaders to show the impact of their strategic decisions," the HHS spokesperson told The Daily Beast in a statement... HHS Protect Now was intended to become the "the single source for testing data by April 20th," according to an internal Trump administration document obtained by The Daily Beast, though it's unclear if that's now true. Currently, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, is making use of data the tool aggregates, and that data and Birx's presentations are factors for how Trump and his administration plan to reopen parts of the country, The Daily Beast reports.
The article notes Palantir is controversial "in part because it has provided profiling tools to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and because it generally operates with extreme secrecy and with little oversight regarding the tools and data it provides to military operations, governments, and hedge funds."

Earliest this year Palantir claimed the #4 spot on Slate's list of the 30 most evil tech companies, because, they wrote, "almost everyone distrusts Peter Thiel."
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US Government Now Working With Peter Thiel's Palantir On Covid-19 Tracking Tool More

US Government Now Working With Peter Thiel's Palantir On Covid-19 Tracking Tool

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  • "controversial" (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Fippy Darkpaw ( 1269608 ) on Sunday April 26, 2020 @06:48AM (#59992208)
    "Controversial" is newspeak for "I don't like you" on sites like Buzzfeed and Slate. SpaceX is "controversial" according to that list. Sorry if anyone rational considers that list a joke ...
    • I agree. Also making the list are Apple, Microsoft, IBM, Amazon, Facebook, Alphabet, Uber, Twitter, and Airbnb.

    • Re: "controversial" (Score:3, Insightful)

      by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 )

      But this is the other side of "controversial". The "It is perfectly definitely 100% proven and verified complete and total evil, but we want to appear 'fair and balanced' so you keep falling for our manipulation." one.

      Or are you implying that totalitarian oppressive spying tools on a level that would make the Inner Party tell you to calm down is not the epitome of evil?
      And if so: How do you personally think you'll benefit from it? You believe *you* will be the one gaining totalitarian oppressive power?
      lol.

      • Or are you implying that totalitarian oppressive spying tools

        Palantir don't make spying tools, they make dataanalytic and collection tools. Calling them controversial is like calling Ford controversial for it's role in manufacturing getaway cars used in bank robberies. Calling them controversial for doing business with the government is like calling fucking any business controversial.

        • It's more like calling Chrysler controversial for making the M1 Abrams tank. Palantir was designed to be used against the American public.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tragedy ( 27079 )

          They didn't exactly pick a name that inspires confidence. The palantir from Lord of the Rings were seeing stones that were used for surveillance and communication. They were corrupted by Sauron and used to corrupt others. If you've only seen the movies, do you remember Denethor, the insane steward of Gondor who tried to set his son on fire? He was corrupted and driven insane by a palantir. Saruman was also corrupted by his palantir. So, when someone names their company Palantir on purpose, you kind of wonde

    • "Controversial" means they're engaging in an egregious abuse of accepted social norms by calling them "innovation" because they use a computer system to do it.

      And the society is slow to catch up, because, you guessed it, the political system is so fucked up, that it caters to the interests of the abusers, and not the society, as explained by science: https://www.cambridge.org/core... [cambridge.org]

      • "Controversial" means they're engaging in an egregious abuse of accepted social norms by calling them "innovation" because they use a computer system to do it.

        Yeah I guess we've always done deep data analytics (Palantir's business) by hand, and don't need computers for that. Wat?

        • Yes, there were always people who were capable of doing it by hand, without relying on a library they don't understand and a machine they cannot make.

          Read up on how Kepler calculated orbits, smartypants.

          • Read up on how Kepler calculated orbits, smartypants.

            Hahahah orbital mechanics are about the simplest things imaginable. It was the goto High-distinction elective subject engineers picked to boost their overall grades. Calculating them from observation isn't complex, it's just time consuming. Comparing that to applying analytics on terabytes of data is just absolutely asinine.

            I'm not going to call you smartypants in return. What you said was not smart.

  • "Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House's coronavirus response coordinator, is making use of data the tool aggregates, and that data and Birx's presentations are factors for how Trump and his administration plan to reopen parts of the country"

    Since the alleged president had no role in closing the economy other than the fed. gov., he'll have no role in opening it either. It is just another example of him attempting take credit for something he cannot or did not do.

    • I don't know if Trump will be reelected, but I hope that he is. I want smug, arrogant, condescending leftists like you who were grievously injured in 2016 to suicide in November.

      • Re: (Score:2, Troll)

        by nospam007 ( 722110 ) *

        "smug, arrogant, condescending leftists like you who were grievously injured in 2016"

        Please tell us by our name that we had in 2016.
        The Majority.

        • The majority of U.S. voters didn't cast a ballot for either candidate. The notion that either candidate had any kind of wide support is absurd when the voter participation rate was the lowest since 1996 and even if Clinton had ultimately won, it would have been with scarcely more than one-quarter of the population voting for her. Contrast this with Obama who had over one-third of the people vote for him when he wast first elected. So you're the slightly larger minority.

        • You did not have the majority. Less people voted for Hillary than any democrat in recent history. Sanders had more people vote for him in the primary than showed up to vote for Clinton. The people that didn't vote, effectively casted a vote for Trump.

      • Re: Reopen the economy? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by gtall ( 79522 ) on Sunday April 26, 2020 @08:08AM (#59992386)

        Fat chance Ace. I was a conservative Republican all my life....until I noticed the inherent racism in the Republican Party against Obama. I didn't like many things he did, but I didn't mind some of the things he did do. Then Trump showed up and the Republican Party revealed their inherent racism that went at least as far back as Nixon with his "southern strategy". And who can forget the Willie Horton (sp?) ads fielded by Lee Atwater on George Bush Sr's behalf or GB Sr's denial of any responsibility. And to add insult, there was our alleged president advertising the trope that Obama wasn't born in the U.S.

        Then there was McConnell going ape-shit over Obama and claiming to want to limit him to one term. They attempted to pin the "death panels" they were sure to be established under the ACA. However, that law is pretty much a Republican wet dream in goodies for the insurance companies and medical companies. BTW: insurance companies have death panels, how do you think they set the rates?

        In order to goose the economy, which was already doing quite well, they passed the tax giveaway to their rich friends knowing full well it wouldn't "pay for itself". The latest "help" for COVID-19 victims by-passed the victims who are disproportionately black. Trump's roll-back of environmental regulations disproportionately hurts black who live in low-income areas.

        Your and your disgusting party have a lot to answer for, and none of it is any response to left wing criticism. The Republicans have this idea they want to take back America. They, as evidenced by their court picks, want to take America back to the 1950's when in their view, everyone was white and the world looked up to America. It wasn't then and it sure as hell isn't now. Look around the world, can you honestly say Trump has made America respected? Is making racism again fashionable a good thing...MAGA!!

        • I didn't like many things he did, but I didn't mind some of the things he did do.

          HA! You just outed yourself as not an American. Real Americans are red or blue, not some shade of purple or otherwise off color. Please report to your nearest political opinion adjustment institute where they will attempt to re-integrate you into the correct American culture. I just hope you're not too far from the "deregulate everything the private industry will solve everything" side that you accidentally join the "Socialize and let big government take care of everything" side.

          I can't believe what I'm hea

        • Nope. Your narrative just doesn't ring true. "I was a conservative Republican until..." stories always come off like clunkers. You stuck that heading on and then rattled off a list of the of standard liberal bromides that show you NEVER would have been said conservative.

          Try again. The "I was conservative until. .." narrative is shopworn bullshit.

      • Yeah, call us from your wasteland in a few years, them we can talk.

        The entire planet is about to embargo your pathological cancer of a subculture and if necessary society with it, before you kill us all in the same of chest thumping too-stupid-to-tell-that-stupid.

        Even the dumbest monkey in the jungles of Africa can prove that you are a harmful retars.

  • What to do (Score:3)

    by Plugh ( 27537 ) on Sunday April 26, 2020 @07:28AM (#59992324) Homepage
    • run Linux for primary computer
    • get a PinePhone or Librem, or install Graphene/Lineage
    • use Tor as much as possible
    • use Monero as much as possible
    • move to
  • The stage prop representing the Global Center in Riyadh symbolizing the coordination of intelligence services to combat violent extremism is another example of Trump's unilateral leadership not likely appreciated by the former protocols of the Five Eyes, or UKUSA agreements of 1946. What I support about Trump's foreign policy of "business and trade first" is its de-escalation of military tensions around N. Korea, Syria, and Ukraine.

    H. Clinton had threatened Snowden with a drone. Her policy toward N.Korea w

  • Palantir is not "controversial"! (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BAReFO0t ( 6240524 ) on Sunday April 26, 2020 @07:59AM (#59992370)

    It is evil! It harms. By definition. Nobody living in reality contests that.

    You aren't being "fair and balanced" by phrasing it that way. You are distorting reality and shifting the discussion in favor of evil. Evil on a level that you'd expect from an evil organization in a comic book, not reality.

    I don't trust anyone, who shys away from determining what't actually the correct conclusion, and uses weasel words like "controversial". Especially if it's as blatantly clear as here.
    Only a comic book supervillian mind would ever consider such harmful behavior acceptable. And that is hence what you are a part of.

    • I trust Peter Thiel and Palantir and that's because I trust the truth; the whole truth and God can help everyone.
      That phrase means I trust your lies (false), and your true statements; like any good detective.

      I've been watching Peter Thiel for a while now, we share similar ideas.
      It's currently a mystery to me but thank you for your statement.

      I would help everyone but I'm no one, what can I do? :) that's a rhetorical question.....

    • Peters birth number is 8 which refers to God or good fortune.
      His name means Stone Loving King - which means he loves God.

      People do not need to be who their birth number or meaning of their name.
      But it does give a good indication of who they are......

      Trust in the truth, find the lies and the true statement. Then you can trust anyone's truth.
      Be no one and listen :)

      Anon.

      • You, I like. You and me? We're going to sit down with a Tarot deck and the I Ching and make this party more interesting.

  • but here he is helping make a surveillance tool that will be loved and undoubted available to authoritarian governments everywhere? How conservative is that?

    • This isn't a surveillance tool, unlike other countries. This just collects public data in a dashboard.

      • This isn't a surveillance tool, unlike other countries. This just collects public data in a dashboard.

        ~guruevi

        Public? Yes and No. I adopted the term dashboard not that long ago. My suspicions of their utility should have begun upon seeing a VisualBasic interface, but I stopped coding a long time ago. One reason I post more to Slashdot than Fark is Fark's use of a dashboard for its moderators while failing to police their subscribers and moderators for abusing alternative accounts.

        A dashboard is a means to interface similar to any query language...their design is the structure of what a coder might achieve with an

  • He was in New Zealand on March the 18th [rnz.co.nz] in talks with the governments. Although he is a citizen, which is a good example of one law for the rich and another for the poor down under [nzherald.co.nz].

  • I suspect the government will continue to justify the program after it's original purpose is fulfilled. At the very least, it will give Palantir a lot more information on Americans and non-citizens.

    If you think that sounds far-fetched, read up on the history of government surveillance programs (not that you should have to, tbh given the revelations about, and coverage of, those in recent years).

    • I suspect the government will continue to justify the program after it's original purpose is fulfilled. At the very least, it will give Palantir a lot more information on Americans and non-citizens.

      If you think that sounds far-fetched, read up on the history of government surveillance programs (not that you should have to, tbh given the revelations about, and coverage of, those in recent years).

      Your post literally iterates "STUDY IT OUT". If a book has but a single interpretation, it's more akin to dogma or agenda. You're declaring a comprehension and cite BOOKS as your basis and assert others should read BOOKS and their assent to whatever opinion you're inserting in this thread would be assured. Your post fails to beg the question; It circuitously avoids any.

  • it has provided profiling tools to the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement
    Well it will be great for Australia too as they tend to follow closely the US on such lines...

  • Well, you can't have it both ways.

    If you want a surveillance and police state for this situation - which you clearly do, with all these tracking apps and draconian lockdowns - then you are going to need, hmm, a surveillance and police state. Can't turn your nose up at things like Palantir anymore.

  • ... no one less than Sauron can control the seeing stones! Or ... is trump Sauron's latest personification? The battle for the 5th Era will commence.

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