[FreakLegion]

Do note that those emails were all talk. Other than the failed attempt to expose the "leadership" of Anonymous, none of Barr's big plans were even tried, let alone successfully carried out. His own employees (all two of them) mocked him and refused to participate. Aaron Barr was one guy, dealing with a failed marriage and a failing company, and he just lost the plot there for a bit.

[tptacek]

Since this appears to be the basis of the notion that Palantir is a branch of the NSA: the one Palantir person known to have been involved was a 27 year old sales engineer who was subsequently terminated from the company and rehired after the legal investigation Palantir launched on itself for coming within a mile of Aaron Barr cleared him. (This is based on reporting of what happened, not any kind of firsthand knowledge about Palantir, of which I have none).

[jbooth]

Ok, so we had one small email leak, and 2 gung-ho morons trying to do this really bad idea in order to make a name for themselves.

If we leaked more emails from inside the NSA, how many more gung-ho morons would there be pushing the envelope to make a name for themselves?

You've gotta get ahead somehow. Make some waves, you know?

[streetnigga]

Palantir is not a branch of the NSA, they are backed by the CIA[0].

[0] http://finance.yahoo.com/news/cia-backed-palantir-technologi...

[tptacek]

So was Decru. I suppose storage encryption is also a CIA plot. So was FireEye. I suppose killing zero-day is also a CIA plot. So was Inktomi. I suppose caching web traffic, &c &c.

I could go on, if you like. In-Q-Tel has backed a lot of stuff.

[oceanstone]

In-Q-Tel is an interesting company. They've invested in Google (OSINT), and Keyhole (GEOINT/IMINT). Google went on to acquire Keyhole, to create Google Earth [1].

[1] http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/07/exclusive-google-cia...

[mpyne]

I hear this DARPA thing has been pretty active in sponsoring some stuff as well that's hit the commercial sector.