[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.