> I guarantee this problem is far more complex and troublesome than the bureaucrats would ever understand
if a manufacturer finds it too complex to not overproduce and not add all kinds of negative externalities then their business model is flawed or they’re not up to the task.
either way, it isn’t “the bureaucrats” fault they’re overproducing, and they absolutely are overproducing.
Sorry, where? Maybe I've missed something, but the article is just about their health business growing in New York rather than an illegal data backdoors?
There's no evidence it's just speculation. Microsoft has a contract with the same exact orgs. So does AWS. Anyone with a little bit of common sense would know that. Palantir's CEO and Peter Thiel are not particularly well liked so presumably people are speculating without any evidence at all. Could there be an issue? Yes, absolutely but not just with Palantir but let's not let facts get in the way of a narrative. In any event I think the question of data being shared with the government could be a problem even if the software was made in house and then open sourced by the hospital (which is itself ridiculous to expect but this is HN) because the hospital themselves could provide the data to the government. At this point someone might say "no that won't happen because hospitals are nice and Palantir is evil" or "there are laws" but I am not sure why Palantir would be exempt unless anyone has proof or anything besides a vibes based argument but then we're back to square one.
Did you read the article? There's no evidence cited in it at all. This comment thread made me think "wow, Palantir must be selling PHI to the mob" or something, and The Intercept has the receipts, but the article simply states that Palantir has a contract to run medicaid billing. It then goes on to say that Palantir also works with other government agencies like ICE (bad), and the Israelis (worse than ICE), and the UK (they've crossed the line now!)
It's entirely left up to the reader to fill in the blanks that whatever is going on with this contract is nefarious and bad.
The Intercept used to do good work, but this article is complete trash. At least the author was self aware enough to reference the 2016 reporting.
there is absolutely evidence a government agency is using palantir. the very beginning of the article:
> New York City’s public hospital system is paying millions to Palantir ... automated scanning of patient health notes to “Increase charges captured from missed opportunities,” contract materials reviewed by The Intercept show.
later it explains:
> Palantir’s contract with New York’s public health care system allows the company to work with patients’ protected health information, or PHI ... Palantir can “de-identify PHI and utilize de-identified PHI for purposes other than research,” the contract states.
so a government agency is allowing palantir access to private health information to use for other purposes other than research.
again, i dont know what kind of "evidence" you're looking for, but much of the conversation ive seen revolves around those two pieces of the article.
those two pieces of "evidence" i find to be terrifying if it were any data brokerage, but considering what we know about palantir and its founders/leaders its even moreso. and again, it seems entirely appropriate for the discussions to happen from the "evidence" the article puts forward.
the government should not be sharing private health information with private corporations "...for purporses other than research" and it absolutely shouldnt be using those data brokers to sidestep warrantless data collection protections.
if you think the government should be able to amass enormous dossiers on all of its citizens, thats fine, you're entirely within your right to think thats rad, but we're also allowed to think this directional shift is absolutely terrifying.
So, again, there are two relevant paragraphs in this whole article and all they do is point out that New York is paying Palantir to optimize their billing infrastructure, and then it observes that, in order to do this, New York is also giving them PHI that Palantir is permitted to de-identify and use for other "research" purposes.
This tells us almost nothing. You're obviously a cynic (understandable) about technology here, but this journalist could've done a lot more work to actually explain to the reader the nature of this so-called "research". Is it defined in the contract (most likely)? How long do they get access to this data? Are there other constraints? Has Palantir violated any terms of this contract (The Intercept is intimating that they are in at position to know this, since they have the contract materials so they say) with regard to use of this data? Are there reporting requirements if the terms of the contract are violated? Is Palantir required to notify New York about the use of PHI for these research purposes?
The Intercept doesn't tell us any of this, which to me suggests that there's not a lot of "there" there. Did they ask anyone in a position to know about the contract? No, they didn't, all they did was send a gotcha email to the mayor's office. This is not journalism.
>the government should not be sharing private health information with private corporations
How exactly do you think Medicaid/Medicare works? Private corporations handle PHI all the time. There is an entire industry that exists to do exactly that.
>if you think the government should be able to amass enormous dossiers on all of its citizens,
TFA doesn't say this.
Look, Palantir and others involved in XKS and all the rest of warrantless and illegal surveillance activity do not get the benefit of the doubt. My problem here is that this article is shit, is intended to generate clicks, and the quality of investigative journalism on this topic is a pile of hot garbage. There's dozens of other questions this journalist should've gone out and investigated but, no, it was easier to drop in two paragraphs that tell the reader nothing, and then build up a bunch of ancillary observations about other work that governments and private corporations do (all legal, btw) to make everything sound as inflammatory as possible without actually informing anyone of anything.
Considering that other agencies have been using palantir (and other data whores) to sidestep established norms on gathering/using information against its citizens, and considering that the article pointed to just some of the other well known instances of those other agencies using that private company, i think its entirely reasonable for people to discuss "this situation is concerning".
if we take all context away and only look at this in some weird isolated island, sure, "lets wait for more information", but ignoring wide swaths of context is honestly kind of silly. we don't do that in the real world: courts take context into consideration, military takes context into consideration, board rooms take context into consideration, household planning takes context into consideration, data hoarding takes context into consideration, and on and on. when we consider wider context, yes, this is an incredibly worrying trend.
i don't know how many different government agencies would need to feed data/slurp data to/from these private data brokers before you would feel comfortable calling it out, but it clearly isn't at that point yet, and that's ok. you're entitled to your opinions, and so is everyone else. much of the conversation here indicates those people are concerned that its very quickly getting worse.
it doesn't matter if its bush's administration, clinton's, biden's, or trump's, this is gathering momentum and i think its wrong, regardless of who is in charge.
we've been moving towards a situation where privacy dynamics are flipping on their head. we are now at a point where those with the most power expect complete privacy and cry foul when people reveal their deeds. while those with the least amount power, if they wish to engage with society on any meaningful level are forbidden to have privacy. this is yet another example of the government and private companies working together making this new lack of privacy dynamic worse.
> if you think the government should be able to amass enormous dossiers on all of its citizens,
you're correct here, i misspoke, i should have said access rather than amass:
if you think the government should be able to access enormous dossiers amassed by a private company to use against its citizens that's fine, you're entirely within your right to think that's rad, but others are also allowed to think this directional shift is absolutely terrifying.
Okay, so, your point appears to be that the government sharing any data with the private sector for any purpose is axiomatically bad, and this is because your null hypothesis is that doing so is going to have deleterious effects on privacy norms. If that's your point, it's certainly a defensible one. My original point was that this article does not provide evidence one way or another in that regard because it is (very) poorly researched and executed. Perhaps I am making a meta point that, in order for those who hold your views to more convincingly argue the case, the evidentiary standards need to be raised because otherwise it just looks like noise - and in particular re: Palantir, there is an enormous amount of FUDD and mystery (intentional or otherwise) around what they do, and as a result of this people reflexively revert to "data sharing bad, BigCorp evil" like this is a Marvel comic book movie. Not saying you are doing that, but any time this company comes up the comments become retrenched and the usual technical depth that this website is supposed to be known for goes out the window.
The logic you're applying here is "ICE uses an iPhone app to illegally scan people's faces and hunt them down" -> "Every hospital's iPhone app is just a tool to send your private data to the feds".
was it “uk only” or was it the only place that required them to notify users theyre being experimented on?
we know US law allows tech companies to experiment on us without notifying at all. facebook was caught experimenting on users to see if a timeline full of sad posts would cause the users to become depressed.
im guessing his companies will get ahold of discord users data in most other countries. i’d be shocked if he only wants data from a tiny number of UK people.
while i agree that unifi is worth looking at, id urge anyone reading this to be a little weery there:
i used to own extensive unifi equipment for my home network, 8 access points, 2 switches, gateway, a couple cams, etc… it was amazing, the initial setup, the interoperability, the stability and maintenance was absolutely painless. i will loudly sing them praises for those things, but i started noticing them trying to jam cloud features and subscriptions behind paywalls deeper into the integration, it’s pretty obvious that its only a matter of time before they enshitify with pay-for-features paywalled behind subscriptions, cloud first, etc…
keep that in mind before you dive headfirst. their stuff was perfect in that stability sweet spot of better than small office but not quite enterprise tier local only configurations, but i personally dipped as soon as i saw what i think is the writing in the wall.
i love their stuff, genuinely i did, but if the goal is to move further away from subscriptions and cloud-first, be very cautious of their current trajectory.
I did a full security system replacement for my previous employer in our data center. Replaced all the old IP cameras that connected directly to a small black box nvr with UniFi camera recording onto a UniFi Video server writing to a NAS cable locked to the rack in our locked data center. Two months later UniFi Video was discontinued and stopped receiving updates or support. If we wanted a supported platform we had to purchase a UniFi Protect NVR with less storage and less power/network redundancy than what I built. Plus all access to UniFi Protect would run through their cloud portal.
This makes me wonder if it's inevitable for every hardware/software provider to be tempted by the candy now. Makes me ask myself if I could even resist it if I had a customer base with sunk costs who I could take advantage of. My feeling is that I could resist it, on principle, but most people wouldn't. And this is leaving out pressure from investors.
So such a company selling these solutions as locally run widgets - which we understand are under not just pressure to increase revenue, but also relentless pressure from governments to share their data - would definitely need to be completely self-funded, immediately profitable, and the solutions they sold would have to be permanent and not susceptible to any external market or government forces.
Zero updates and zero tracking of installations would be the goal.
[edit] but this is also not that hard. All the company needs to provide is a piece of software that stitches together existing hardware. The only updates would be when hardware updates, and those would be included in the price. If "NEVER CLOUD" was the company's entire corporate identity, then preserving that ethos would be a mandate.
[edit2] nevercloud.com is currently on sale for $8350. I'd suggest building the prime directive into the name, but that much money has better uses.
>all access to UniFi Protect would run through their cloud portal.
I have a unvr and protect and nothing runs through their portal, I connect directly to the ip address of the unvr. You can cut internet access off on the vlan and everything works fine.
being “worth it” and being “a hit” are two different things. the parent is trying to point out they made songs knowing full well those particular song would never be a hit, but they definitely thought it was “worth it.”
many artists do things often knowing they won’t make money from that piece. and some artists believe money should never drive why you create a piece of art, different reasons should be at the forefront, should be the driving force, some force other than widespread success.
the beatles were well known for making thing they did not water down for the masses, knowing it would likely not be a commercial success. and conversely they were also known for intentionally watering things down so the masses would take it. it’s one part of why they have stood the test of time.
How do you conclude that? Is it hard to believe that Paul would write a song, and then realize it wasn't good?
> some artists believe money should never drive why you create a piece of art
Yes, and I'm acquainted with a few of those. They are proud that their art is something nobody else likes. They criticize others for "selling out", meaning making art that others like enough to be willing to pay for it.
They're just trying to justify their lack of talent.
I'm not impressed.
BTW, the Beatles very much enjoyed their money and success.
> SAFE for Kids Act [pending] (restricts algorithmic feeds for minors).
i personally would love to see something like this but changed a little:
for every user (not just minors) require a toggle: upfront, not buried, always in your face toggle to turn off algorithmic feeds, where you’ll only see posts from people you follow, in the order in which they post it. again, no dark patterns, once a user toggles to a non-algorithmic feeds, it should stick.
this would do a lot to restore trust. i don’t really use the big social medias much any more, but when i did i can not tell you how many posts i missed because the algorithms are kinda dumb af. like i missed friends anniversary celebrations, events that were right up my alley, community projects, etc… because the algorithms didn’t think the posts announcing the events would be addictive enough for me.
no need to force it “for the kids” when they can just give everyone the choice.
> The mob responds with a 1-sentence emotional meme. Classic moral panic 101.
it was one person.
im writing this comment 1 hour after yours, and still only a single person has responded and you’ve called one person, a mob. you’ve declared one person commenting to be a “moral panic.”
I shall echo the comment of pibaker with one caveat.
>The exact same sentiment is widely observed across this entire website.
You do see this sentiment across this website, but this doesn't mean that it is a view held by the majority of people here, the people motivated to act can create the illusion that their opinions are more widely held than they are.
A few days ago I posted a comment which, in it's entirety reads
>Perhaps things would work out better if people didn't say mean things regardless of who it's about.
>You can still criticise without being mean.
The comment sits at -4 today, and has one antagonistic response. I don't really think most people disagree with this sentiment.
The antagonistic response came from the same one person as the comment in this thread.
if a manufacturer finds it too complex to not overproduce and not add all kinds of negative externalities then their business model is flawed or they’re not up to the task.
either way, it isn’t “the bureaucrats” fault they’re overproducing, and they absolutely are overproducing.
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