This probably doesn't cover what OP said, but after reading the CEO's intro post, I left a little more depressed. Make money off surveillance, and then make money off selling a privacy product.
> At Palantir, where I started in technical roles more than 10 years ago, I learned about a wide array of vulnerabilities in the cellular network that present a threat not only to mission-focused organizations in government, but also to everyday people. I came to see mobile phones — and the networks that power them — as perhaps the largest risks to our privacy and security.
> If you told Americans twenty years ago that corporations and governments would conspire to attach powerful tracking devices to nearly every adult worldwide, it would’ve sounded like science fiction. And yet, that’s not far from where we are today.
Great question. The product is basically the same-- it's a cell phone network and we sell connectivity to it.
A helpful thing to keep in mind is that everyone has basically 2 use cases for their cell phones:
1. Send and receive calls and SMS
2. Connect to the internet
Whether you're a national security professional, an investigative journalist, or an average consumer who values privacy, that's what you do with your phone. So if we can build features that make you more secure and more private across those two use cases, we have a product that can help both government and consumer users.
Sometimes when people ask the "conflict" question they mean some version of "but doesn't the government then ask you for a backdoor to get all the data?" All we can really do here is stand by our privacy policy. We store the minimum amount of data possible, we promise not to sell your data to anyone, we notify our users if we receive legal process on their account that is not subject to a gag order, and we pledge to push back on any law enforcement request we receive that is not well formed and narrowly tailored as required by law.
The backdoor/honeypot fears are often related to the Anom story that came out a few years ago. It's not a perfect rebuttal, but the reporter that broke that story has written about Cape a couple of times. You can read those articles here:
Similar to OP – I appreciate you hanging around and answering regardless of how hostile it feels.
We may or may not be convinced by the details you're able to give us, but regardless of that you've made the discussion more informed, technical, and less speculative, which is in the best spirit of HN.
