France: No Palantir Gotham Clone. Really?
October 29, 2020
DarkCyber noted “A French Alternative to Palantir Would Take Two Years to Make, Thales CEO Says.” The Reuters news story contains information which allegedly originated with Patrice Caine, the CEO of Thales, a rough equivalent to a large US defense contractor like Raytheon or the British outfit BAE Systems.
Factoids which appear in the write up:
- DGSI, the French equivalent of a mash up of the FBI and NSA, said there was no comparable product available from a French company
- France wants to achieve digital sovereignty in the intelware and policeware markets; that is, use French products
- The time required to clone Gotham is 24 months; however, the assistance of the French government would be needed.
DarkCyber observations:
First, the perception that no French company can deliver this type of system may come as a surprise to some French companies. Firms like Sinequa have marketed intelligence capabilities for many years. Some policeware and intelware is just enterprise search gussied up with a stage costume and some eye liner. Plus, there are other companies as well who might interpret the “no comparable product” comment as an affront; for example, hot ticket Datanami or the quite functional Amesys Eagle and Shadow technology.
Second, the desire to use French products is important. However, the French government has not moved with sufficient purpose to cultivate the type of innovation in intelware evident in the UK, for example. The UK is a policeware and intelware hot spot; for instance, the Gamma Group among others. The deanonymization of digital currencies revolution has been chugging along for a number of years because one university moved forward.
Third, the idea that two years are needed before France has a system comparable to Palantir Gotham is either wildly optimistic or an understatement about the time required. Fast ramping is possible with a French nucleus, supplemented with strategic acquisitions. For example, tap Dassault Exalead, provide funding, and recommend that innovative companies be identified and moved lock, stock, and barrel to Montpellier or Toulouse.
DarkCyber’s team can identify what to buy and what to do to assemble a French solution to the need for a Palantir-type system. It is important to remember that Palantir Gotham is “old” in Internet years. There are innovators and talent to create what France wants more in step with the modern era, not the emulation of a i2 Ltd’s late 1990’s thinking.
And where did the phrase “red tape” originate? Yep, France.
Stephen E Arnold, October 29, 2020
Palantir Round Up: The Beyond Search Commentary
October 27, 2020
I received a request for the links to my Palantir Technologies coverage. Here’s a hot linked list to the 17 essays, news items, and analyses which appeared in Beyond Search / Dark Cyber from March to October 2020. Stories prior to this year’s may be located using the search function on the Beyond Search / Dark Cyber blog.
- “Two Palantir Profiles: Some Peculiar Omissions.” This essay identifies several Palantir activities not included in the September 2020 New York Magazine profile of the company and the October 2020 New York Times Magazine article. Why were this events ignored or overlooked by the respective publishing companies?
- “Palantir Technologies: Minor Questions Remain.” A list of nine questions which have not been answered comprehensively. This article appeared in early October 2020.
- “Palantir Technologies: A Problem for Intelware Competitors?” This essay compares Palantir Technologies to Autonomy. Both companies have something in common: Revenue. But Autonomy had generated more revenue than Palantir, and Autonomy chose to sell itself to Hewlett Packard. This essay appeared in September 2020 and included the names of the five prime movers at the company.
- “Palantir: Will Investors Embrace Intelware Outfit Generating Consistent, Substantial Losses for More Than a Decade?” This article appeared in September 2020 and focuses on Palantir’s consistent record of losing money in a boom market for policeware.
- “Palantir Has Only Unicorn Scorn for Fellow Travelers.” The essay identifies Palantir’s signal that it is different from other unicorns. The story appeared on September 7, 2020.
- “Palantir: Planning Ahead.” This is a September 4, 2020, essay about the company’s desire to have a special type of control after the initial public offering.
- “Palantir: Stakeholders May Know Whom to Blame If Money Does Not Flow.” This August 2020 essay considers founder control in perpetuity.
- “Palantir Technologies: Maybe Stealth Is Better for Specialized Services Companies?” This essay explores the upside and downside of a policeware company which goes public, thus exposing more of its information to outsiders. This article appeared on August 24, 2020.
- “Palantir Technologies and Semi Hard Numbers.” A short item about Palantir’s revenues. The story appeared on July 10, 2020.
- “A Peek into Google and Palantir Contracts: The UK National Health Service Versions.” This article provided links to Palantir’s agreements with the UK NHS and was published in June 2020.
- “Palantir Technologies: A Very Unusual Emission from a Specialized Services Firm.” This May 26, 2020, essay points to challenges NSO Group faces and raises the question, “Will Palantir face similar scrutiny when it goes public?”
- “Schmidt Versus Thiel May Be a Proxy for Google Trying Catch Up with Palantir.” This May 2020 article touches on the relationship between Palantir and the current administration in Washington, DC.
- “Palantir to Help HHS Track Coronavirus.” This April 2020 news item points to Palantir’s contract with the US Department of Health and Human Services.
- “Palantir Technologies: Getting the NSO Treatment.” This April 24, 2020, essay points out that Palantir is getting more attention from publications like the Wall Street Journal.
- “Palantir Technologies: Evidence That Making Big Money Comes from a Financial Play, Not a Product.” This April 12, 2020, article raises the question, “Is Palantir a financial play, not a viable company?”
- “MiningLamp Technology: Another Palantir?” This March 30, 2020, article draws attention to a Chinese company which appears to have duplicated some of Palantir’s functionality.
- “DCGS: Palantir and BAE Seem to Be Winners.” This March 9, 2020, article considers the demise of DCGS as a viable wartime information and the pivot to BAE Systems and Palantir as alternatives.
There are other, earlier stories. These provide a snapshot of the Beyond Search and Dark Cyber coverage of the company. Remember. Each of these articles is anchored to an open source news story.
Stephen E Arnold, October 27, 2020
How-To Information from a Low Profile Company
October 26, 2020
Terminating fake social media profiles, especially on Facebook, has been a high priority since the 2016 US presidential election. Social media companies have task forces that diligently remove scam accounts (supposedly), but as technology advances bad actors always find ways to keep the fakes rolling. It comes as a surprise that a social media monitoring company actually created an instruction manual on fake profiles. Vice has the story: “Surveillance Company Explains How To Keep Facebook From Detecting Fake Accounts In Leaked Manual.”
British owned Blackdot Solutions developed the open source based online investigations platform Videris. Videris is used by government organizations, banks, and other businesses. Motherboard obtained a user manual from Blackdot Solutions that instructed its customers how to create fake Facebook and LinkedIn accounts to collect people’s information. The manual also explains how to avoid Facebook detection.
The guide offered a very insightful behind-the-scenes look at how social media monitoring tools work from a layman’s POV.
More and more businesses and law enforcement agencies use social media monitoring tools to collect information. One common tactic is befriending people of interest on social media to work around privacy settings.
When confronted with the leaked manual, a Blackdot Solution spokesperson denied being aware of its existence and Videris was not used in such a manner:
“Videris does not unravel private networks. It can’t do anything that users couldn’t do themselves if they were to log into social networks in the normal way,” Adam Lawrance-Owen, Blackdot’s head of product, said in an email. “The advantage of our software is twofold. It allows for more effective investigations to help catch fraudsters, money-launderers and terrorists. And it allows those investigations to be carried out in the most secure and discreet way possible, which is absolutely essential when dealing with these sorts of matters.”
The user manual proved otherwise. Videris makes any scrapped data readable and it also includes colorful charts and graphs. Blackdot Solutions has since remained mum about the manual.
Whitney Grace, October 26, 2020
Exclusive: Interview with DataWalk’s Chief Analytics Officer Chris Westphal, Who Guides an Analytics Rocket Ship
October 21, 2020
I spoke with Chris Westphal, Chief Analytics Officer for DataWalk about the company’s string of recent contract “wins.” These range from commercial engagements to heavy lifting for the US Department of Justice.
Chris Westphal, founder of Visual Analytics (acquired by Raytheon) brings his one-click approach to advanced analytics.
The firm provides what I have described as an intelware solution. DataWalk ingests data and outputs actionable reports. The company has leap-frogged a number of investigative solutions, including IBM’s Analyst’s Notebook and the much-hyped Palantir Technologies’ Gotham products. This interview took place in a Covid compliant way. In my previous Chris Westphal interviews, we met at intelligence or law enforcement conferences. Now the experience is virtual, but as interesting and information in July 2019. In my most recent interview with Mr. Westphal, I sought to get more information on what’s causing DataWalk to make some competitors take notice of the company and its use of smart software to deliver what customers want: Results, not PowerPoint presentations and promises. We spoke on October 8, 2020.
DataWalk is an advanced analytics tool with several important innovations. On one hand, the company’s information processing system performs IBM i2 Analyst’s Notebook and Palantir Gotham type functions — just with a more sophisticated and intuitive interface. On the other hand, Westphal’s vision for advanced analytics has moved past what he accomplished with his previous venture Visual Analytics. Raytheon bought that company in 2013. Mr. Westphal has turned his attention to DataWalk. The full text of our conversation appears below.
Tickeron: The Commercial System Which Reveals What Some Intel Professionals Have Relied on for Years
October 16, 2020
Are you curious about the capabilities of intelware systems developed by specialized services firms? You can gat a good idea about the type of information available to an authorized user:
- Without doing much more than plugging in an entity with a name
- Without running ad hoc queries like one does on free Web search systems unless there is a specific reason to move beyond the provided output
- Without reading a bunch of stuff and trying to figure out what’s reliable and what’s made up by a human or a text robot
- Without having to spend time decoding a table of numbers, a crazy looking chart, or figuring out weird colored blobs which represent significant correlations.
Sound like magic?
Nope, it is the application of pattern matching and established statistical methods to streams of data.
The company delivering this system, tailored to Robinhood-types and small brokerages, has been assembled by Tickeron. There’s original software, some middleware, and some acquired technology. Data are ingested and outputs indicate what to buy or sell or to know, as a country western star crooned, “know when to hold ‘em.”
A rah rah review appeared in The Stock Dork. “Tickeron Review: An AI-Powered Trading Platform That’s Worth the Hype” provides a reasonably good overview of the system. If you want to check out the system, navigate to Tickeron’s Web site.
Here’s an example of a “card,” the basic unit of information output from the system:
The key elements are:
- Icon to signal “think about buying” the stock
- A chart with red and green cues
- A hot link to text
- A game angle with the “odds” link
- A “more” link
- Hashtags (just like Twitter).
Now imaging this type of data presented to an intel officer monitoring a person of interest. Sound useful? The capability has been available for more than a decade. It’s interesting to see this type of intelware finds its way to those who want to invest like the wizards at the former Bear Stearns (remember that company, the bridge players, the implosion?).
DarkCyber thinks that the high-priced solutions available from Wall Street information providers may wonder about the $15 a month fee for the Tickeron service.
Keep in mind that predictions, if right, can allow you to buy an exotic car, an island, and a nice house in a Covid-free location. If incorrect, there’s van life.
The good news is that the functionality of intelware is finally becoming more widely available.
Stephen E Arnold, October 16, 2020
Google and Its User Privacy: Happy Hunting
October 4, 2020
DarkCyber spotted an open source intelligence tool called GHunt. By the time an open source software becomes publicly available, DarkCyber believes that hardened systems and methods are integrated into specialized policeware and intelware systems. If you want to try to learn more about a particular Google email user, for instance, you may want to take a look at GHunt. There are screenshots and basic information available on Github. Google appears to be taking steps to address some of the “features” which the GHunt software taps. Some interesting open source software becomes available and then disappears; for example, DARPA Memex tools have evidenced this type of behavior. If you want this tool, DarkCyber suggests you move along in a sprightly manner.
Stephen E Arnold, October 4, 2020
Palantir Technologies: Minor Questions Remain
October 1, 2020
DarkCyber noted “Techie Software Soldier Spy: Palantir, Big Data’s Scariest, Most Secretive Unicorn, Is Going Public. But Is Its Crystal Ball Just Smoke and Mirrors?” The write up joins the caravan of publications digging into the ins and outs of the intelware business.
There are precedents for a vendor of specialized services becoming a public company. One example is Verint, and there are others. Sometimes the lineage of an intelware company can be difficult to figure out. There are start ups in Cypress; there are partnerships in Herzliya; and there are Byzantine limited liability operations in midtown Manhattan.
What’s striking about Palantir is that the coverage has been content with the jazzy bits. DarkCyber understands the need to create buzz and capture eyeballs. The write up uses an interesting quotation from Admiral Poindexter, an interesting person who may be qualified to explain intelware:
“When I talked to Peter Thiel early on, I was impressed with the design and the ideas they had for the user interface,” Poindexter told me recently. “But I could see they didn’t have — well, as you call it, the back end, to automatically sort through the data and eliminate that tedious task for the users. And my feedback from the people who used it at the time, they were not happy with it at all. It was just much too manual.”
DarkCyber wondered:
- Why the write up did not explore the i2 Analyst’s Notebook vs.. Palantir legal matter. That activity suggested that Palantir may have had some interest in a proprietary file format and allegedly worked in interesting ways to obtain closely guarded information. A related question is, “Why would bright start up engineers resort to allegedly questionable methods to figure out a file format?” Too bad the write up ignores a legal matter which illuminates Palantir’s methods.
- Why is Palantir running into the revenue ceiling which other vendors of search and content processing systems for government entities hit? Are there too few customers? Did Autonomy, another search and content processing company, bumped into the revenue ceiling too? Is there a elephant standing in a pool of red ink in the accounting departments of some search and content processing companies?
- Why are intelware vendors offering their products and services under generous free trials programs to the known customers with allocated funds for such systems? And in parallel, the vendors are working overtime to find someone with deep pockets to buy these start ups?
- How similar are the products and services of intelware vendors? Why is innovation confined to graphics and innovation confined to recycling ideas in circulation for decades? One of the DarkCyber team observed, “Isn’t Palantir Gotham Titan the old Analyst’s Notebook with a pop up wheel on the right mouse button?” (I hire skeptical and maybe slightly cynical engineers I think.)
- Could it be that in the “real world” of fast-moving events the intelware vendors’ products don’t work all that well? Is it time for deeper analysis of comparable products and services? How does Palantir stack up against Voyager Labs’ offerings or the the LookingGlass system.
- Why doesn’t smart software do a better job of importing data? What has Datawalk figured out that eludes the Palantirians?
- Why do some Palantir Gotham installations remain idle? Is it because even the simpler interface is too quirky to use when real-time events generate pressure? Is it difficult for some licensees to allocate staff to use the system in order to become masters of the dataverse?
- Why haven’t Wall Street pushes generated more revenue? What happened to the Thomson Reuters’ deal?
- How long did it take Palantir to stand up its first version of its system after the core team decided the move forward with Gotham? (If you know the answer, write benkent2020 @ yahoo dot com. We know the answer and the winner will receive a copy of CyberOSINT: Next Generation Information Access. Free too. Almost like a trial of the products and services from an intelware start up.)
There are other questions the DarkCyber team considers important as well. Perhaps a “real news” outfit will dig into the intelware market, track the technologies, the inter-company tie ups, and the use cases or in some cases the dis-use cases for these products and services?
DarkCyber, however, finds the idea of Palantir’s going public interesting. Was the point of the exercise financial escape for increasingly concerned investors and grousing employees? Too many questions and too few answers still I think.
Stephen E Arnold, October 1, 2020
The Future of Twitter Revealed
September 30, 2020
Twitter is an interesting outfit. Forbes (the capitalist tool, I believe) published “Bitcoin and Blockchain Are the Future of Twitter, CEO Jack Dorsey Reveals”. Twitter is an interesting outfit; for example, it has a new chief information security officer. That’s a good idea, maybe too late for some stakeholders, but it is a step forward.
Forbes reports:
Dorsey, who… said bitcoin is “probably the best” native currency of the internet, has previously gone as far as saying bitcoin has the potential to be the world’s sole currency by 2030…. Now, speaking at the virtual Oslo Freedom Forum 2020, Dorsey has said bitcoin and its underlying decentralized blockchain technology are the future of Twitter.
Forbes quotes Twitter’s top management Zen person as saying:
“The whole spirit of bitcoin, for instance, is to provide a trusted system in a distrusted environment, which is the internet,” Dorsey said…. Earlier this month, Dorsey told Reuters bitcoin is “probably the best” native currency of the internet due to bitcoin being “consensus-driven” and “built by everyone.”
Yep, trust.
A couple of observations:
- Twitter owns a payment system. Perhaps Mr. Dorsey’s confident assertion about the future is influenced by the method of communications and the beneficiary of the digital currency cheerleading?
- Twitter licenses its data selectively to commercial enterprises developing products and services to assist law enforcement and intelligence agencies. With Bitcoin generally perceived as a lubricant for illegal transactions, what’s Twitter’s goal? (Check out the Geospark Analytics – Twitter deal for some color. Geofeedia has not been as fortunate as the virtual intelware vendor.)
- How will enhanced Bitcoin capabilities assist bad actors in money laundering and other possibly questionable activities?
DarkCyber finds Twitter fascinating. A half-time CEO, a messaging system which can spark interesting social consequences, and a peculiar way of supporting law enforcement and other groups simultaneously.
Worth monitoring the dualism.
Stephen E Arnold, September 30, 2020
Always: An Alluring Notion
September 30, 2020
DarkCyber ran a short video about a product called the Dronut. It looks like a small flying donut. You can get a link to the company, its patent document, and a snippet of the promotional video for your product at this link at the 10 minute 36 second point in the show.
I was interested in “Why You Should Be Very Skeptical of Ring’s Indoor Security Drone,” an article in IEEE Spectrum. My team and I have done lectures, briefings, and even a book chapter about Amazon’s policeware and intelware activities. I know first hand that no one, not even law enforcement and intelligence officers, care.
In fact, at one digital security conference last year in San Antonio, an attendee — an Air Force intel professional — summed up the attitude of the 100 people in the lecture hall:
My wife loves Amazon. The company may have some interesting technology, but, come on, even my kids depend on Amazon videos. Amazon is not an intelware player.
Not bad for a colonel’s analytic and content processing skills, right?
I am not going to rehash our research about Amazon’s intelligence related services. I want to focus on IEEE Spectrum’s write up; for example, this statement in the article:
Ring, the smart home company owned by Amazon, announced the Always Home Cam, a “next-level indoor security” system in the form of a small autonomous drone. It costs US $250 and is designed to closely integrate with the rest of Ring’s home security hardware and software. Technologically, it’s impressive. But you almost certainly don’t want one.
Clueless? Not completely. The Amazon surveillance drone is not marketed like the Dronut. Plus, the Amazon home surveillance drone is not a standalone product. The Always Home Cam provides the equivalent of a content acquisition “paint by numbers” module to the Amazon intelware infrastructure.
Little patches of data particularized and indexed by time, location, and other metadata can be cross correlated with other information. Some information is unique to Amazon; for example, the “signal” generated by processing payment history, video viewing, and product purchase information for an account holder. The cross-correlation (Amazon’s lingo from one of its blockchain related inventions) makes it possible to perform the type of analytic work associated with intelligence analysis software and subject matter experts.
The article notes:
Ring hasn’t revealed a lot of details on the drone itself, but here’s what we can puzzle out. My guess is that there’s a planar lidar right at the top that the drone uses to localize, and that it probably has a downward-looking camera as well. Ring says that you pre-map the areas that you want the drone to fly in, which works because the environment mostly doesn’t change. It’s also nice that you don’t have to worry about weather, and minimal battery life isn’t a big deal since you don’t need to fly for very long and the recharging dock is always close by. I like that the user can only direct the drone to specific waypoints rather than piloting it directly, which (depending on how well the drone actually performs) should help minimize crashes.
The author is either ignoring UAS characteristics of surveillance devices or unaware of those conventions. The write up does reference to the challenge of avoiding mobile cameras. The parallel between Amazon’s in home UAS and a telepresence robot misses the point. The data, not the device, are the story. At least the author reaches a reasonable conclusion:
But is it worth $250, questionably better security versus cheap static cameras, and a much larger potential for misuse or abuse? I’m not convinced.
If you are interested in a one hour briefing about Amazon’s policeware and intelware initiative, write benkent2020 at yahoo dot com. Someone on the DarkCyber team will respond with options and fees.
On the other hand, why not be like the intel colonel, “What’s the big deal?”
Stephen E Arnold, September 28, 2020
Palantir Technologies: A Problem for Intelware Competitors?
September 24, 2020
The Palantir Technologies initial public offering is looming. Pundits are excited; for example, “Palantir Has A Long Uphill Battle Towards Customer Acquisition, But Benefits From Stickiness And Contract Expansion” makes clear that the journey to profitability may be like the Beatles observed: A long and winding road. Others are focused on churn; for example, “5 things to Know about Palantir’s Upcoming IPO.” DarkCyber’s response: “Just five?”
The issue is intelware. Many companies have tried to convert selling to law enforcement, intelligence agencies, and regulators into a billion dollar software and services business. There are some success stories; for example, Booz Allen fits the bill. The company sells time. The company has its own software, not much, but it exists. The company cheerleads, which is a nice way to say that for money “experts” will talk about promising products from the competitive marketplace.
Palantir is more like Autonomy than a blue-chip consulting firm. Autonomy played the “secret black box” chip with its neuro-linguistic programming. It worked until it did not. The firm licensed its black box to BAE Systems in the 1990s. The Autonomy marketing machine then generated revenue slowly and steadily. Then Autonomy acquired companies and cranked up its sales machine. At “peak Autonomy,” the well managed outfit Hewlett Packard, grabbed a brass ring with Autonomy engraved on it. The cost was north of $10 billion and years of legal bills. Autonomy was a publicly traded company, and it had a revenue track record dating from 1996. The HP deal was completed in October 2011. That means that the FY2010 data give us an idea about how much secret black box software can generate with “advanced” software, great marketing, and demanding management. The revenue for Autonomy after 15 years was in the neighborhood of $870 million.
One of Palantir Gotham’s innovations: A right mouse click displays a wheel of choices. The interface is definitely jazzier than that of Analyst’s Notebook, now owned by IBM.
Palantir Technologies opened for business in 2003. The company has been in business for 17 years. Yep, that’s two years longer than Autonomy. And what is Palantir’s alleged revenue for the last fiscal year? $742 million. The company’s advantages were the support of Peter Thiel (a Silicon Valley Thor), secrecy, a method for importing ANB files (if you don’t know what this is, well, what can I tell you in a free blog post?), and okay sales and so-so marketing. (One of Palantir’s innovations was a wheel of choices, not Bayesian methods wrapped in mystery.)
If my math is correct, Autonomy generated $128 million more revenue that Autonomy. If one uses 2011 dollars, not the Rona roiled 2020 dollars, the difference is more like $400 million, give or take $20 million or so. Yep, Autonomy appears to have outperformed Palantir: Less time, more revenue.
What?
Why?
Who?
How?
Let’s take each question.
First, what? The lackluster performance of Palantir Technologies illustrates the difficulty intelware companies, even ones with great advantages like the aforementioned ANB filter, have making really big money quickly. Remember. To generate less revenue than Autonomy, Palantir required $2.6 billion in funding. DarkCyber thinks that patient investors may be nervous about their investment which could melt away like a real snowflake. You can work out the math. Take 17 years of losses, subtract the revenue generated over 17 years, add in some interest just for spice, and mix into a pressurized container containing the fumes of burning a big cash pile. Read more
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