I do agree blocking Palantir is a good move but the Spanish government is doing it for the wrong reason. Spain is storing all sort of data on Chinese servers, including their Intelligence, and Judicial wiretaps.
> Spain is “making a big mistake,” said Bart Groothuis [...] “Spain is now dependent on the country with the largest and most sophisticated offensive espionage program directed against us.”
I highly doubt he's naive enough to believe the "against us" qualifier exempts the operator of the largest and most sophisticated offensive espionage program ever.
It's expensive to home-grow your own solutions and if you try transitioning too many services at once the cost will be outrageous and you'll probably open other security holes. I am glad Spain is taking this step and I hope they continue this trend - but outright refusing to use any software built abroad requires a massive investment in domestic tech. That investment would likely pay economic dividends but it is a cost that needs to be measured against other investments Spain needs to make and in Spain's case resilience against global warming is especially important.
Politicians and governments like to introduce crap like blacklisting when they have a good excuse to (a target the public agrees with) so that later it's easier for them to use against arbitrary targets.
I know I’m a conspiracy theorist but I’m looking out for random scandals, random high profile deaths, random infrastructure issues and random large scale accidents.
indeed, and he has apparently already been walking the walk
>"Burnham did not grant the US tech company any contracts during his nine years as Greater Manchester mayor, and is minded to take the same approach in Downing Street."
They seem to have been granting contracts to manage all kinds of critical data to Huawei's Palantir equivalent lately, so it's probably less about security risks and more about the current source of the bribe money.
If they cared about security they would not outsource this kind of stuff to foreign companies. Spain is not Somalia, why not let Indra do it?
Much of Spain is indeed getting very unpleasant in the summer with climate change, but in the north there are still regions that are quite fine at the moment. Where I am, we recently beat the all time temperature record with 35 degrees, but that was a single day. Most days these weeks it isn't going over 25, and I don't think we hit 30 in June except for that single day and maybe one other day.
The problem is that the right is poised to win the next election and will probably undo all the policies you like. They're pretty much against everything that has been done in the last 7 years. I still have some hopes that Sanchez might clinch another term because he's a political survivor, but prospects are not great.
Canary Islands are part of Spain and probably unaffected from climate change - we have 19-22°C all year round. If it raises to 25° still pretty livable.
It isn't that simple, Canary Islands already counts with 2.2 million + tourists people and the fresh water is a highly risk resource even when desalinization plants are widespread, the groundwater aquifers are severely compromised.
The mild weather heavily depends on the trade winds. But models predict that due to fact of being so close to Africa heat waves are prone to be more and more frequent compromising the water resources.
Islands are extremely vulnerable to climate change all over, as they are completely dependent in near-term precipitation for all their water (no rivers, no aquifers).
No rivers and no water is reality here for quite a while already. The islands rely a lot on desalination, and there is a big EU-funded project going on to create a desalination plant that not only is used to supply tap water, but the water basin of a new hydroelectric plant [0]. Desalination pretty much solves water issues, IF you have the energy (ideally renewable).
It is possible and this in particular is a decision that I'm sure the US will pressure the government to reverse. However, it's misguided to see the entire world through the US political lens where reversing policy decisions is seen as a free win by the voting base. Spain's current democracy is only about fifty years old and extremism is viewed very negatively so outright undoing is generally less common then gradual undermining.
People in the comments here are praising the move, so presumably something is public. I've googled but I can't see some specific breach or documented misuse. Is the objection to Palantir strictly political?
Palantir is profoundly untrusted in Europe in part because of Alex Karp. He is viewed as a dangerous neo-nationalist (not incorrectly).
Never really sure why Anduril doesn't catch the same grief; they are maybe even creepier. Perhaps Palmer Luckey is just a less visible obvious Bond villain crackpot.
> Anybody here think that Palantir is not a security risk for Spain?
It boggles the mind a bit, but I’ve seen a few comments on here with people defending them to the tune of “what’s the big deal, they just help governments with their data! They're innocent” which is uh, either aggressively naive, or just paid PR behaviour.
Someday, the US will be just a bubble where no other country gives their data to.
We continue this decent into fascism to the point that nobody likes us.. or values us. Is this their idea of Utopia?
> The firm holds a €16.5 million contract signed in 2023 with the Armed Forces Intelligence Center (CIFAS), which is scheduled to expire this upcoming November.
> Military leadership, including the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Navy, has lobbied Defense Minister Margarita Robles to renew the contract, citing the platform's operational superiority.
Palantir wins contracts because they are better at what they do. If Europe wants to maintain digital sovereignty while not being left behind they need to have a heart-to-heart conversation about how to fix that.
they have a great IT company in Spain, it's been winning a lot of contracts recently, that of the software genius Begoña Gomez (despite having no studies, just happens to be the wife of the mafia Capo Pedro Sanchez, but I am sure it's just a coincidence)
I find it unbelievable that the current chief of Nato (Rutte) is basically an extension of Palantir. He is making sure countries are signing contracts with this extreme company that on pair with the Nazi ideology. They would support mass extermination camps. You probably think this is over exaggerated. But no its not. This company is evil.
You're out of your mind -- and politically radicalized -- if you think that Palantir is on part with the Nazis. And this kind of facile comparison is offensively trivializing those who died in the holocaust.
Spain is really going in the right direction, I wonder why no one countries inspire from what they are doing
I do agree blocking Palantir is a good move but the Spanish government is doing it for the wrong reason. Spain is storing all sort of data on Chinese servers, including their Intelligence, and Judicial wiretaps.
https://www.politico.eu/article/spain-huawei-contract-judici...
> I do agree blocking Palantir is a good move
Why? I'm not an expert and have only googled a bit, but I can't figure out what the specific objection to Palantir is.
That is rather disturbing but this had me lol:
> Spain is “making a big mistake,” said Bart Groothuis [...] “Spain is now dependent on the country with the largest and most sophisticated offensive espionage program directed against us.”
I highly doubt he's naive enough to believe the "against us" qualifier exempts the operator of the largest and most sophisticated offensive espionage program ever.
If the data is encrypted before the upload I see no problem
Huawei is the complete data custodian. They are the ones doing the encrypting.
As opposed to what? American servers with Isreali backdoors?
How about Spanish servers?
I will never understand this helplessness that comes from these European countries. They are choosing to be dependent on foreign powers.
It's expensive to home-grow your own solutions and if you try transitioning too many services at once the cost will be outrageous and you'll probably open other security holes. I am glad Spain is taking this step and I hope they continue this trend - but outright refusing to use any software built abroad requires a massive investment in domestic tech. That investment would likely pay economic dividends but it is a cost that needs to be measured against other investments Spain needs to make and in Spain's case resilience against global warming is especially important.
Politicians and governments like to introduce crap like blacklisting when they have a good excuse to (a target the public agrees with) so that later it's easier for them to use against arbitrary targets.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c1w21gn340xo
At this point, can you tell me one non corrupt government?
At least they are doing stuff for the people
I know I’m a conspiracy theorist but I’m looking out for random scandals, random high profile deaths, random infrastructure issues and random large scale accidents.
Looks like we’re doing this in the UK soon too.
Edit: not sure what the downvotes are. Burnham literally said he’ll do it today.
indeed, and he has apparently already been walking the walk
>"Burnham did not grant the US tech company any contracts during his nine years as Greater Manchester mayor, and is minded to take the same approach in Downing Street."
But how many did he deny?
They seem to have been granting contracts to manage all kinds of critical data to Huawei's Palantir equivalent lately, so it's probably less about security risks and more about the current source of the bribe money.
If they cared about security they would not outsource this kind of stuff to foreign companies. Spain is not Somalia, why not let Indra do it?
I really like what Spain is doing recently. If it weren't for climate change, I'd consider moving there.
Much of Spain is indeed getting very unpleasant in the summer with climate change, but in the north there are still regions that are quite fine at the moment. Where I am, we recently beat the all time temperature record with 35 degrees, but that was a single day. Most days these weeks it isn't going over 25, and I don't think we hit 30 in June except for that single day and maybe one other day.
The problem is that the right is poised to win the next election and will probably undo all the policies you like. They're pretty much against everything that has been done in the last 7 years. I still have some hopes that Sanchez might clinch another term because he's a political survivor, but prospects are not great.
The current government has little chance to get re-elected, and the next one will revert most of these decisions.
It could be worse can only take a government so far. Eventually, just preaching to the choir catches up with you.
Canary Islands are part of Spain and probably unaffected from climate change - we have 19-22°C all year round. If it raises to 25° still pretty livable.
Ok but most of the populated areas of the Canary Islands are a tourist shithole, not somewhere you would want to live.
It isn't that simple, Canary Islands already counts with 2.2 million + tourists people and the fresh water is a highly risk resource even when desalinization plants are widespread, the groundwater aquifers are severely compromised. The mild weather heavily depends on the trade winds. But models predict that due to fact of being so close to Africa heat waves are prone to be more and more frequent compromising the water resources.
Islands are extremely vulnerable to climate change all over, as they are completely dependent in near-term precipitation for all their water (no rivers, no aquifers).
No rivers and no water is reality here for quite a while already. The islands rely a lot on desalination, and there is a big EU-funded project going on to create a desalination plant that not only is used to supply tap water, but the water basin of a new hydroelectric plant [0]. Desalination pretty much solves water issues, IF you have the energy (ideally renewable).
[0]: https://renewablesnow.com/news/construction-starts-on-200-mw...
Desalination solves water issues for tap water. Islands may be short on surface area.
I would also never use the word "solve", as this is just for human usage. The ecosystems themselves are irreversibly destroyed.
Galicia is supposed to be nice
Unfortunately this order will probably be revoked in 2027/2028, we'll see.
It is possible and this in particular is a decision that I'm sure the US will pressure the government to reverse. However, it's misguided to see the entire world through the US political lens where reversing policy decisions is seen as a free win by the voting base. Spain's current democracy is only about fifty years old and extremism is viewed very negatively so outright undoing is generally less common then gradual undermining.
palantir is good, actually
that is all
"The decision stems directly from growing official concern over the potential misuse of classified information linked to national security."
What are the specific concerns?
I imagine that’s classified.
People in the comments here are praising the move, so presumably something is public. I've googled but I can't see some specific breach or documented misuse. Is the objection to Palantir strictly political?
Look, this is not a bad thing per se, but the US reaction will tell you everything you need to know.
why not simply make it illegal? why make it a ban specific to one company, are they trying to make their own copy?
Palantir is profoundly untrusted in Europe in part because of Alex Karp. He is viewed as a dangerous neo-nationalist (not incorrectly).
Never really sure why Anduril doesn't catch the same grief; they are maybe even creepier. Perhaps Palmer Luckey is just a less visible obvious Bond villain crackpot.
They didn't ban any company, they just ordered public services and public companies not to use what has been classified as a security risk.
Anybody here think that Palantir is not a security risk for Spain?
> Anybody here think that Palantir is not a security risk for Spain?
It boggles the mind a bit, but I’ve seen a few comments on here with people defending them to the tune of “what’s the big deal, they just help governments with their data! They're innocent” which is uh, either aggressively naive, or just paid PR behaviour.
Someday, the US will be just a bubble where no other country gives their data to. We continue this decent into fascism to the point that nobody likes us.. or values us. Is this their idea of Utopia?
Unfortunately, yes. The American right has looked at Russia as a model for what they want America to be for some time.
Anything short of declaring them a proscribed organization is insufficient.
> The firm holds a €16.5 million contract signed in 2023 with the Armed Forces Intelligence Center (CIFAS), which is scheduled to expire this upcoming November.
> Military leadership, including the Chiefs of Staff of the Army and Navy, has lobbied Defense Minister Margarita Robles to renew the contract, citing the platform's operational superiority.
Palantir wins contracts because they are better at what they do. If Europe wants to maintain digital sovereignty while not being left behind they need to have a heart-to-heart conversation about how to fix that.
they have a great IT company in Spain, it's been winning a lot of contracts recently, that of the software genius Begoña Gomez (despite having no studies, just happens to be the wife of the mafia Capo Pedro Sanchez, but I am sure it's just a coincidence)
Your argument is that the Spanish military is run by the mafia?
Well not hard to see. PSOE is a criminal organization and they happen to lead the government and as a consequence the military.
Great news for Spain. I hope more European countries wake up to what's going on.
I find it unbelievable that the current chief of Nato (Rutte) is basically an extension of Palantir. He is making sure countries are signing contracts with this extreme company that on pair with the Nazi ideology. They would support mass extermination camps. You probably think this is over exaggerated. But no its not. This company is evil.
Pretty sure he would do unspeakable things if it meant getting a pat on the head, and a Good Boy, from the real head of nato.
You're out of your mind -- and politically radicalized -- if you think that Palantir is on part with the Nazis. And this kind of facile comparison is offensively trivializing those who died in the holocaust.
They're already helping run ICE's concentration camps. If Trump asked them for help eith extermination camps they'd agree immediately.
[dupe] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48748392