26 nov. 2011

Palantir, the War on Terror's Secret Weapon


A Silicon Valley startup that collates threats has quietly become indispensable to the U.S. intelligence community

In October, a foreign national named Mike Fikri purchased a one-way plane ticket from Cairo to Miami, where he rented a condo. Over the previous few weeks, he’d made a number of large withdrawals from a Russian bank account and placed repeated calls to a few people in Syria. More recently, he rented a truck, drove to Orlando, and visited Walt Disney World by himself. As numerous security videos indicate, he did not frolic at the happiest place on earth. He spent his day taking pictures of crowded plazas and gate areas.

-Bloomberg Businessweek