The 2009 hostage rescue by US Navy SEALs off the coast of Somalia made the media focus attention on the growing threat of piracy to international shipping in the Horn of Africa. Palantir have applied their advanced analysis capabilities to data published by the International Maritime Bureau Piracy Reporting Centre, as well as open source news reports. The analysts at Palantir then focused on geo-temporal patterns of attacks, as well as the financing network of the Central Regional Coast Guard, a federation of Somali pirates to create an amazing analysis of the events.
The second video on the page, about the Gulf of Aden, shows the dramatic increase in piracy in the area beginning in 2008 and continuing to the present. With Palantir’s advanced visualization capabilities, a couple of interesting patterns emerge:
- Before the fall of 2008, piracy events were somewhat scattered in the eastern end of the Gulf.
- Beginning in August 2008, there is a surge of attacks that occur in a band about 60 km off the Yemeni coast.
- In mid-February 2009, a new band begins to appear another 50 km further out into the Gulf.
It’s possible that shipping companies shifted the shipping lane in response to the surge in piracy along the original route.
What are your thoughts of this types of analysis of monumental proportion? How will governments (Palantir’s largest market segment) use Palantir’s tools for the better good?
I don’t understand business, but I can see that the old model needs to change. Perhaps it’ll involve direct micro-payments. Perhaps you’ll pay Apple or whoever a monthly flat fee to license all their content. Most importantly, I believe that the direct and deepening connection artists now have with their fans, be they independent bands or Hollywood talkshow hosts, will play a huge part. But one thing is for sure: artists will always make art, and money-makers will always find a way to make money. In the meantime, I’ll be suing myself for pirating my own show. And I’m pretty scared, because I have an amazing lawyer.
Gizmodo’s Peter Serafinowicz dumps the contents of his brain about illegal downloading and content theft. A great blog post which boils down to the everlasting problem of an old fashioned entertainment business way of thinking.
Piracy is piracy, but the EMI example explained by Peter is astonishing. With governments, banks and other ‘hidden’ communists working on globalisation, why is the entertainment industry having such a hard time getting on the band wagon and making their material available worldwide?
But often you can’t do it legally: I recently wanted to show my son Disney’s classic Jungle Book and intended to get it on iTunes. Unfortunately, it is currently incarcerated within The Disney Vault. So I’m afraid I simply DL’ed a pixel-clear pirate copy which arrived in seconds. My moral justification for this? I once bought the VHS. It’s your own vault, Disney!
It’s not like we’re not trying to do it legally, but if you don’t respect our demand, don’t expect our money!
