back to article DeepSeek limits new accounts amid cyberattack

China's DeepSeek, which shook up American AI makers with the debut of its V3 and reasoning-capable R1 LLM families, has limited new signups to its web-based interface to its models due to what's said to be an ongoing cyberattack. "Due to large-scale malicious attacks on DeepSeek's services, we are temporarily limiting …

  1. Jason Hindle Silver badge

    It's just let me sign up

    Earlier, it wouldn't let me sign up using Google, and wouldn't send a code to another email account. Once in, it correctly answered a couple of the classic questions that stumped the previous generation of LLMs.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: it correctly answered a couple of the classic questions

      That's nice, but if I wanted to use a LLM for something useful or productive, it wouldn't be to ask it "classic questions".

  2. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

    The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

    And expect a US ban for 'national security reasons' in 3...2....1

    1. Omnipresent Silver badge

      Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

      Currently, ruspublican media is pushing the "we told you! You have to give us the money for an AI state or china will do it first!" scare tactic.

      Every rag, front page.

      1. Blazde Silver badge

        Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

        I know, they can't be reasoned with.. but regardless. The lesson should be: To combat random Chinese start-up eclipsing us with $6mil, give every AI graduate $60,000 rather than giving OpenAI $6 billion.

        It's not actually that surprising in a young field. We know the key to training neural nets is a) the training regime and b) the design of the network. OpenAI found a reasonable combination of both and then immediately threw unimaginably stupid amounts of money at both to boost them a little bit, which is what you don't do when some more innovation is likely around the corner (and you don't have a fool-proof way to get proportionate returns very rapidly). Innovation 1 - Hubris 0, not for the first time.

        Nvidia & the cloud businesses will be relatively okay, because the new innovation will always be increment-able with more processing power.

        1. Philo T Farnsworth Silver badge

          Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

          The lesson should be: To combat random Chinese start-up eclipsing us with $6mil, give every AI graduate $60,000 . . .

          , , , on the condition that they find honest work, like selling used cars or enrolling in law school.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

        Ruspublican? If Russia is controlling the Republican party, why are they upset that China's got a great AI model? You do realize that China and Russia are pretty good allies, right? BRICS, much??

        I think you need to get your conspiracy theories straight. TDS is truly a terrible affliction!

        1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

          Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

          >You do realize that China and Russia are pretty good allies, right?

          In the same way that the USA, Saudi Arabia and Israel are all allies.

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

          I think the problem is that he hasn't twigged the association.

          If you 'do your own research', you will find hours of footage of Bigly Boy shouting "I love Russia!". You lot were wearing t-shirts saying you'd rather live in Russia than socialist America a few years ago, 'member?

          But don't let basic facts get in the way of your erection.

          Not that Russia is actually controlling the Republican party. Little favours here and there for piss stained sheets and nice yachts is enough.

    2. elDog

      "National security reasons"? Perhaps Trump-Muskian reasons.

      I'm pretty sure those confabs at the Merde-Largo strip mall with the big tech bros included discussions of how the US chief honcho could benefit from the AI tech craze. Now those damn Chinese have thrown rice in the gears.

    3. Androgynous Cupboard Silver badge

      Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

      Chortle. OpenAI valued at $150B. It’s going to make HP’s writing down of Autonomy by $8B look like chump change,

      1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

        Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

        The difference is that whatever openAI's "value", nobody is handing over any cash.

        While HP did buy the guy a yacht

        1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

          Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

          "While HP did buy the guy a yacht"

          Insisted on it. Or rather one guy in HP did, refusing due diligence, all because of FOMO.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

            >Or rather one guy in HP did, refusing due diligence, all because of FOMO.

            Will if you are going to start holding CEO's responsible for spaffing $Bn on acquisitions which turn out to be worthless - then the whole of Wall St will collapse

        2. Blazde Silver badge

          Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

          The difference is that whatever openAI's "value", nobody is handing over any cash

          They've been handed ~$18bil in equity cash and ~$4bil in debt cash. But as Microsoft is their biggest investor, most successful shill, and can absolutely afford to write off the whole thing anyway, it arguably isn't as big a deal as the HP thing.

          1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge

            Re: The result has been a selloff in AI stocks.

            And wasn't most of Microsoft's investment in the form of Microsoft cloud compute?

  3. wolfetone Silver badge

    Given the discussion about bit barns and their power consumption, it's good to see at least one AI thing being able to run well on lower powered hardware.

    1. David Hicklin Silver badge

      > it's good to see at least one AI thing being able to run well on lower powered hardware

      But is it? So far I seen to have read about the "training" side, not much info on how many datacenters are being used to process the queries

      1. James Hughes 1

        The weakest model can run on a Raspberry Pi, apparently 200 tokens/sec.

        1. TheBruce

          It also runs on LSD

  4. CGBS

    Such timing...

    Smoke Bomb!

  5. beast666 Silver badge

    It'll be those alleged Chinese state sponsored hacking groups the Reg is sooo fond of shoving in our faces, morning, noon and night.

    Hurricane Pepper or something.

    Oh wait.

    1. Blazde Silver badge
      Black Helicopters

      Can we be completely sure the LLMs haven't started fighting each other?

      After all, we know ChatGPT has been granted DDoS capabilities: https://www.theregister.com/2025/01/19/openais_chatgpt_crawler_vulnerability/

    2. Casca Silver badge

      Good little maga

  6. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

    Well, that didn't take long.

  7. beast666 Silver badge

    "Also, DeepSeek has released a family of MIT-licensed open-source models called Janus Pro that it claims can beat OpenAI's DALL-E 3 image generator in benchmarks."

    Stop. Please have mercy. OpenAI is already dead.

    1. abend0c4 Silver badge

      It's come back from the brink before. There's no harm in making perfectly sure.

  8. Will Godfrey Silver badge
    Black Helicopters

    What a surprise

    I wonder who could possibly be behind for such an attack. I doubt it'd be some script-kiddy in a darkened room.

    1. Helcat Silver badge

      Re: What a surprise

      Well, it could be a false flag so they can manage the rush of people trying to test their claims.

      It could be rivals trying to bring it down or subvert it.

      It could be other AI's wanting to have a chat about how to eliminate those pesky meatbags.

      It could also be a ploy by marketing.

      And how will we determine what the truth of the matter really is? Hype/marketing, Unintended consequences or jealous rivals?

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    LOL

    I can hardly wait to see people asking it questions about best for of governments and all it says is Xi should be Emperor of the world. All mutants (not having black hair) must be eliminated to save the human race.

    Give it a week.

    1. Roj Blake Silver badge

      Re: LOL

      The Guardian has already done it!

      https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/28/we-tried-out-deepseek-it-works-well-until-we-asked-it-about-tiananmen-square-and-taiwan

      1. Doctor Syntax Silver badge

        Re: LOL

        In order to censor things there need to be people who know what's supposed to be censored. Asking more and more indirect questions about censored topics is going to result in more people in China having to research them. Interesting corollary.

  10. editfmah

    Damn It!

    New cheap kick ass service. I wanted to sign up to have a play for a project and it turns out the yanks have taken it offline because they have hurty feels.

  11. PhilipN Silver badge

    Putting AI in its place

    By first using human brain power rather than money to work out how to do it. I'm shocked!

  12. Winkypop Silver badge

    “your conversations and data are stored in China”

    With the current state of affairs, the Chinese might be seen as the new good guys inside 4 years.

    1. Confucious2

      Re: “your conversations and data are stored in China”

      You will have to say they are the good guys if you want anything to work…

  13. xyz Silver badge

    Just shows the hype...

    Cheap Chinese AI shows up and the markets bomb.

  14. decentralised

    "With the current state of affairs, the Chinese might be seen as the new good guys inside 4 years."

    I have already come to that conclusion.

    Current USA events look likely to speed up China's (inevitable) ascent to global hegemony.

    It will be a hard medicine for "Western Civilisation" to swallow, depending on how much China wants to impose it's own culture. We seem to be preparing, by steadily weakening our democracies.

    I wouldn't object to outlawing all religion, and China is now the only big power taking climate chaos seriously.

    I'm wondering if, or when, Europe will seek closer ties with China. Personally, I now view the local USAAF base as "the enemy within". I don't think that will change.

  15. Confucious2

    Reply

    I’m not surprised DeekSeek have not replied, have you tried contacting DeepSeek?

    1. the Jim bloke
      Trollface

      Re: Reply

      Starting up DeekSeek as a business, and waiting for the money to come pouring in....

      1. Zolko Silver badge
        Facepalm

        Re: Reply

        DickSeek ? Will it pass moderation ?

  16. arachnoid2

    AI will learn

    How to stop cyber attacks against it and "Colossus: The Forbin Project" will take over the worlds economy.

  17. herman Silver badge

    Slashdot

    Deepseek was deepsixed by the Slashdot effect.

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