DeepSeek rated too dodgy down under: Banned from Australian government devices

Australia’s Department of Home Affairs has banned the use of DeepSeek on federal government devices. A policy issued on February 4th warns that the Chinese chat app conducts “extensive collection of data and exposure of that data to extrajudicial directions from a foreign government that conflict with Australian law.” Most …

[Winkypop]

Beware of Chinese bearing gifts

Is it the year of the giant rabbit again?

[lglethal]

Re: Beware of Chinese bearing gifts

It is the year of the Snake, which seems fitting given the various leaders gaining power around the world at the moment.

[Fred Ferguson]

Aussie rules?

“Only agencies engaged in national security or regulatory work are allowed to access DeepSeek’s products, […]”

Really? Wouldn’t such agencies want to be especially cautious?

[Brave Coward]

Wonder

'And of course let’s not forget China’s national security and counterespionage laws that are widely felt to mean Chinese companies must share info with Beijing when asked to do so.'

So what's the difference with the US of A national security and counterespionage laws?

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Wonder

>So what's the difference with the US of A national security and counterespionage laws?

China are less likely to threaten to invade or start a trade war with their friends...

[Tron]

I'm shocked and appalled.

The Australian government allows its members to use the internet? Haven't they read how dangerous it is? The BBC report on a new internet danger every day. The harms, the risks, the scams, the content, and the hackers. There are even photos of people with their ankles showing. Or worse! To use the internet is a clear risk to national security and public morality. Surely they should be banning anyone in government from using it at all, or their families. Indeed, surely people with children should be banned from using it too, in case their children catch sight of an open web browser and the moral infection spreads to them. Only those living in a house without children should be allowed to use the net as a default baseline, with consideration given to banning it from Australia altogether.

[may_i]

Re: I'm shocked and appalled.

I'm shocked and appalled that any members of the Aussie government are actually intelligent enough to use a computer!

[Blue Shirt Guy]

"The commissioner noted that the man searched for the church stabbing video minutes before he commencing his attacks"

Are they blaming the search engine for the results, or him for searching?

[Scene it all]

Have they presented any evidence of all this keystroke logging, etc? The code IS available after all.

[may_i]

You can run DeepSeek locally

Install ollama, puill the model that you have room for in your GPU's memory, pull the network cable if you're of the tinfoil hat leaning. Run it locally.

I'm a LLM sceptic, but I asked it a fairly tricky question and not only did it get a correct answer, it reasoned. It beat around the bush a little, but it appeared to reason about the question and even derive important variables two different ways to make sure both ways gave the same answer.

Pretty impressive. If this thing truly can reason, I may have to shelve some of my hate for LLMs as "fancy pattern generators".