| Submit your comments on this article |
| Cyber |
| What Were They Thinking? Pentagon Employees Use Work Computers To Access Chinese AI Chatbot |
| 2025-02-04 |
Dateline last Friday. [DailyCaller] In case you missed it, U.S. Defense Department employees connected their work computers to Chinese servers to access DeepSeek’s new AI chatbot, sparking concerns over national security risks regarding China.These Pentagon employees spent two days on the new Chinese chatbot before the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) shut off access late Tuesday, according to Bloomberg. DISA is essentially the U.S. Department of Defense’s IT department. It maintains and secures communications capabilities "from the battlefield to the White House." DeepSeek became a global phenomenon over the weekend when the chatbot went live in U.S. app stores, quickly becoming the top free app in the Apple App Store. Because of this, Americans watched as tech stocks lost billions on Monday due to its arrival, creating even greater fears that China has already leapfrogged U.S. dominance in AI development. However, some people cause happiness wherever they go; others whenever they go... there is an even more sinister issue here. DeepSeek’s privacy policy admits that the AI chatbot not only stores user data on servers in China but also controls that information under Chinese law. It doesn’t take a Silicon Valley elite to understand the national security risks at play when Defense Department employees connect their government computers to China’s new tech. If the federal government, which bloviates about security issues regarding TikTok, truly believed that there is a grave national security issue regarding China. Why wasn’t protection already in place to prevent this from happening? To make matters worse, Bloomberg reported that this wasn’t a one-time occurrence lasting two days. Federal employees have been accessing DeepSeek for months. "US military personnel started downloading an earlier release of DeepSeek code on their workstations in the fall of 2024, according to the person familiar with the matter. At the time, the downloads didn’t raise concern with Defense Department security teams as the connection to China wasn’t clear to them, the person added," the outlet reported. Doesn’t allowing federal employees access to Chinese technology fly in the face of protecting our national security and winning the race to technological supremacy? There should be an inherent warning signal that explodes in the minds of anyone who works in government that using Chinese apps (no matter the offered service) is a terrible idea. What do they mean by "the connection to China wasn’t clear to" Biden officials? It has never been hidden that DeepSeek was created in China. All it took was a quick search of its origins to discover that one of our national enemies controlled the app. Americans have no idea which U.S. Military or Pentagon personnel accessed DeepSeek or their security levels. The best-case scenario is that they were low-level employees with little to no clearance. At worst, high-ranking officials just gave China months to snoop around in our systems. Related: DeepSeek: 2025-02-02 China Cuts the Cord: Beijing's Plan To Disconnect America and Its Allies DeepSeek: 2025-01-30 End of an Era: China's DeepSeek Reveals Massive Problems for US IT Companies DeepSeek: 2025-01-29 Why DeepSeek Is a Gift - China's AI breakthrough has exposed our policy failures. And not a day too soon. Related: Defense Information Systems Agency: 2024-11-16 Defense Department fails seventh consecutive audit but says on path to pass by 2028 Defense Information Systems Agency: 2024-07-31 DEI at it's finest. Defense Information Systems Agency: 2022-02-07 Welcome to Thunderdome: Pentagon awards zero trust architecture prototype |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #7 "Americans have no idea which U.S. Military or Pentagon personnel accessed DeepSeek or their security levels." Or which network they were on. Our group at the University had several, including one for visitors. |
| Posted by: James the lesser 2025-02-04 12:14 |
| #6 The best-case scenario is that they were low-level employees with little to no clearance. Dreamer. |
| Posted by: Skidmark 2025-02-04 10:17 |
| #5 My last two companies locked down all personal computers. The pj's were not able to download apps or connect to external drives without an administrator password. Amazed that pentagon staffers could. |
| Posted by: Ed 2025-02-04 10:10 |
| #4 "General Milley authorized it years ago" |
| Posted by: Frank G 2025-02-04 09:08 |
| #3 Masking (cover for action) transmission of unauthorized data to the communists. How can one assume otherwise. |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2025-02-04 07:44 |
| #2 Bigger ITSEC question. Why hasn't the *.CN / *.HK, and *.MO, domains & routing already been blocked from these DOD systems? Advanced AI can be used to study, then plant itself on other systems. |
| Posted by: NN2N1 2025-02-04 06:06 |
| #1 That's that jails are for. |
| Posted by: Grom the Affective 2025-02-04 02:42 |