[doctoboggan]

I am more worried about accidental data leak (agent reading env file for example) with the Chinese hosted models compared to the US hosted models. Am I wrong to suspect that the Chinese government might be more likely to scan all chats and save useful information compared to the US government or company?

I hesitated to even post this comment as it sounds biased and xenophobic. I would love for someone to convince me I am wrong. Does anyone have any insight into the company behind deepseek hosting, and what their history of respecting data privacy is?

[3s]

It's not an unreasonable concern, which is why most US companies prefer to go with AWS bedrock, or even one of the AI labs, and typically request zero data retention agreements. But leaking is a concern no matter where it's hosted, it's just the incentives that change IMO. For example, the labs do scan every chat and train on data not covered under enterprise ZDR agreements. Law enforcement can request access to all user data with a valid warrant or in an emergency context [1]

If you're interested in trying DeepSeek V4 privately, you can try Tinfoil (tinfoil.sh) where all models are hosted in an attested secure hardware enclave, making the inference end-to-end private. Full disclosure: I'm one of the cofounders.

[1] https://cdn.openai.com/trust-and-transparency/openai-law-enf...

[conception]

Your pricing faq says “all models are listed above.” They are not. :)

[itemize123]

does your pricing take account of cached vs uncached token?

[lejalv]

Yes, you are wrong, and yes it is xenophobic, and no it won't stop because you are too afraid to fall from your Hollywood-induced exceptionalism.

Where were you when ... everything happened? Keywords: Snowden, five eyes, FISA, PRISM, ...

Laws in the US are irrelevant. And Google has much more sensitive data to cross with any inputs you give them than Chinese companies. Also the extraterritorial executions, coups, etc. are the US specialty. So yes, you're wrong, and it comes across as xenophobic (fear of the strange or foreign).

[wkcheng]

Just use it through something like Azure. They host the entire model and serve it from the US. I'm sure that there are other providers like this.

We use it that way and it works great.

[rsanek]

You don't get the cheap pricing this way, which is why people are so interested in the model in the first place.

[opsnooperfax]

I would not be shocked if they do that. I would not be terribly shocked that the US-headquartered models do that for another government either. As far as data confidentiality goes, I wouldn’t hold my breath. Microsoft checks all those enterprise boxes, right? Yet, Azure still gets breached once in a while.

[dualvariable]

I'm not important enough for anyone in China to go out of their way to attack me. And DeepSeek has to maintain a sufficient level of trust so that users keep using their platform--they can't just act like a keylogger attacking everyone's crypto wallets or trust collapses.

If I was working on something that the Chinese government considered of strategic importance, then I would certainly be worried about it. But I don't do that.

I'm much more worried about techbros in this country using their LLMs to extensively profile me and produce something vastly more dystopian in this country than the real or imagined social credit scores in China. The people trying to convince you that the Chinese government are the people you should be worried about (as an individual in the United States) are probably the people you really need to be worried about.

[giwook]

I think there is a nonzero chance of that happening. Beijing could at any point decide that DeepSeek has become too powerful and/or is a major export and start to insert themselves (assuming they have not already).

There are widespread reports about how foreign actors (not limited to China) have infiltrated critical networks across many industries in the US en masse and are simply waiting for the right time to exploit them. Frontier models are simply another attack vector (and much more easily exploitable when you think about it).

The fact is that there is potential for this with any cloud-hosted model, whether it is intentional by the actual company building the models or a malicious actor is able to exploit a vulnerability.

[throawayonthe]

"Am I wrong to suspect that the Chinese government might be more likely ..." yes you are

the US is known to do dragnet surveillance; yes it's likely China might, but we don't know if it's valuable enough in this instance

anyway deepseek is open about using this data for training, therefore it is stored and could be searched if someone really wanted; so do the western providers (even when you opt out, at least on the non enterprise plans, most "store for up to thirty days for compliance or LE reasons" lol)

[jug]

This is a risk although then this is fortunately a model that isn't tied to Chinese hosting. But indeed something to consider if using straight DeepSeek.com.

[jdgoesmarching]

More likely? US tech leaders have been fully capitulating to the surveillance state for over a decade. Why do I care what China does with my data? I don’t live in China and never plan to.

The tech bro threat model has always been pure jingoism and xenophobia. Ironically, the worst thing a Chinese company has done with my data is sell Tiktok to an American technofascist.

[nivekney]

User data integrity definitely should be a concern. It's also known that regulations is being outpaced, so the cost of being/using frontier products is a double-edged sword for sure.