Chance (2 Feb 2025)
"Pentagon Staff Using Chinese DeepSeek AI"


 
Hello John and Doves,
 
Back in 2023, the US Department of Defense banned defense employees from using the Chinese TikTok on government computers/phones/etc.  Sighting security concerns.  Anything coming out of China is CCP controlled.  The CCP would love to get inside the Dod!  So this certainly makes sense to ban this app.
 
Then, surprisingly, this year, US Department of Defense found defense employees connecting their work computers to Chinese servers to access the new Chinese AI chatbot DeepSeek.
 
I find this shocking.  I've worked for companies that were concerned about sabotage from 'outside' the company and banned employees from downloading anything on to work computers.  Everything on every company computer had to be approved.   
 
Any employee that downloaded 'something', whether knowingly or not, was fired.  No questions asked.  And we were constantly warned about opening links on emails.  This was a no-no unless the link was generated from internal email.  My employers had the absolute right to do this and put security first.  Every employee knew the risks.
 
The Defense Department's IT security moved to block access to DeepSeek's website on Tuesday.  Data collected by DeepSeek is stored on servers in China.  And this data is governed under Chinese law.
 
I don't know if these defense employees unknowingly did this, but after the FBI Director Wray warned Congress and Americans through out the totality of 2024 about Chinese 'getting into everything' - 'the CCP is in our critical infrastructure just waiting for the war to start' - they should have known better.  They are DoD employees!! 
 
How much damage was done has not been announced.  This news just came out.  But one article said the DoD had to remove 'code' associated with the DeepSeek downloads.  Not good.
 
 
China/CCP has access to every single one of our major telecommunications companies. They have infiltrated AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.  They can read your texts and they can hear your conversations.
Chinese hackers can now spy on every US mobile user
 
Naive, stupid or in collusion with China - this needs to be thoroughly investigated.  No DoD employee needs to be doing 'research' on a Chinese AI platform with Chinese servers or using their chat.  That should have been a no-brainer.  Chat on your own private computer/phone outside of work!
 
Hopefully, the new Defense Secretary Hegseth will get on this and assess the damage and see what has been stolen/compromised/malwared/infiltrated, etc.  And put out a ban on all apps, links, etc without prior approval.  He needs to find out, why, despite restrictions, thousands of defence employees broke the rules!
 
The United States is at war with China.  And I'm sure there are traitors in the DoD that has sold us out to China.
 
DoD Banned TikTok:
 
Back in June of 2023, "The Defense Department was among three federal agencies Friday to formally issue an interim rule that bans the "presence or use" of the Chinese-owned social networking app TikTok on devices that connect with government systems, including those owned by outside contractors."
 
"For years now, the Pentagon has unequivocally urged personnel against downloading and accessing TikTok on government and personal devices.  Federal leaders have repeatedly raised concerns of cybersecurity and spying threats, and Congress has also warned that user data captured via the social media app could ....ultimately be used in ways that threaten national security."  
 
President Biden signed a bill, the "No TikTok on Government Devices Act" in 2022 that prohibited the use of TikTok by the federal government's nearly 4 million employees on devices owned by its agencies...."
 
I'm surprised it took a ban to get employees to pay attention to national security issues.  The companies I worked for would have fired them.
 
TikTok has come under major scrutiny by the Trump administration - to be allowed to continue use in the U.S., certain changes may have to be made.  Like disconnect from the CCP.
Trump's executive order gives TikTok a reprieve. What happens next? | AP News
 
 New Chinese AI Chatbot, DeepSeek, Has Become a Big Concern:
 
"US Defense Department employees connected their work computers to Chinese servers to access DeepSeek's new AI chatbot for at least two days before the Pentagon moved to shut off access, according to a defense official familiar with the matter."  
 
"The Pentagon's IT experts are still determining the extent to which employees directly used DeepSeek's system through a web browser, the official said."
 
  Why Wasn't This Flagged?:
 
Why aren't Department of Defense employees, of ALL the federal employees, more aware of national security threats from China?  Too much DEI?  Especially since former FBI Director Wray was in the news every other week last year telling us that the Chinese were getting into everything in the U.S. - a big RED FLAG for the DoD and a concern for the FBI.  Employees at the DoD are on the front lines of national security.  THEY, of all federal employees, should be the most cautious, the most aware of threats from China.
 
The Defense Department is trying to find out how much damage was done.  How deep did this go?
 
DeepSeek App:
 
The DeepSeek app was introduced "in the U.S. on Monday" - 'it quickly became the most downloaded free app in the country on Apple's app store.'  This is yet another Chinese app.  Like TikTok, but it's AI.  DeepSeek is yet another way for China to steal data and invade privacy. DeepSeek is now more popular than ChatGPT.
 
DeepSeek's privacy policy notes "personal information it collects from users is held "on secure servers located in the People's Republic of China."  
 
"One issue that DeepSeek users face outside of China:  censorship.  For example, a CBS News analysis of the application found that DeepSeek did not return any results for a prompt seeking information about the 1989 Tiananmen Square protects and subsequent massacre in Beijing."  It is cleared "being curated to push Chinese narratives and censorship."
DeepSeek raises national security concerns, U.S. officials say
 
And China just "unveiled its latest open-source AI model, R1, which its creators claim has outperformed leading products from US developers"...  And China is allowing anyone to download and run it on their own servers for free.
 
 
"In 2022, a team of AI engineers in southern China working for the parent company of DeepSeek proudly unveiled a new AI supercomputer and said they were making it available free of charge to researchers across the nation."  The US company Nvidia sold the Chinese 10,000 A100 advanced graphics processing units (GPUs).  Nvidia is the world's leading maker of AI chips.  In late 2022, the U.S. banned the sell of Nvidia's chips to China.  When China's DeepSeek chatbot was released it erased "$1 Trillion from the stock market.  Because the Chinese claimed their model cost $5.6 million in computing costs and used Nvidia's less advanced H800 chips.  (China may have bought the advanced chips from Nvidia through third parties.)  AI experts are questioning the Chinese cost of $5.6 million.  
 
"The research firm SemiAnalysis estimated Friday that DeepSeek has spent more than half a billion dollars on GPUs with total capital expenditures of almost $1.3 billion.  Experts said that the performance of the DeepSeek is "comparable to leading competitors."  "...China just has some outstanding AI researchers, and a lot of them seems to be clustered in DeepSeek right now.."  And the Chinese government "is now trying to claim and harness" this AI company.
 
DeepSeek, in the summer of 2022, "announced it was taking requests from universities and research institutes to use the powerful machine for free."  "For researchers, the desire for computing power is endless."
 
"Much of DeepSeek's research has been done in conjunction with seasoned researchers at leading universities.  One of Deepseek's first research papers, for example, was on a 3D generator developed in conjunction with China's elite Tsinghua University."  They have been using DeepSeek to train their AI models - this results in creating supercomputers faster, more efficiently.
China’s new AI star DeepSeek grew on more than a shoestring budget
 
 Pentagon Blocks DeepSeek:
 
"The Defense Information Systems Agency which manages the Pentagon's IT networks, moved to block access to the DeepSeek website late on Tuesday due to multiple defense employees having used the latest AI chatbot for at least two days...DISA experts are now assessing the extent of employee's direct use of DeepSeek through web browsers."  The user data of those who access this app via the Chinese website or the app on the Apple App Store and Google Play is "stored on serves in China and governed by Chinese law."
 
Thousands of Pentagon employees who, "despite the restrictions... continue to use the Chinese-trained AI (DeepSeek) through the authorized web platform Ask Sage, which provides access to multiple models, including DeepSeek, hosted on its own US-based servers."
 
"Some US military personnel downloaded an earlier version of DeepSeek onto their workstations as early as the fall of 2024...At the time, the connection to China was allegedly 'not evident' to Defense Department security teams, and the downloads did not raise immediate concerns."
 
"The growing interest in DeepSeek has prompted the US military to locate and remove code from China-origin chatbots on employee's machines."
 
What information does DeepSeek now have from our Department of Defense?  Are they still 'in' the department's computers/phones?
 
 
TikTok - And What It "Collects":
 
I suppose that many American are not aware of the information TikTok is gathering on them - their browsing history, their facial ID, their voice print, texts and location, their IP address, and what they are clicking on, typing, searching for.   And "TikTok gathers data on people who don't even use the app itself.  And TikTok uses trackers called "pixels'.  TikTok knows which websites you visit, what you search. And pixels on other websites notify TikTok of your 'visit'.  We know Facebook, Meta, Google do this - but why should the Chinese 'want' your personal information??
 
"The national Girl Scouts website has a TikTok pixel on every page, which will transmit details about children if they use the site- TikTok gets this information.  TikTok gets medical information from WebMD, where a pixel reported that we'd search for "erectile dysfunction.  And RiteAid told TikTok when we added Plan B emergency contraceptives to our cart.  Recovery Centers of America, which operates addiction treatment facilities, notified TikTok when a visitor views its locations or reads about insurance coverage.   And the pixels on RAINN website, a leading anti-sexual violence organization, sent TikTok information.   Also, personal information about 'student finances' from the College Board gets sent to TikTok.  And personal loan and debt-consolidation loan info gets sent to TikTok.  MayoClinic was "sharing data about medical conditions" with the TikTok pixels on its site.
 
"Most people have no idea that TikTok and other companies gather information about them in this way."  "The only reason it works is because it's a secret operation.  Some people might not care, but people should have a choice. It shouldn't be happening in the shadows."
 
What You Can Do:
 
To help protect against the stealing of your personal information - privacy experts recommend Disconnect and uBlock Origin.
 
TikTok was recently faced with shutting down in the U.S.  I imagine that the CCP had to hurry up on it's replacement:  DeepSeek is very new to Americans and security analysts.  What exactly can this app do?  Certainly any app that's Chinese owned should NOT be allowed on government computers/phones.
 
The Navy has banned any use of DeepSeek. And the Air Force requires 'proper approvals' before connecting to any AI systems.  I see DeepSeek as a major problem because of its connection to the CCP.  If TikTok is collecting all of that info, what is DeepSeek capable of??
 
So DeepSeek has offered, so kindly, their AI computer to universities and research institutes for free.  Of course they have!  To steal as much as they can.
 
As research facilities latch on to DeepSeek for their research - that research will end up in the hands of the CCP.  As some Pentagon employees have latched on to DeepSeek, how much defense information ended up in the hands of the CCP?
 
This Chinese AI should be banned from the country.  This AI is NOT free.
 
China is not our friend.  Everything they offer for free has an ulterior motive - strings attached.  Finding 'code' from China-origin chatbots on DoD employee's computers is more than concerning.  I can see the Biden-Obama holdovers in the DoD wrecking havoc on our national security..especially with their connections to China.  There is a whole lot of spite and hate against President Trump and MAGA.  The evil minions of satan are on the move.
 
We are at war with China.  Time to wake up.  Too many gullible and naïve people in our government - supernaturally blinded??
 
Pray for the peace of Jerusalem!
 
Maranatha!
 
Chance