security

Order disallowing use of Chinese AI service is unhelpfully vague and broad

The US Department of Homeland Security on Monday issued an order directing federal civilian agencies not to use technology products from Chinese AI lab DeepSeek, and to remove any existing implementations.

The order [PDF] is broad, as it requires agencies to ditch "all DeepSeek and DeepSeek-affiliate products, and third-party products and services developed using DeepSeek implementations."

Complying will be tricky as it is not clear which third-party products and services have been developed using DeepSeek's wares. Nor is it clear whether "developed using" means providing ongoing access to DeepSeek models via API or simply refers to any app vibe-coded with the help of DeepSeek.

It also leaves open the question of AI gateways. Services such as OpenRouter and Vercel AI Gateway make DeepSeek's models available through APIs.…