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There's a chance that the real reason why they want to ban Chinese models is that they are so good at fixing bugs and preventing exploits that intelligence agen
by zorked 1mo ago
There's a chance that the real reason why they want to ban Chinese models is that they are so good at fixing bugs and preventing exploits that intelligence agencies have been using for espionage and surveillance for a long time.
- maipen 1mo agoDo you actually believe this?
- sscaryterry 1mo agoCritical thinking says this is not only possible but likely too.
- VulgarExigency 1mo agoThe CIA ran one of the world's largest cryptography companies, for DECADES[1]. Are you truly so naive that you believe intelligence agencies that have more to gain from stifling the discovery of vulnerabilities they know of and use wouldn't do so? [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-security/cia-crypto-encryption-machines-espionage/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/world/national-...
- meowface 1mo agoI believe it is unlikely. (Not because I do not believe NSA is hoarding 0-days, but for many other reasons.) I'm curious: to any professional vulnerability researchers reading this, what do you think?
- budsniffer952 1mo ago[flagged]
- meowface 1mo agoSadly.
- neves 1mo agoI used to call everything a conspiracy theory, but then Glenn Greenwald published "No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA and the Surveillance State". Now i know that reality is worse than the worst conspiracy theorist.
- this_user 1mo agoYou should probably realise that the world has radically changed since then. This kind of thing works when you have a significant lead in the field that makes keeping vulnerabilities open sufficiently low risk for your own side. But if your adversaries have similar capabilities, then the calculation changes.
- orbital-decay 1mo agoHas anything changed? Governments are hoarding undisclosed vulnerabilities, using them as they see fit instead of fixing. Every espionage, surveillance, or war campaign (see Russia v Ukraine, US/Israel v Iran etc) is followed by a ton of burned 0-days. >This kind of thing works when you have a significant lead in the field No? It works even if the adversary has the same capabilities. It only stops working when everything is fixed.
- orbital-decay 1mo agoWhy would you even believe the opposite? US spooks have been amassing vulnerabilities and relying on them for decades, they literally pioneered it in the 90's if not earlier. Everyone does it now but the US is the biggest of them all. Surely this devalues a lot of what they did. Moreover, the way the US government handled new capabilities, and OpenAI's training policy (they are in bed with the government) just scream "we want to create weapons for cyber-offence and deny them to everyone else" It might not be the reason, but of course it's a contributing factor.
- budsniffer952 1mo ago[flagged]
- orbital-decay 1mo agoGood thing I said nothing of that (especially nothing about China). Reread it again to understand you built an incredible strawman and ignored my last sentence.
- ndriscoll 1mo agoWell we know that the US government is pushing to restrict access to such models while the Chinese are publishing them for free, so it's mostly a matter of motivations, not the actual facts of the matter. And the USG has a documented history of unsavory behavior (including toward its own citizenry) in that area. So we might ask if one of the reasons the US is being the bad guy is it's usual spying antics, and we're left asking why China is being the good guy.
- subscribed 1mo agoIntelligence agencies have been known for exploiting and planting software and hardware Buga for decades, going as far as weakening cryptographic standards or intercepting hardware in transit to implant a backdoor device. Why do you _not_ believe it's a possibility?
- andy_ppp 1mo agoAnyone who knows anything realises banning things is a) impossible and b) your enemies will use them anyway, you are just depriving your own side of the advantages.
- mcintyre1994 1mo agoIn this case depriving US companies would be the point though, so that's not necessarily a disadvantage.
- embedding-shape 1mo ago> Anyone who knows anything realises banning things is a) impossible and Maybe "It's really hard" is more accurate? We (humanity) for most part basically agreed to ban the usage of various chemical weapons in wartime, which seems to have drastically reduced the usage of it, even though it's still used by shit actors today from time to time. But it's hard to deny that usage didn't decrease after banning it, which makes "banning" maybe not completely useless for certain things. "Banning" things that can be easily copied over cyberweb transportation pipes feels like an fool's errand though, regardless of what it is. It's just too easy to get around, compared to actual physical items I suppose.
- deleted 1mo ago[deleted]
- Oranguru 1mo agoThis is different now. US labs and companies are not releasing frontier-level models openly (specially those capable of assisting cyber intelligence work), but commercializing them instead. Thus, any ban would not be symmetrical to begin with, and that is precisely what maintains the balance.
- SXX 1mo agoChemical weapons are not used not because some agreements - they just messy and only good for killing civilians. Also contaminate area and might also kill your own personnel. If you look at all other banned weapons they are all used against Ukraine by Russia and nobody gives a damn.
- ajam1507 1mo agoHow does banning the models in the US prevent this?
- inigyou 1mo agoUS companies will have to use models that are restricted from fixing bugs.
- mcintyre1994 1mo agoI don't think this really works because the Chinese government is going to be incentivised to tip off the US companies to deny the US government those exploits. I guess maybe that's what the open source patch program here is about, making sure banning the models doesn't work because they can just report the exploits without the company running the model themselves.
- cyanydeez 1mo agowhen in doubt, it's better to assume capitalism than anything else.