Were these implementations already easily open source accessible at the time, wi...

hnlmorg · 2025-01-30T08:49:30 1738226970

Yes they were.

The ban was on exporting the code, not having the code in possession.

Furthermore it was only the US who had this ban.

I am old enough to remember this and the scoffing that European PGP users had towards their American counterparts

maeil · 2025-01-30T11:42:21 1738237341

Sounds like it was ineffective then, despite an export ban being easier to uphold than what would amount to an import ban?

hnlmorg · 2025-01-30T17:42:07 1738258927

I don’t think an import ban would be any harder to enforce than an export ban. In fact if anything, I’d expect an import ban to be easier.

Though I’m not suggesting an import ban on DeepSeek would be effective either. Just that the US does have precedence pulling these kinds of stunts.

You can also look at the 90s subculture for passing DeCSS code (a tool for breaking DVD encryption) to see another example of how people wilfully skirted these kinds of stupid legal limitations.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS

So if you were to ask me if a ban on DeepSeek would work, the answer is clearly “no”. But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. And if it does, the only people hurt are legitimate US businesses who might get a benefit from DeepSeek but have to follow the law. Those of us outside of America will be completely unaffected. Just like we were when US tried to limit the distribution of GPG.