this post was submitted on 28 Jan 2025
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Privacy

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Is anyone actually surprised by this?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago

it is open-source, if they did something like this, we would know it for sure

[–] [email protected] 329 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (12 children)

DeepSeek does the same things that OpenAI does, but it's a foreign actor so OOooooOOWwwwooOOOO sCaRrRey!

[–] [email protected] 208 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Wait until they hear what data Instagram/Meta collects during use!

But they're a US company so it's ok.

[–] [email protected] 61 points 1 week ago (79 children)

Realistically what is the worst thing China is doing with your private data? Selling it? If you’re not a Chinese National, at least you don’t fall under their jurisdiction.

If you’re a U.S. citizen, with all the tech oligarchs cozying up to the current administration, I’d be a lot more concerned with Facebook/Twitter/Etc collecting your data.

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[–] [email protected] 130 points 1 week ago (3 children)

This "China's AI is taking your data and that's bad" is shockingly similar to "TikTok is taking your data and that's bad". Lots of US counterparts do the same thing, but I don't see (as much) media coverage about that.

Don Draper: "no no no, everyone else's cigarettes are dangerous. Lucky Strikes are... toasted."

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 1 week ago (2 children)

This is probably only a problem with the online version. In contrast to google and openAI they, like meta, let you download the model and run it offline, where they can't access any of this data I presume.

[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 week ago (6 children)

I've been running it locally using ollama, works completely offline, no keystroke data for anyone!

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[–] [email protected] 78 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (7 children)

Anyone using DeepSeek as a service the same way proprietary LLMs like ChatGPT are used is missing the point. The game-changer isn’t that a Chinese company like DeepSeek can compete with OpenAI and its ilk—it’s that, thanks to DeepSeek, any organization with a few million dollars to train and host their own model can now compete with OpenAI.

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[–] [email protected] 73 points 1 week ago (3 children)

They all do this...

Don't use hosted models unless you pay for your own server space and it is encrypted.

Don't be a fucking idiot.

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[–] [email protected] 70 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

No.

As opposed to Microsoft, Google, .. NSA, or GCHQ servers. Or all of the above.

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 1 week ago (3 children)

"We store the information we collect in secure servers located in the People's Republic of China"

Now you Americans know how we Europeans feel when Google, Amazon and Facebook store our information on American servers. Hint: The protective wall between Chinese servers and their government are about as good as the one between American servers and their government - at least for non-US citizens. The last thin veil of privacy for Eurpeans has been ripped to shreds by Trump last week.

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[–] [email protected] 65 points 1 week ago (5 children)
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[–] [email protected] 62 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Did the American technology giants think they had the monopoly on capturing human input too?

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[–] [email protected] 56 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Chinese company does what American companies have done for 25+ years now!

Is it time for REAL data privacy laws or are we just gonna keep playing whack-a-mole with Chinese tech companies that get us nowhere?

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 1 week ago

If you think the American companies do anything different you're not paying attention and simply believing the propaganda.

[–] grey_maniac 55 points 1 week ago (15 children)

I'm confused. Isn't "collecting keystroke data" just an alarmist way to describe text entry?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

This is the full paragraph:

We collect certain device and network connection information when you access the Service. This information includes your device model, operating system, keystroke patterns or rhythms, IP address, and system language. We also collect service-related, diagnostic, and performance information, including crash reports and performance logs. We automatically assign you a device ID and user ID. Where you log-in from multiple devices, we use information such as your device ID and user ID to identify your activity across devices to give you a seamless log-in experience and for security purposes.

It looks to me that they are using it to identify the user uniquely, maybe also related to captcha to prevent bots (it's common practice to capture mouse and keyboard while resolving captchas to see if the movement is human-like).

[–] grey_maniac 1 points 5 days ago

Looks like there are more things I need to start randomizing and injecting with noise.

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 week ago (5 children)

It's a chinese company, where else would they store the data?

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[–] [email protected] 48 points 1 week ago (1 children)

This article is what US propaganda looks like folks. Mashable should be ashamed.

Literally all AI companies do this to run their services. Except you can actually download Deepseek and run it completely securely on your own devices. You know who doesn't allow that security? OpenAI and the other US companies currently being screwed.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Same as Chrome's magic bar, or android keyboard no ? So in the end, does USA doing it good because "democracy" (never ever with napalm) when China is bad because human rights violation (USA never did anything like this) ?

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 1 week ago (1 children)

At least its not stored on american servers.

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[–] [email protected] 41 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Not excusing Chinese companies but everyone does the same shit. I bet a lot of US companies that behave the same or worse will be looking for trade barriers to protect their business so their interests will be stoking fear of Chinese competitors. I don't really give a shit which country is doing it, I am not buying what they are selling.

US companies have a stranglehold on government, education and business and are getting access to my families data despite my personal objections. Far more concerned about that than a Chinese service I have no intention of using.

Deepseek can at least be self hosted if you want AI in your life. I can happily live without it.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 week ago

Nope, At least we can check DeepSeek's source code

Unlike OpenAI..... oops I meant ClosedAI

[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 week ago (4 children)

the company states that it may share user information to "comply with applicable law, legal process, or government requests.

Literally every company's privacy policy here in the US basically just says that too.

Not only does DeepSeek collect "text or audio input, prompt, uploaded files, feedback, chat history, or other content that [the user] provide[s] to our model and Services," but it also collects information from your device, including "device model, operating system, keystroke patterns or rhythms, IP address, and system language."

Breaking news, company with chatbot you send messages to uses and stores the messages you send, and also does what practically every other app does for demographic statistics gathering and optimizations.

Companies with AI models like Google, Meta, and OpenAI collect similar troves of information, but their privacy policies do not mention collecting keystrokes. There's also the added issue that DeepSeek sends your user data straight to Chinese servers.

They didn't use the word keystrokes, therefore they don't collect them? Of course they collect keystrokes, how else would you type anything into these apps?

In DeepSeek's privacy policy, there's no mention of the security of its servers. There's nothing about whether data is encrypted, either stored or in transmission, and zero information about safeguards to prevent unauthorized access.

This is the only thing that seems disturbing to me, compared to what we'd like to expect based on the context of what DeepSeek is. Of course, this was proven recently in practice to be terrible policy, so I assume they might shore up their defenses a bit.

All the articles that talk about this as if it's some big revelation just boil down to "company does exactly what every other big tech company does in America, except in China"

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 1 week ago (9 children)

HuggingChat is open source and lets you use DeepSeek. It also doesn't censor results like the main app (allegedly) does.

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[–] [email protected] 36 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Your devices keyboard app has been collecting all of your keystrokes.

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 1 week ago

haha, now do openai

[–] [email protected] 34 points 1 week ago

other ai services do too. u might not realize it.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I swear people do not understand how the internet works.

Anything you use on a remote server is going to be seen to some degree. They may or may not keep track of you, but you can't be surprised if they are. If you run the model locally, there is no indication it is sending anything anywhere. It runs using the same open source LLM tools that run all the other models you can run locally.

This is very much like someone doing surprised pikachu when they find out that facebook saves all the photos they upload to facebook or that gmail can read your email.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Any ChatAI logs your keystrokes and your inputs to work and update their LLM. The PP and TOS is the same and even better as those from the US competitors. DeepSeek is OpenSource

Anyway I prefer Andisearch and its PP, the best of all these big tech AIs.

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Yeah, uh... If you think that American companies aren't doing this same thing and handing your data over to the government without a warrant among other bad uses, I have some bad news for you. This is pretty much par for the course, and I'm pretty sure that we're witnessing a well financed negative media blitz happening to try and keep OpenAI from getting all of its spaghetti spilled. Watch for the government to try and ban deepseek for "national security" reasons soon.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago

Chinese company uses servers located in China. More news at 11.

[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (10 children)

If I’m typing into the app, is that really collecting keystrokes?

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 1 week ago (8 children)
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