Bruh….are they really so stupid they did this?

You know what? Yes, they are. I’ve seen them do stuff this stupid before. With my own eyes.

A few things to point out from my team's research into AI for our industry: DeepSeek's "performance" depends on the use of the DeepSeek frontend. As soon as you air gap and attempt to localize the model without the Chinese servers, the prompt responses range from the utterly random bizarre stream of GIGO or you get "the user is attempting to access knowledge behind my paywall". The biggest lesson from this DeepSeek reveal isn't whether or not the Chinese could race ahead of us in AI; the lesson is far lower tech and even more haunting: how tightly are we actually controlling technological exports? As far as the DoD employees accessing DeepSeek, from what I said above, they were likely non-Engineering, non-technical employees, such as your HR Karens, downloading this stuff illegally on their smartphones. Per DoD STIGs, all mobile devices that are government furnished can only use a pre-approved list of software. DoD employees blatantly violated that standing order. For the more adept in this room, this should be more obvious sign to a pointed snub against Trump and Pete Hegseth cleaning house within the DoD. Holdovers and people who don't want to follow compliance and orders are going to test the limits, putting the DoD's own cybersecurity on notice and in danger.