Thread

U.S. appeals court upholds designation of Anthropic as supply chain risk

499 points · 900 comments · cramer4next

petcat · 1790353704 · focus · HN ↗
I still don't fully understand what this was about. It sounds like the DoD said they wanted unrestricted access to Anthropic's models, Anthropic refused, so the Pentagon declared that they wouldn't use them at all.
Isn't this basically what Anthropic wanted?
1. hiddencost · 1790354488 · focus · HN ↗
  No. This also means that no companies that work with th DoD can use anthropic models for any purpose.
  1. VWWHFSfQ · 1790354726 · focus · HN ↗
    Dario wanted to sell a $200 million chat bot to the US military and also dictate how it could be used. The government said no. And because of that Claude also cannot be deployed to the GenAI.mil AI infrastructure. This means that any sensitive work for the DoD that uses Claude will go through Anthropic's infrastructure, not the US military-hosted backend.
    So yes obviously defense contractors are forbidden to use it.
    tmvphil · 1790355223 · focus · HN ↗
    If the government wanted to put iPhones in missiles, and apple said "we won't sell you iPhones to put in missiles" would the correct government response be to say "no government contractor can ever use an iPhone".
    VWWHFSfQ · 1790355868 · focus · HN ↗
    The DoD and US military does not allow contractors to use iPhones or anything else that is not backed by government-hosted or compliant infrastructure, such as GovCloud. The fact that the Pentagon and Anthropic could not come to an agreement on the usage and deployment to GenAI.mil means that it can't be used.
    The reasons why are incidental to the requirement for defense contractors.
    Jtsummers · 1790356279 · focus · HN ↗
    > The DoD and US military does not allow contractors to use iPhones
    What are you talking about? That's nowhere close to a true statement.
    VWWHFSfQ · 1790356732 · focus · HN ↗
    > that is not backed by government-hosted or compliant infrastructure, such as GovCloud
    scottyah · 1790357787 · focus · HN ↗
    Wym "backed by"? This makes no sense.
    Jtsummers · 1790358118 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    Jtsummers · 1790357975 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    rayiner · 1790356135 · focus · HN ↗
    Sure why not? The government is just exercising its power as a purchaser.
    felixgallo · 1790357092 · focus · HN ↗
    'why not'? It's retaliatory beyond all proportionality, for one.
    scottyah · 1790357710 · focus · HN ↗
    They are not "just a purchaser" though. It's the world's most powerful organization that is funded by the people and is supposed to be for the people. I'm all for businesses making FAFO decisions, but expect a lot more here.
    rayiner · 1790358282 · focus · HN ↗
    The fact that it’s a publicly funded entity is more reason for it to adopt hardball tactics, not less. It’s similar to FDR’s comments on public sector unions. When the government is the buyer, it’s even more important to get the best deal and terms possible, because it’s the public’s money’s you’re spending and the public’s interest you’re serving.
    scottyah · 1790363156 · focus · HN ↗
    Exactly, setting policy for Americans and American companies is extremely important and should not be ego driven. These deals are to improve America, not to look strong.
    rayiner · 1790383086 · focus · HN ↗
    The U.S. military’s policy has always been to secure the absolute best technology for killing people. So the DOD quite reasonably believes that it’s in America’s interest to have the best technology for building AI killing machines with no restrictions from non-military people on how it’s used.
    felixgallo · 1790434072 · focus · HN ↗
    when you say 'quite reasonably', you are aware that no-human-in-the-loop AI kill chains are war crimes, right?
    krapp · 1790434690 · focus · HN ↗
    "maximum lethality, not tepid legality."
    s1artibartfast · 1790415964 · focus · HN ↗
    There are limits.
    I bet they could get a better deals if the military went and started taking hostages to aid in price negotiation.
    After all, getting the best price is in the public interest.
    apawloski · 1790360812 · focus · HN ↗
    Exercising its power as a purchaser is "not buying it" or "choosing a competitor." Instead, this is arbitrarily and capriciously using an administrative mechanism in a novel way to punish a company.
    rayiner · 1790362294 · focus · HN ↗
    The "administrative mechanism" here is just a way of exercising purchasing control. A private company could do the same thing.
    Jtsummers · 1790362775 · focus · HN ↗
    > A private company could do the same thing.
    Probably not, no private company has the ability to tell all its suppliers "thou shalt not do business with <some other company>". They lack the pull to compel them to do so. The closest would be things like what MS did back in the 90s, and got them in hot water with the anti-trust case against them.
    rayiner · 1790363090 · focus · HN ↗
    That's not what happened here. It was "you can't use <some other company> for stuff you do for us."
    Jtsummers · 1790363676 · focus · HN ↗
    Fair, and still not something most companies can pull off. Again, without risking running into anti-trust laws like MS did.
    Do you seriously think that you can go to all your vendors (if you were a business owner) and tell them, "You can't use Atlassian when working on anything you sell us." How will your business actually compel all those vendors to drop their use of Atlassian for that work? How will you verify compliance and why should any of them sign a contract with you with these restriction? And if they do, how will you avoid anti-trust violations because almost certainly the only way you could talk them into signing such a contract would be to be a massive company throwing your weight around (like MS did with hardware OEMs back in the 90s, among other things).
    felixgallo · 1790433915 · focus · HN ↗
    That's not what happened here and you know this. It was, literal quote, "“[e]ffective immediately, no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic.”
    apawloski · 1790362989 · focus · HN ↗
    Private companies are not bound by the first amendment, the fifth amendment, the administrative procedure act, etc.
    s1artibartfast · 1790415720 · focus · HN ↗
    "Lay down on my couch and take off your shirt, or you'll never find work in this town again"
    >I'm just exercising my power as a purchaser.
    No shit. The point is it shouldn't be used that way and that is not what this law is for.
    Should the government be able to designate a company supply chain risk if they don't like the price?
    noahbp · 1790375120 · focus · HN ↗
    <a href="https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/04/01/claude-codes-source-reveals-extent-of-system-access/5222658#:~:text=Anthropic%20does,model%2E%22" rel="nofollow">https://www.theregister.com/software/2026/04/01/claude-codes...
    Anthropic did not host the model that the Department of War used. It had, and still has no control over the models it has deployed in classified environments.
  2. Jtsummers · 1790355012 · focus · HN ↗
    > This also means that no companies that work with th DoD can use anthropic models for any purpose.
    No, it does not mean that. I don't know why people have been making this claim. If you work for a company, let's call it X, and your work is not DOD related, let's say you work on a social media service, then X has no reason (from this designation) to prevent you from using Anthropic, it will not impact their defense contracts at all.
    SpicyLemonZest · 1790355613 · focus · HN ↗
    People have been making this claim because the Secretary of Defense personally issued a statement demanding that "no contractor, supplier, or partner that does business with the United States military may conduct any commercial activity with Anthropic". We're not going to play this absurd game where government officials issue fascist instructions and we all pretend they said something more reasonable instead.
    Jtsummers · 1790356201 · focus · HN ↗
    Except you and many others are accepting what he said as if it were true, that statement is false. And hiddencost and others are just parroting it instead of describing the real situation.
    This designation means Athropic's systems can't be used in DOD work, but many companies that work with the DOD also do work outside that. That separate work is not restricted with respect to the use of Anthropic's systems. Repeating a lie as if it were true is just dumb, it helps spread that lie.
    SpicyLemonZest · 1790356873 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    fragmede · 1790360468 · focus · HN ↗
    > or impeach him
    Well, that was attempted...
    Jtsummers · 1790360741 · focus · HN ↗
    > If you don't like that, and would prefer to discuss a lawful supply chain risk designation, you should convince him to retract the statements or impeach him.
    You're crediting him with much more power than he has, and somehow you think I'm sanewashing by calling a lie a lie. What you're doing is far worse, you're believing his lies.
    Anyways, the statement is false, at least the extent to which being designated a supply chain risk can impact who does business with Anhtropic. There's no need for him to retract it or even to impeach him over it, because any company with a lawyer and a reasonable separation of their commercial and defense work will be able to determine that they can still do business with Anthropic despite the designation. It'll just have to be confined, so long as the designation stands, to their commercial work.
    handoflixue · 1790375256 · focus · HN ↗
    Trump legally doesn't have the authority to start the Iran War.
    I suppose you would have us believe that, therefore, we are not at war with Iran?
    Just because his statement has no legal basis does not mean that it is unreasonable to believe it will be enforced as-stated.
    Indeed, this insistence on prioritizing the written law over the empirical reality borders on the delusional - if concentration camps were not the official policy of Nazi Germany, would you also insist we are making some mistake by "believing the lies" about their existence?
    I just don't get what sort of point you're trying to make here - do you really think that the current US government cannot possibly cause problems for people that violate their unofficial edicts?
    Do you really think a sensible legal department is going to advise their clients to antagonize the administration by using Claude for their "unrelated" commercial work?
    scottyah · 1790358090 · focus · HN ↗
    If AWS employees use Claude to build govcloud, it is a violation of supply-chain. Either Amazon, Microsoft, and Google require their employees to stop using claude or the DoD has to migrate off of these cloud providers.
    Or these companies have to completely split the govcloud work from its commercial offerings (which defeats the whole point).
    Jtsummers · 1790358206 · focus · HN ↗
    That's a DOD related system though. If an Amazon employee uses Claude to change shopping cart behavior, it's not a problem though and Amazon has no reason to stop those employees from using Claude given the supply chain risk designation, except out of an abundance of caution or to kiss Hegseth's ass.
    SpicyLemonZest · 1790358892 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]
    mpyne · 1790380169 · focus · HN ↗
    > What if an Amazon employee uses Claude to develop the S3 storage service, which is a core product offering unrelated to the DoD but also something that will be provided to the DoD in govcloud?
    Honestly that question has been open for as long as GovCloud has been around. I've used it myself as an exercise in pushing within the Navy to adopt public cloud where security requirements permit, rather than forcing everything onto GovCloud.
    After all, if it's the same S3 either way then the real point of security isn't the Amazon datacenter employee changing out dead hard disks in a physical GovCloud datacenter, but the S3 service team developers who are frequently not even American citizens, but whose code may very well go on to touch the most sensitive data the nation generates.
    scottyah · 1790359327 · focus · HN ↗
    That depends on what "change shopping cart behavior" entails though. Sure, if you edit the icon you're pretty safe, but what if the change is a fix so if two people are adding things to the same cart on separate computers, the page will get updated, so they swap out to their webhook library and make a couple edits, but that library is also what powers the UI for the AWS consoles in govcloud?
    Now you're making changes to the source code used in govcloud using claude, a clear supply chain violation.
    It's a very wishy-washy area right now, and the branches are all struggling to figure out how to work around these laws that were mostly intended to keep jobs in the USA but are now hampering productivity. One example is that DoD contractors can't use open source software that has a non-us developer as a core maintainer. Obviously that's extremely hard to track and it's mostly ignored. Pete definitely bit off more than he realized in his effort to seem cool and get what he wanted.
    wat10000 · 1790380149 · focus · HN ↗
    A statement about consequences made by someone in power is not a lie just because it goes beyond what the law says.
    Jtsummers · 1790381243 · focus · HN ↗
    [delayed]

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