Thread

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

499 points · 900 comments · cramer4next

ApolloFortyNine · 1790356118 · focus · HN ↗
I know everyone says this is political but it actually seems like a textbook designation. Anthropic wanted to have rules on how the military used AI, the military said no and therefore doesn't want anthropic used anywhere in their supply line.
This is like a pen manufacturer not wanting their pens used to sign drone strike orders, now the military needs to have a special box of pens that don't have stipulations attached. With AI usage it would be the same thing except applied to entire product chains. It seems like it would just add more complexity to operations.
You can agree with the rules anthropic wanted, but having rules set by a private company at all that apply to the military does seem fair for the military to object to.
>The Department reasonably feared that Anthropic might manipulate Claude’s design to prevent it from performing national-security functions that the Department deems contractually authorized and necessary
Though they'd probably put the DoD on the cybersecurity whitelist today, the very idea of the claude whitelists for certain functionality already exists and is being used by them today.
1. novia · 1790357457 · focus · HN ↗
  I think you're confused. When the White House decided to stop having federal agencies buy paper straws [1], they didn't designate paper straws a supply chain risk, they just stopped buying them. The term has a very specific meaning which would not apply in the pen scenario.
  [1] <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/ending-procurement-and-forced-use-of-paper-straws/" rel="nofollow">https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/endi...
  1. dlcarrier · 1790359211 · focus · HN ↗
    It's not a great analagy; it's more like a pen manufacturer not wanting their pens used to sign drone strike orders, who then only ships pens with cameras and solenoids so that the point stays retracted until the camera verifies that the paper doesn't include a drone strike orders.
    lukewarm707 · 1790359785 · focus · HN ↗
    i am not sure even this covers it.
    it would be like the pen manufacturer who ships pens with an automatic point retractor, AND a video livestream to the manufacturer from the pen AND remote control of the point retractor.
    anthropic and contractors monitor the livestream remotely to make sure the pen is not signing drone strike orders and may choose to activate the retractor.
    hardbass · 1790365701 · focus · HN ↗
    You are repeatedly saying they spy on their users? Prove it. Then prove t he other ai companies don't. Then prove that the service they offered to the US government didn't have spying disabled.
    XorNot · 1790368732 · focus · HN ↗
    They're talking like Amazon Bedrock doesn't exist, which is exactly the service which provides private data and processing for models including Claude.
    But also they quite clearly have no idea how classified information systems work: air gapping is step 1 of that process, and no one from Anthropic would be working on those systems without a security clearance.
    lukewarm707 · 1790372113 · focus · HN ↗
    there is no private processing for recent claude models. there is no fable in IL5 or IL6.
    bedrock IL5, nvidia, palantir and booz allen have all blocked fable.
    anthropic is demanding that they rat out their customers on anything better than opus 5.
    see: [thein.fo/4dekujW]
    also, bedrock govcloud does both log and review customer data. specifically, they log and review customer data when it is flagged by their csam classifier.
    hardbass · 1790374256 · focus · HN ↗
    That article is locked behind subscription. These are private companies, and presumably not running the model on their own systems but are using an interface to the model hosted on Anthropics machine I would presume. So their decision to decline is different from the us govt which will have gotten special privileges.
    lukewarm707 · 1790432450 · focus · HN ↗
    they are not on anthropic's infrastructure. they are running on IL5 and IL6 infrastructure on AWS.
    anthropic does not have dod cleared infrastructure.
    hardbass · 1790455044 · focus · HN ↗
    From what I am reading the IL6 and IL7 wasn't granted by the DoD out of nonsensical reasons, it wasn't even allowed to go through the certification process, in fact during the very course of its negotiations for military use of Anthropic. Anthropic never required any remote control or line to the deployment, they only requested there be human oversight before murder. The government prevented it from going through the certification tests using the exact nonsense excuse this case is about culminating in the case. So your claims of spyware are completely muddled and nonsense. 'Spyware' is an extremely absurd and over the top claim. It is a plain and naked lie.
    lukewarm707 · 1790473778 · focus · HN ↗
    for now it's spyware. there is no way for anyone to get fable without anthropic spying. so there is no fable IL5. there is opus 5 or below.
    it is anthropic alone deciding to rat out fable customers.
    i am not making this up or lying, everything i claim is verifiable.
    anthropic would likely have turned off the spyware for the dod. regardless the dod did not trust them to maintain claude with updates etc.
    that is a lot to do with anthropic undermining dod by getting involved with safety at dod contractors (palantir).
    going behind the boss and plotting was a bad idea.
    it does not help the matter if the bidder rocks up to the pentagon for a $200m contract, with a troupe of bay area ea clowns who say that they don't know if claude is conscious and talk about saving the world from p(doom).
    in a battle of ego between trump and amodei the latter is out of their depth. amodei is a newcomer starting a fight with a hardened criminal who has spent years amassing power over the media, the law and the republican party. anthropic are radically outgunned here.
    hardbass · 1790474349 · focus · HN ↗
    No. You made up the term spyware, the US government stamped a Supply chain risk on anthropic without even letting them get certified, and there is no mention of spyware there. You are making up complete utter nonsense. I have never seen the term spyware used anywhere else in relation to Anthropic. A data retention policy, which your own link shows is also shared with xAI is not spyware. You are a plain liar. You are repeating this absurd lie of Anthropic being 'spyware' everywhere. You again made up nonsense about Palantir, all I can see is Palantir comes under the same case, Anthropic's original stipulations and their objection whether Palantir is following it or not. It has nothing at all regarding spyware. You are trying to blow up one singular point, the DoD's sudden U turn and forcible and false application of a status to appear to be several different unrelated events, and muddling up the cause and effect timeline too. How is the matter of the AI being conscious or not a clownish concept? Do you believe in 'souls' and that non-human things cant have souls? Do you think there is supernatural magic inside our brains? In your comment history you seem to have a strange obsession with Anthropic, accusing them of various unverified and strange things.
    lukewarm707 · 1790507053 · focus · HN ↗
    i did read your comment. all i will do is just put some evidence for the factual matters.
    on the matter of 'spyware' anthropic is reading the conversations per tos section F 'Covered Models'. [<a href="https://www.anthropic.com/legal/service-specific-terms" rel="nofollow">https://www.anthropic.com/legal/service-specific-terms]
    the xAI models are available with no human review per TOS 3.4 'Deletion and Retention of User Content'. therefore it is not the same as the anthropic tos. [<a href="https://x.ai/legal/terms-of-service-enterprise" rel="nofollow">https://x.ai/legal/terms-of-service-enterprise]
    the palantir claim is correct. it is covered here. [<a href="https://www.axios.com/2026/02/13/anthropic-claude-maduro-raid-pentagon" rel="nofollow">https://www.axios.com/2026/02/13/anthropic-claude-maduro-rai...]
    the reasoning obfuscation really is true. per claude documentation:
    it does not return reasoning. quote "No display setting returns the raw chain of thought."
    it does obfuscate in thought process logs. quote "Summarization is processed by a different model from the one you target in your requests."
    [<a href="https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/thinking" rel="nofollow">https://platform.claude.com/docs/en/build-with-claude/thinki...]
    the belief that claude might be conscious is clownish, on account of anthropic acting as if it is not conscious, that is my opinion.
    i spend a good amount of time on anthropic because i think that anthropic specifically, is uniquely dangerous to society and human welfare.
    hardbass · 1790518008 · focus · HN ↗
    But my question is unless you are privy to the negotiations happening behind closed doors with DoD, how do you know Anthropic was not making modifications to it, I doubt even the other AI companies have not had to change some things when providing the secret DoD model deployment.
    Secondly you have made an absurd over the top exaggeration and blatant lies about Anthropics interaction with Palantir. You literally said Anthropic "ratted out" Palantir, a language that indicates Anthropic had some secret access to Palantir or made public something that wasn't already known. The partnership between anthropic and palantir was completely public and announced by the very same comapnies before the maduro case. And as far as public statements are known, Anthropic seems to have a specific idea of what kinds of jobs their model should be used for, and they clearly stated from start they didn't like its use for violence or violence without human oversight. They phoned Palantir as any partner would have a right to, for confirming if it was being used for killing or violence during the Maduro mission.
    Your link anout summarization of thought has a line right at the end of the section where it says if the raw thought logs are required, to contact their sales team, so it is clearly a negotiable point.
    How is the belief or not of ai consciousness clownish? It is a valid and pertinent question in general about all models and not just for Claude regardless of your perceived imaginary views of Anthropic.
    >i spend a good amount of time on anthropic because i think that anthropic specifically, is uniquely dangerous to society and human welfare.
    Here we are in moral not legal territory. So it is completely absurd that in a list right here discussing far worse companies eg Palantir CEO saying they are proud in supporting Israel's violent invasions and mass murders into its surrounding countries. Anthropic, as subject to our very discussion, is the only company among the big AI companies that seems to want to have limited dealings and oversight over violent military use. They also seem to be the only major company that brings up the important question of AI consciousness. If you think Anthropic is more evil than the US government and military who has already illicilty killed millions in made up wars, then I have nothing to say. Anthropic from all that appears seems to be one of the most moral of the companies of similar scale. The only way you think Anthropic is uniquely dangerous to society is if you think mass surveillance and mass killing is great, and opposition to these is evil. I cannot begin to think of the upside down mentality that leads to such a downright bizarre thought process.
    lukewarm707 · 1790372875 · focus · HN ↗
    again, anthropic is snooping, section F specifically: [<a href="https://www.anthropic.com/legal/service-specific-terms" rel="nofollow">https://www.anthropic.com/legal/service-specific-terms].
    xAI zdr is not snooping, section 3.4: [<a href="https://x.ai/legal/terms-of-service-enterprise" rel="nofollow">https://x.ai/legal/terms-of-service-enterprise]
    openai azure zdr is not snooping: [<a href="https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/openai/concepts/abuse-monitoring" rel="nofollow">https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/foundry/openai/conce...]
    gcp zdr is not snooping: [<a href="https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platform/models/abuse-monitoring?hl=en" rel="nofollow">https://docs.cloud.google.com/gemini-enterprise-agent-platfo...]
    only anthropic.
    hardbass · 1790374166 · focus · HN ↗
    All of these said they keep data 30 days and xai even said furthermore it can decide to keep data for even longer. You also said the version they provided to the government had spying disabled, the complaint that the govt made seems a thin excuse for what trump wanted as any and all major AI models are subject to constant updates.
    lukewarm707 · 1790432404 · focus · HN ↗
    if you read the policies i linked, it shows exactly the data retention available. all have zero retention available.
    hardbass · 1790437371 · focus · HN ↗
    [dead]
    neuronexmachina · 1790377213 · focus · HN ↗
    > anthropic and contractors monitor the livestream remotely to make sure the pen is not signing drone strike orders and may choose to activate the retractor.
    I might be mistaken, but in the case of national security deployments the models are airgapped and Anthropic doesn't actually have access to telemetry/logging from them.
    lukewarm707 · 1790432561 · focus · HN ↗
    for current deployments the models are airgapped.
    however anthropic is demanding that they have access to chat logs for anything better than opus 5.
    it is not possible to run recent anthropic models in a secure way. palantir, nvidia, booz allen etc have blocked fable because they can't run it safely.

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