The Department of Homeland Security ordered federal civilian agencies on Monday to stop using DeepSeek products and remove anything already in place. It covers “all DeepSeek and DeepSeek-affiliate products, and third-party products and services developed using DeepSeek implementations.”
The fuzzy part
- It’s not clear what “developed using” means. Is it apps calling DeepSeek’s API, or anything coded with its help?
- AI gateways like OpenRouter and Vercel AI Gateway route requests to whatever provider they pick, so agencies could hit DeepSeek models without knowing it.
- The Pentagon, Navy, NASA, the House and several states already blocked DeepSeek in 2025.
My take
As I wrote with DeepSeek V4.1 Flash, there’s a big difference between DeepSeek’s hosted service and its open weights running on your own box. This order doesn’t draw that line clearly. If you use a gateway, pin your providers so you know where your prompts actually go.
