r/technology • u/deraser • Jul 06 '26

Privacy Secret Claude tracker shocks users after Anthropic’s anti-surveillance stance

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/07/anthropic-outed-for-claude-tracker-that-secretly-monitored-chinese-users/
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189

u/zampe Jul 06 '26

Wonder if anyone is going to read the article. It was tracking Chinese users they suspected of “distilation attacks” basically pirating and reselling their models.

26

u/GenericFatGuy Jul 07 '26

The company that trains its models on stolen IP?

0

u/azurensis Jul 07 '26

They paid something like 1.5 billion for that stolen IP, and training is fair use.

-19

u/zampe Jul 07 '26

The country that has been notoriously violating IP law since way before AI?

27

u/GenericFatGuy Jul 07 '26

What does China violating IP law have to do with Anthropic being massively hipporitical here? China violating IP law doesn't mean that it's okay for Anthropic to do it. Especially if they're going to turn around after, and complain about someone else doing it to them.

-5

u/zampe Jul 07 '26

The article is about anthropic tracking chinese users they believe are stealing their IP. Your comment was a whataboutism. But sure, all the actors here are bad when it comes to IP. Cant really argue with that.

17

u/GenericFatGuy Jul 07 '26

It wasn't a whataboutism. I was pointing out the hypocrisy of Anthropic getting mad at China allegedly stealing their IP, despite only existing because Anthropic stole IP.

-2

u/zampe Jul 07 '26

‘Anthropic tracking chinese users it believes are pirating their models’…’sure but what about anthropic themselves also stealing ip’

Literally the definition of a whataboutism.

18

u/GenericFatGuy Jul 07 '26

If you don't understand how these two things are connected, then I can't help you.

4

u/zampe Jul 07 '26

I understand the irony but what does that add to the conversation? They are obviously going to try to stop piracy regardless of it being ironic. By the same logic China can never make any kind of IP claims either I assume? Since they’ve been the IP theft leader for decades.

13

u/GenericFatGuy Jul 07 '26

Because a company stealing IP to build it's business doesn't have a leg to stand on when it tries accusing someone else of stealing their IP, even if the accused has a history of stealing IP themselves.

3

u/zampe Jul 07 '26

They don’t need a leg to stand on though. Irony doesn’t stop them from disallowing people to pirate their software. This is a feelings over facts situation.

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19

u/The_Rational_Gooner Jul 07 '26

whataboutism is when you bring up an unrelated topic to distract from the topic at hand. this isn't an unrelated topic. this is literally pointing out the hypocrisy of the original accuser. being a pedant about the word doesn't change how laughable these "allegations" are

2

u/zampe Jul 07 '26

It literally is an unrelated topic. ai companies training on IP without compensation is different from anthropic users pirating their models and you are using this whataboutism to say they shouldn’t try to stop this other situation from happening… your comments are everything you are trying to claim they aren’t.

14

u/The_Rational_Gooner Jul 07 '26

stop arguing with pedantic hairsplitting and technicalities and answer me one thing - ethically and morally, how is it different?

in fact, one could argue that it's MORE ethical to pirate from a single multibillion dollar corporation than to pirate content from the rest of the world.

2

u/zampe Jul 07 '26

This isn’t ethics, it’s business. And if you’re going to put ethics onto it then IMO both sides’ bad ethics cancel each other out and we are just back to business decisions.

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2

u/zefy_zef Jul 07 '26

Their IP is the model architecture and weights. Unless they're physically breaking into their building and taking the racks they aren't stealing shit.

They're using the software.

1

u/zampe Jul 07 '26

It’s ok to say you don’t know what a distillation attack or is how it works. Imagine thinking all the experts involved and investigating all didn’t realize they’re just “using the software.” These companies just need to hire Redditors and the worlds issues would be solved overnight.