Can't really ban what can be downloaded for free and hosted by anyone. There are many providers hosting the ~700B parameter version that aren't CCP aligned.
People made shirts with printouts of the code to RSA under the heading "this shirt is a munition." Apparently such shirts are still for sale, even though they are not classified as munitions anymore.
[1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th...
The ban was on exporting the code, not having the code in possession.
Furthermore it was only the US who had this ban.
I am old enough to remember this and the scoffing that European PGP users had towards their American counterparts
Though I’m not suggesting an import ban on DeepSeek would be effective either. Just that the US does have precedence pulling these kinds of stunts.
You can also look at the 90s subculture for passing DeCSS code (a tool for breaking DVD encryption) to see another example of how people wilfully skirted these kinds of stupid legal limitations.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeCSS
So if you were to ask me if a ban on DeepSeek would work, the answer is clearly “no”. But that doesn’t mean it’s not going to happen. And if it does, the only people hurt are legitimate US businesses who might get a benefit from DeepSeek but have to follow the law. Those of us outside of America will be completely unaffected. Just like we were when US tried to limit the distribution of GPG.
Like music? They banned napster
And this analogy isn't particularly good. Napster was the server, not the product. Whether you got XYZ from Napster or wherever else doesn't matter, because its the product that you are after, not the way to get the product.