This week, I asked Claude Code to generate an MD to continue working on another computer, without losing the context, and it refused claming some sort of extraction. It was only until I selected Opus, that it completed the request.
This user is based in Hong Kong, where Claude is geo-blocked and not available. If you try visiting claude.ai from a Hong Kong IP address, you get an "unavailable in this region" message.
They are likely accessing Claude via a VPN. Doing model training work over a VPN is a highly suspicious signal, and likely triggers Anthropic's classifiers. It's not surprising that their account got flagged.
US/EU here (both, due to traveling), same story with anything related to modifying existing weights or SotA approaches in training/research, it's not a geolocation issue. The safeguards don't check your IP (but pretty soon will check someone's IP [pun intended])
Perhaps a manifest index/list of training data and learning method should be mandatory for “public” use of any model, sort of like food ingredient package labeling. The list of texts used and any weighting seems important to facilitate a public understanding / debate of model expectations and behavior.
Will Claude help me with reinforcement learning code for games? Or is that too small-fry for it to refuse? I've been playing around with RL with the new DeepSeek Flash model but it seems to trip up over itself a bit.
Isn't that simply what the API is? I'm not aware that Anthropic (nor OpenAI) have the power to block people from an API router which doesn't doxx their users.
Last I checked, you trivially get anonymous API's to Fable and Astra; you'd need to real-ID directly to them only if you want infosec-program stuff they block from their API.
(I have both through Kagi's $25/month API chatbot, but I'm not sure how it works).
Better block than falsify information. Last I heard they were deliberately botching it whenever someone asked semi-advanced questions on model training.
I don’t think it is revelation, it feels like active incompetence. You can lay out every decision and watch Claude/OpenAI actively fuck up in inexplicable ways.
They are likely accessing Claude via a VPN. Doing model training work over a VPN is a highly suspicious signal, and likely triggers Anthropic's classifiers. It's not surprising that their account got flagged.
most important bit…: stealing world's data…
I suspect this person was actively using it to generate or classify training data directly.
I mean, these AI companies have money, and they want data. I have data, and I want money. Maybe we can work something out.
In a world where buying and selling data is central to entire industries, why shouldn't I gather and sell my own data?
Last I checked, you trivially get anonymous API's to Fable and Astra; you'd need to real-ID directly to them only if you want infosec-program stuff they block from their API.
(I have both through Kagi's $25/month API chatbot, but I'm not sure how it works).
I ask it questions about large models like big MoEs all the time. I’ve never had it refuse a question, but I would expect it to refuse sometimes.
For training data from existing models I just get open models to spill their guts. It’s fine
In industry we train employees to not reveal proprietary information.
I think it would be easier to do this for a model than a lot of employees
Why draw any line? Anthropic doesn't. They actively take the world's intellectual property, don't pay for it, and put it behind a paywall.
> but I would expect it to refuse sometimes.
Why? Anthropic's dream is to be exempted from copyright altogether. They've been trying to achieve exactly that:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/oct/02/anthropic...
Given they want no restrictions on them, why should there be any restriction on anyone else?
How is it a secret if everyone has a model that is exactly like the other. Surely there are no secrets
Not yet, especially not with all of the incestuous cross-hiring that all the labs do.
But perhaps the various L. Bob Rife variants running these labs are using their advanced unreleased models to work on their own Snow Crashes.