Cybersecurity Experts Protest US Ban on Anthropic AI Models
Dozens of cybersecurity experts, including industry veterans, have issued an open letter to the U.S. government, urging the reversal of an export control order on Anthropic's Fable and Mythos AI models. The experts argue that the ban removes crucial tools from cybersecurity defenders, hindering their ability to identify vulnerabilities and enhance software security. The U.S. government cited national security concerns for the order, prompting Anthropic to suspend global access to the models.
A group of cybersecurity experts, including several prominent industry veterans, has publicly protested a U.S. government export control order affecting Anthropic's Fable and Mythos artificial intelligence models. In an open letter, the 76 signatories contend that this action strips "the best models away from [cybersecurity] defenders," preventing them from utilizing the AI to detect vulnerabilities and improve the security of software and products.
Anthropic stated that the U.S. government issued the order last Friday, citing national security concerns, but did not provide specific reasons. Following the directive, Anthropic suspended access to Fable and Mythos for all users worldwide.
The experts' letter warns that removing advanced capabilities from defenders is "dangerous" while adversaries are rapidly progressing. Signatories include Alex Stamos, former Facebook chief of security; Casey Ellis, founder of Bugcrowd; Jon Callas, cryptographer; Paul Vixie, computer scientist; Dino Dai Zovi, former head of applied security engineering at Block; Katie Moussouris, founder of Luta Security; and Rachel Tobac, CEO of SocialProof Security.
Anthropic suggested the White House order might stem from a report detailing a method to bypass, or "jailbreak," Fable to access its powerful Mythos-level capabilities. Katie Moussouris, a signatory, reviewed an unpublicized Amazon paper on this method but asserted in a blog post that it did not demonstrate a true jailbreak.
Moussouris explained that researchers in the paper merely asked Fable to fix open-source code containing public and deliberately planted vulnerabilities, after the model initially declined to review the code for security issues. She argued that this behavior is not a guardrail bypass but a necessary function for defensive security, allowing AI to identify, fix, and test bugs. Moussouris also noted that similar "bypass" techniques could be replicated on other models like OpenAI's GPT-5.5, Anthropic's Claude Opus 4.8 and Sonnet, and Chinese models such as Kimi 2.7, as many models without Fable's guardrails would not refuse straightforward security bug requests.
The open letter additionally calls for the establishment of transparent and fairly enforced regulations. These regulations, the experts suggest, should be developed through a democratic rule-making process, based on scientific research from industry and academic experts, and implemented only to the minimum extent required to ensure public safety.
(Source: Slashdot)
