Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

nytimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

11–20 of 78 posts

Re: Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

#11

Post by astebbin »

crappybird wrote: post #10

All android phone are definitely sending data to United States. Why is sending data to one country better than sending data to another? For US citizens, this might be irrelevant (not so much if we go by the leaks). But for everyone living anywhere else on the globe, owning a smartphone means usually owning an endpoint for one of the giant corporate data sinks which its government can easily access. I understand that…

The U.S. has strong legal protections against unreasonable search and seizure, as shown in the Apple vs. FBI case after the San Bernardino attack. My understanding is that China has no such privacy protections, either in principle or in practice.

Re: Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

#12

Post by leggomylibro »

crappybird wrote: post #10

All android phone are definitely sending data to United States. Why is sending data to one country better than sending data to another? For US citizens, this might be irrelevant (not so much if we go by the leaks). But for everyone living anywhere else on the globe, owning a smartphone means usually owning an endpoint for one of the giant corporate data sinks which its government can easily access. I understand that…

In a nutshell: DJI is primed to obey authorities. It's in their genes. They're happy to geofence your drone for the simple reason of, 'we were asked,' which means that it isn't your drone. Sure, it seems reasonable when they keep you from straying into an airfield, but just wait until they prevent you from filming the violent crackdown on a protest.

Although I do think that there's something to the idea of, 'if any country is going to have extremely personal data about me, it had may as well be a country that cannot easily and immediately imprison me without evidence or charge.'

Re: Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

#13

Post by seanmcdirmid »

fma wrote: post #7
wmf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't DJI drones the best? The military applications of quadcopters seem obvious.

I get the impression that the Chinese government constantly violets intellectual property of American companies. I'd have no problems if the US government copies DJI designs for military purposes. Return the favor.

The basic stabilization work was done in American universities (Stanford 2004 to be precise), so I think it is more of a value proposition (mass produced, cheap).

Re: Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

#14

Post by jsjohnst »

flavio81 wrote: post #6
wmf wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aren't DJI drones the best? The military applications of quadcopters seem obvious.

Quadcopters are in the lower tier of all drone types. Fixed-wing drones are more suited to military applications due to greater range and payload capacity, not to mention speed.

Who says the only use case the military has is to carry weapons and/or perform remote surveillance? Just as plausible they’d use them to survey military owned buildings looking for structural defects, promotional videos of military life, or any other use case that a normal commercial user of DJI products might have.

Re: Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

#15

Post by prdonahue »

crappybird wrote: post #10

All android phone are definitely sending data to United States. Why is sending data to one country better than sending data to another? For US citizens, this might be irrelevant (not so much if we go by the leaks). But for everyone living anywhere else on the globe, owning a smartphone means usually owning an endpoint for one of the giant corporate data sinks which its government can easily access. I understand that…

Why would you put a "(sic)" [sic] in your own comment?

Re: Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

#16

Post by aaronbrethorst »

prdonahue wrote: post #15
crappybird wrote: post #10

All android phone are definitely sending data to United States. Why is sending data to one country better than sending data to another? For US citizens, this might be irrelevant (not so much if we go by the leaks). But for everyone living anywhere else on the globe, owning a smartphone means usually owning an endpoint for one of the giant corporate data sinks which its government can easily access. I understand that…

Why would you put a "(sic)" [sic] in your own comment?

I think "crappybird" is being ironic and making some sort of meta-comment about how Android may be free-as-in-beer, and somewhat free-as-in-speech, but it isn't really free because REASON GOES HERE.

Re: Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

#17

Post by pavlov »

prdonahue wrote: post #15
crappybird wrote: post #10

All android phone are definitely sending data to United States. Why is sending data to one country better than sending data to another? For US citizens, this might be irrelevant (not so much if we go by the leaks). But for everyone living anywhere else on the globe, owning a smartphone means usually owning an endpoint for one of the giant corporate data sinks which its government can easily access. I understand that…

Why would you put a "(sic)" [sic] in your own comment?

It's not uncommon to use "sic" as a sort of irony punctuation mark.

Re: Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

#18

Post by SomeStupidPoint »

prdonahue wrote: post #15
crappybird wrote: post #10

All android phone are definitely sending data to United States. Why is sending data to one country better than sending data to another? For US citizens, this might be irrelevant (not so much if we go by the leaks). But for everyone living anywhere else on the globe, owning a smartphone means usually owning an endpoint for one of the giant corporate data sinks which its government can easily access. I understand that…

Why would you put a "(sic)" [sic] in your own comment?

I think the implication is that "free" is being quoted from elsewhere and the author doesn't necessarily agree that it is without cost just because such cost is not denominated in dollars.

Re: Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

#19

Post by jlgaddis »

astebbin wrote: post #11
crappybird wrote: post #10

All android phone are definitely sending data to United States. Why is sending data to one country better than sending data to another? For US citizens, this might be irrelevant (not so much if we go by the leaks). But for everyone living anywhere else on the globe, owning a smartphone means usually owning an endpoint for one of the giant corporate data sinks which its government can easily access. I understand that…

The U.S. has strong legal protections against unreasonable search and seizure, as shown in the Apple vs. FBI case after the San Bernardino attack. My understanding is that China has no such privacy protections, either in principle or in practice.

Yeah, it's not like the U.S. can get a top-secret blanket order for call records of everyone in the country or anything. /s

Re: Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

#20

Post by DKnoll »

crappybird wrote: post #10

All android phone are definitely sending data to United States. Why is sending data to one country better than sending data to another? For US citizens, this might be irrelevant (not so much if we go by the leaks). But for everyone living anywhere else on the globe, owning a smartphone means usually owning an endpoint for one of the giant corporate data sinks which its government can easily access. I understand that…

The concern isn't about US consumers, it's about the US government (law enforcement, defence, etc.) using the drones and having data sent back.
Post reply on HN