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U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones

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Re: U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones

#91

Post by usrusr »

simion314 wrote: post #62
Junk_Collector wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trade war won't fix issues with OTA as a vulnerability. It is useful for the US to point it out to tip things in their favor so it gets a lot of coverage. I also agree with you that the solution to OTA updates is tight control, but that isn't realistic either. They are talking about drones in the article. These are devices bought and run by companies that build infrastructure in the US but are not directly relate…

>Intel ME is an abomination, but it's also well known and gets a lot of coverage. It's just not in the mainstream news right this minute. It was probably only a topic on technical forums. Technical question, can't you build a drone that does not need OTA updates from manufacturer ? You have it connect only to your trusted IPs. Also sending the high definition photos to China won't appear on anybody network traffic? Y…

> You have it connect only to your trusted IPs.

Wi-Fi makes that pretty damn hard to verify. In theory, malicious firmware could even opportunistically link up with other malicious firmware acting as a bridge via some undocumented protocol that would only be detectable by looking at the raw spectrum.

Re: U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones

#94

Post by amaccuish »

Junk_Collector wrote: post #16
Someone1234 wrote: post #7

Why not publish a specific threat? These vague "The Chinese are up to something but we cannot reveal what" isn't really helpful, particularly given the current trade tensions (and political motivations e.g. "bring jobs home"). I'm not really "siding" with the Chinese, they may be up to something, but the US has really done themselves a great deal of damage when their own allies don't really believe them. Just publish…

Well, the specific concern is that all new tech ships with OTA update capability. Infrastructure should probably never have this in the first place for a variety of reasons, but it does and it will because the of huge cost savings it can enable. When the Chinese government can tightly control the companies under it, and those companies control the OTA update, then nothing produced by those companies can ever be consi…

I don't understand for example why 5g infrastructure can't work like WSUS. All your devices point at your own update servers, and on the update servers you can approve and decline the distribution of certain upstream updates.

Re: U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones

#95

Post by majia »

AFascistWorld wrote: post #92
om3n wrote: post #47

Something I've wondered- why hasn't Lenovo received the same flack that DJI and Huawei received?

Lenovo does nothing more than assemblying, and their acts on PC can be easily identified.

No, assembling means more security risks, as it could temper more parts.

However, trump saying that Huawei could be part of the trade deal means banning Chinese companies has nothing to do with security. The US didn’t go after Lenovo simply because assembling isn’t a high value add process and doesn’t threat US tech leadership. Huawei got banned because its tech is too advanced.

Re: U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones

#96

Post by luckylion »

tw04 wrote: post #26
luckylion wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, that's similar to how we can't let Saddam know that we know where his giant WMD factories and storage facilities are, so you just have to take our word for it...

I don't know how old you were at the time of 9/11 - but there were loud, public voices in the Intelligence Community telling everyone that the WMD situation was fabricated. To the point the only person claiming there were WMDs was Cheney and his inner circle, which is why both the Democrats and our international partners had to be brow beaten into supporting the invasion of Iraq. To claim these two situations are the…

> I don't know how old you were at the time of 9/11 - but there were loud, public voices in the Intelligence Community telling everyone that the WMD situation was fabricated.

Sorry, I didn't hear those voices from US government sources, and not really from major US media outlets. I'm sure they did exist, but if a single mouse speaks up while the lions roar you'll need a good microphone to pick that up.

That time, they correctly figured they didn't even need a new Nayirah to testify, they just made it up and most of the media went into war mode: it doesn't matter if it's true, now is not the time to ask questions, support the troops and embed your journalists. Very few keep their professional distance when the bombs are falling, too luring the heroes' song.

Sorry if it's too harsh but "trust us, this time it's different" doesn't cut it for me, Bush summed up my feelings on that issue quite well: "There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, 'Fool me once, shame on...shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.'"

Re: U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones

#97

Post by close04 »

ovi256 wrote: post #60
Someone1234 wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This has nothing to do with convincing the general public. The US is struggling to convince their own allies that the threat is real, and definitely haven't convinced the technical community they need to stop buying e.g. Huawei hardware. > The existence of the threat is already well publicized. Parroting the same vague "there's a threat, but the threat is secret so we cannot tell you about it" isn't well publishing a…

You don't need a whitepaper to say "Any device with over-the-air updates (or server-side processing) controlled by a Chinese company can receive anytime new software (thus a payload) controlled by the Chinese intelligence services". This is what's implied.

It feels more likely to imply that "we have no hard evidence". So the argument still boils down to "because China", not "because spying". Which isn't a strong argument if you like to (at least try to) draw your own conclusion and not be fed one.

Are you worried that your iPhone or Tesla will be hijacked the same way? You already know this happened before with the knowledge of the companies involved (secret subpoenas or national security letters) or without it (beacon implants).

Re: U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones

#98

Post by howard941 »

vkou wrote: post #74
ovi256 wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You don't need a whitepaper to say "Any device with over-the-air updates (or server-side processing) controlled by a Chinese company can receive anytime new software (thus a payload) controlled by the Chinese intelligence services". This is what's implied.

This is a great argument against all OTA devices. But if the US actually took that threat seriously, half of the Valley would be out of a job tomorrow.

> This is a great argument against all OTA devices

Indeed. And for life safety uses it's appropriate. In safety-conscious settings such as those involving line voltages requiring NRTL (UL for ex) listing OTA updates are forbidden: One must have physical access to the device to perform a permitted [0] code update.

[0] And the code updates themselves are subject to IEC 60730/UL 1998 or it's back to the NRTL for more testing

Re: U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones

#99

Post by hindsightbias »

tw04 wrote: post #73
coldtea wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To the point the only person claiming there were WMDs was Cheney and his inner circle, which is why both the Democrats and our international partners had to be brow beaten into supporting the invasion of Iraq. Just "Cheney" and NYT, and CNN, and the entire establishment, sans some voices. Besides the trillion dollar war efforts went on anyway (also against Afghanistan, a below third world country that has almost no…

>Just "Cheney" and NYT, and CNN, and the entire establishment, sans some voices. Besides the trillion dollar war efforts went on anyway (also against Afghanistan, a below third world country that has almost nothing to do with the, probably Saudi-funded attack). That's just a blatant, and easily disproved re-write of history. You can rag on CNN all you want for trying to give both sides of the story an opportunity to…

I see the IAEA expressing concerns, I don’t see CNN or anyone in the USIC doing so.

If they were loud and many, perhaps you can provide a link to a USIC member voicing concerns. Even those who were anonymously quoted about the aluminum tubes debate weren’t quoted as saying there were no WMDs.

Re: U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones

#100

Post by adventured »

taneq wrote: post #44
newaccoutnas wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There have been instances whereby a robotic hoover (Xaomi(sp?) one?) have been sending their generated floor maps back to servers in CN, so I don't think it's unreasonable to assume drones could be doing the same thing.

Teslas send loads of stuff back to Tesla servers which I'd assume are in the U.S. It's not an unusual thing to do in this cloud-happy day and age.

It's not a debate over whether the US hoovers up information. Most of this US vs China debate centers on one thing: which side do you want to give your information to. That is what is being argued over; that dispute is going to get worse for a while yet as China pushes outward globally in its tech ambitions.

The better alternative: I don't want anyone to have my information - unfortunately is largely not going to be an option. The choice will mostly be between the US and China (or in some cases, European tech providers, which will frequently work with the US). If it's not already that way, it certainly is going to be in the next 10 or 20 years.

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