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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

#141

Post by luckydata »

MockObject wrote: post #134
vectorrain wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nonsense! If a deal hasn't been made, each side could change their mind, right? If we want to make a deal and I take great advantages on you, is it right for me to accuse you if you regrete before the deal is made? "because Chinese developers tend to "take take take" and not contribute anything back, ever." It's not ture. For example, Siggraph is the best conference in the computer graphics field. In 2018, the number…

> the number of papers that contain Chinese or ethnic Chinese is Nobody cares about any "ethnic Chinese" fraction. We're discussing a trade war between US and PRC, not some racial struggle between Chinese and Caucasians or whatever.

my Chinese friends feel all very similarly. While I don't agree with them, it's not productive to be insensitive to their concerns. That's not how you solve conflict.

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

#142

Post by Theodores »

Aromasin wrote: post #50
ProAm wrote: post #31

Isn't this the US's fault for letting manufacturing move to China in the 1980-present? Any large global migration of industry will have this same threat eventually.

Lack of foresight is a collective trait of the human condition. It'd be interesting to see who the protestors of said outsourcing in the 80s were, and see what they say now. How did they foresee it in the first place? Is the current outcome better or worse than they thought it'd be? What's their current prediction for the state of things in another 40 years? A good article topic for the journalists out there.

Lots of people saw it. It was obvious if your job was being outsourced or if your factory was being closed, quite apparent if no new machinery was being invested in.

At the time Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were around and all of this was discussed. The predicted decline happened. There are capitalist rent seeker types that are okay with it, they also voted for the lunatic politicians. The people not so happy about it don't get to write for the capitalist newspapers giving the illusion to people with no skin in the game that 'nobody predicted this calamity'.

So predictions for forty years hence? It does not work like that, does it? Back in the 1980's you just knew that if manufacturing was gone that there would be no market for locally made goods, no possibility of exporting quality stuff on the world market and that we would not be able to drive prosperity on the back of financial services forever.

If you push someone over a cliff you are not sure whether they will break their neck, crack their head open or get impaled on a spike, all you know is that the outcome will not be a good one.

Right now we are using far too much in the way of fossil fuels, the climate is not right and it is getting worse. I don't know how ravaged the world will be in forty years hence, all I do know is that carrying on as we do is not a good idea.

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

#143

Post by yhoneycomb »

34679 wrote: post #72
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…

Because the techniques the Chinese are using in their phones and other tech were most likely pioneered by the NSA and remain classified.

Pretty sure Chinese people would be perfectly capable of developing their own tech if they wanted to

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

#144

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

I remember having a conversation with my U.S. Army archaeologist friend about using drones for remote sensing in restricted areas and he showed me the DJI drone that's been sitting on their shelf for months because the folks upstairs said they can't fly chinese anything in restricted areas.

Apparently the army does have drones that are sufficiently american to be flown in restricted areas but my friend doesn't know who is making them or how a civilian like myself could acquire one.

I would like to get one for my biologist friend who would like to use it to detect invasive plant species.

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

#145

Post by OrgNet »

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…

They don't say what the threat is because it is the same threat that we are facing from US companies... I'm pretty sure that you can guess it.

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

#146

Post by noobiemcfoob »

numbsafari wrote: post #40

The solution to this problem are laws that require devices like this to support self-hosted servers for OTA, data, or anything else. You should not be required to use a vendor’s services AND the vendor should not be allowed to implement permanent back-doors. The problem, of course, is that runs afoul of US espionage and law enforcement demands that they have access to such data themselves. They want it both ways in a…

You don't need laws for that. You just need companies offering it and consumers choosing it. Which won't happen until it's easy to do.

Consumers can change a lightbulb and little else. Make it that simple.

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

#148

Post by the-dude »

newaccoutnas wrote: post #137
taneq wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure, I can imagine that's fine for car telemetry and you enter into that knowing. It's common technology, even pool cars will have a black logging box. Do I expect a device in my home to be mapping out the floorspace and sending that back to unknown parties (whatever the location) without consent? Then no, that's different.

Tracking every move outside of your house is A-OK but knowing your floorplan is unimaginable?

Why?

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

#149

Post by MockObject »

luckydata wrote: post #141
MockObject wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the number of papers that contain Chinese or ethnic Chinese is Nobody cares about any "ethnic Chinese" fraction. We're discussing a trade war between US and PRC, not some racial struggle between Chinese and Caucasians or whatever.

my Chinese friends feel all very similarly. While I don't agree with them, it's not productive to be insensitive to their concerns. That's not how you solve conflict.

It doesn't even make any sense. Do they think America is similarly engaged in a trade war with our own ethnic Chinese citizens? One of our most strident anti-China hawks is named Gordon Chang. And we aren't in any struggle against Taiwan.

No, I don't have to be sensitive to such delusions.

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

#150

Post by CharlesColeman »

close04 wrote: post #97
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.

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…

> It feels more likely to imply that "we have no hard evidence".

There is hard evidence of the vulnerability, which logically follows from any OTA update capability, but there may be no hard evidence of exploitation yet.

Think of it this way: if your software has a RCE, you fix or mitigate it regardless if it's actively being exploited or not.

> Are you worried that your iPhone or Tesla will be hijacked the same way?

That's a very valid concern for some people.

Ultimately, software security boils down to "who do you trust?". Say what you will about the US, but your goals and values are very likely less incompatible with those of the US than with those of authoritarian China [1] [2].

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-lea...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Document_Number_Nine

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