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Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

theregister.com

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Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#11

Post by wisemanwillhear »

> A code audit carried out by FTI Consulting was said to have revealed no causes for concern, with DJI posting the exec summary (but not the full audit) on its website as a PDF. It had access to 20 million lines of source code, according to the summary, with analysis focusing on code concerned with “communication protocols and network activity with host infrastructure”.

DJI can pay for all the audits in the world, if they are not trustworthy they can find a way to spy in spite of the audit. Computer and software systems are just too complex to declare clean with audits.

This is a trust problem that DJI simply cannot change in their present state.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#12

Post by awinter-py »

woo! dept of interior insisted on this, got a forked DJI OS, and did an expensive consulting round to verify that it didn't phone home

looks like all it takes to negotiate privacy w/ a big tech company is a million+ procurement process and a trade war

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#13

Post by ShorsHammer »

philips wrote: post #4

My take: DJI, Apple, Huawei, Google etc are all in a similar boat where the governments they operate under have publicly and privately pressured them to use their profitable platforms for spying or gathering evidence. This reduces their profitablity as consumers have less confidence the product isn't working against them. But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese co…

DJI has been subject to a crazy amount of hobbyist and professional reverse engineering, much of it made public by now.

I wouldn't underestimate the western multicopter scene and their ongoing hilarious shenanigans against the world's biggest drone maker.

This article is 3 years old now, you'd be mistaken thinking people gave up being given bigger challenges: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/3knkgn/dji-is-locking-dow...

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#14

Post by m0zg »

vkou wrote: post #7
libertine wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with you, I think there's something that should be pointed out: China stance on foreign companies doing business in China. Currently China wants all the perks of the open global market, while closing it's own. I don't understand how this is allowed.

China's market is not closed to foreign companies. This isn't 1990 anymore. American brands are everywhere in China, from Teslas, to iPhones, to McDonalds, to Starbucks, to the NBA, to the list goes on and on and on. Google, Facebook, Apple each make billions of dollars from China, every year. Calling that a closed market is... Not at all accurate. It's by no means a fully[1] open market, but it's not a closed one. […

> Google, Facebook, Apple each make billions of dollars from China, every year.

How does _Facebook_ make "billions" in China in particular? It's completely banned there.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#15

Post by leetcrew »

moepstar wrote: post #2

One wonders why such a mode isn't present from the onset - and why customers accept the lacking of such :(

it should be of particular concern to drone hobbyists. perhaps things have changed since I got bored of flying drones, but I recall it being very hard to operate a drone completely legally. the rules I knew of were themselves a pain to follow; the worst was the requirement to notify every helipad within five miles or so. at the time, I could use airmap to get a list of numbers for all the helipads in my area, but the listed numbers were often some random person's cell. even when I went through the entire list and dutifully called each number, I'm not 100% sure I fulfilled the legal obligation. I always wondered if I was in violation of any state/local laws I was totally unaware of. it seems pretty rare that any drone laws are actually enforced against hobbyists, but the penalties are pretty stiff. having flight data copied back to a remote server for authorities to pore over later seems like a pretty substantial risk.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#16

Post by mulmen »

vkou wrote: post #7
libertine wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

While I agree with you, I think there's something that should be pointed out: China stance on foreign companies doing business in China. Currently China wants all the perks of the open global market, while closing it's own. I don't understand how this is allowed.

China's market is not closed to foreign companies. This isn't 1990 anymore. American brands are everywhere in China, from Teslas, to iPhones, to McDonalds, to Starbucks, to the NBA, to the list goes on and on and on. Google, Facebook, Apple each make billions of dollars from China, every year. Calling that a closed market is... Not at all accurate. It's by no means a fully[1] open market, but it's not a closed one. […

It's not binary. China's market is more closed (or less open) than the US.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#17

Post by philips »

libertine wrote: post #6
philips wrote: post #4

My take: DJI, Apple, Huawei, Google etc are all in a similar boat where the governments they operate under have publicly and privately pressured them to use their profitable platforms for spying or gathering evidence. This reduces their profitablity as consumers have less confidence the product isn't working against them. But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese co…

While I agree with you, I think there's something that should be pointed out: China stance on foreign companies doing business in China. Currently China wants all the perks of the open global market, while closing it's own. I don't understand how this is allowed.

I completely agree. I feel that China just directly protects their markets while for whatever reason the US hides behind a defense justification.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#18

Post by systemvoltage »

m0zg wrote: post #14
vkou wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China's market is not closed to foreign companies. This isn't 1990 anymore. American brands are everywhere in China, from Teslas, to iPhones, to McDonalds, to Starbucks, to the NBA, to the list goes on and on and on. Google, Facebook, Apple each make billions of dollars from China, every year. Calling that a closed market is... Not at all accurate. It's by no means a fully[1] open market, but it's not a closed one. […

> Google, Facebook, Apple each make billions of dollars from China, every year. How does _Facebook_ make "billions" in China in particular? It's completely banned there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_websites_blocked_in_ma...

Also, as others might point out that "Way into China is to abide by their rules and regulations" - which is not true when the restrictions imposed are to gut out the business and establish a CCP-controlled branch that serves only Chinese people. For example, Wikpedia is blocked, how is Wikipedia supposed to even enter the "market" (I know its a non-profit org).

The truth is that China doesn't want western information, knowledge and values. This stance hides behind "rules and regulations".

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#19

Post by systemvoltage »

philips wrote: post #4

My take: DJI, Apple, Huawei, Google etc are all in a similar boat where the governments they operate under have publicly and privately pressured them to use their profitable platforms for spying or gathering evidence. This reduces their profitablity as consumers have less confidence the product isn't working against them. But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese co…

> This reduces their profitablity as consumers have less confidence the product isn't working against them.

Most consumers do not give a damn about privacy. It is a growing sentiment, true, but it is not the majority of the user base.

Re: Drone firm DJI promises 'local data mode' to fend off US government's mooted ban

#20

Post by delfinom »

philips wrote: post #4

My take: DJI, Apple, Huawei, Google etc are all in a similar boat where the governments they operate under have publicly and privately pressured them to use their profitable platforms for spying or gathering evidence. This reduces their profitablity as consumers have less confidence the product isn't working against them. But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese co…

>But in the case of DJI and Huawei and TikTok the US is more concerned about how those chinese companies erode US business like boeing, cisco or Facebook.

Good joke about Huawei and Cisco. I can tell you the people eating Cisco's lunch are all other domestic companies and even big tech companies making their own network hardware.

Cisco on the other hand is an internal shitshow, they heavily outsource their software development to India resulting in "security patches" that attempt to just block user agents from triggering a exploit. :D

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