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

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

#21

Post by tmotwu »

philips wrote: post #17
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.

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

It would be socially destructive if America directly admits free market capitalism wasn't globally competitive after all. They don't have any other option but to hide behind national security justifications.

To those who still think this is about national security and most definitely not protectionist actions: why aren't these companies blanket banned immediately rather than given arbitrary timelines? India has demonstrated it is possible to do so and continues to be a self sustaining democracy.

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

#22

Post by Scramblejams »

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. […

Try walking into China with a popular video game you own and selling it there. If it's big enough to get on anyone's radar, then it won't happen. You will be required to "partner" with a Chinese-owned company who will take a bunch of cash, a bunch of your ongoing revenues, maybe a little equity, and keep things humming with the local government. (And if you think that's implying something, it is.) That gets you initial access to the market. If you want to keep that access, you'll need to toe the line. (Expect the line to move.)

One example: NetEase doesn't operate Blizzard's games in China just because Blizzard thought it'd be a nice idea to share a piece of the pie.[0]

Western rules around media infrastructure ownership or food production, where almost all of the regulatory business is conducted out in the open, have no comparison here.

[0] https://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2019-10-11-publishers...

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

#23

Post by _jal »

mulmen wrote: post #16
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. […

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

Sure. China is doing what all nation states do - use their advantages, exploit their competitors' weaknesses.

The US has (well, sometimes, to some extent) an ideological commitment to open markets. China does not.

The US exploited the advantages of open markets to great success.

Why would China not use the asymmetry now that they can?

Two lessons:

- Expecting your competitors to play by your rules is foolish.

- Concepts like morality and fairness get people going, but are not very useful to apply to nation states.

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

#24

Post by saiya-jin »

_jal wrote: post #23
mulmen wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Sure. China is doing what all nation states do - use their advantages, exploit their competitors' weaknesses. The US has (well, sometimes, to some extent) an ideological commitment to open markets. China does not. The US exploited the advantages of open markets to great success. Why would China not use the asymmetry now that they can? Two lessons: - Expecting your competitors to play by your rules is foolish. - Conce…

Not that I disagree anyhow, but good luck with that argument here... this is US website, visited predominantly by US folks, so I don't blame them that they want to protect their companies. Even if DJI is properly on top of the drone game, at least in some parts of drone market.

The thing is, as a european, I don't give a nanofraction of a f*ck about these 'privacy issues'. Everybody steals data, americans are probably the most advanced (thank you mr Snowden for disclosing this, some proper respect there). No higher moral ground there. With current US administration Europe and US ain't big friends like they used to be. US set the tone to more 'everybody for themselves'.

US killed tens of millions of innocent civilians in past 50 years, destroyed whole regions of this planet for generations to come, for money, power, resources and their ideology. THAT is something I care about. So give me a break with this political games, give me the best drone, it will spy on me regardless of country of origin if it can. Same as phone, tablets, desktop (depending on software used) and so on. Welcome to 2020, it ain't nice but this is how things are.

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

#25

Post by libertine »

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. […

You're mentioning the largest American Brands, which do not represent the bulk of businesses. In fact they have different channels to setup their businesses and lobby their way around.

When I made that comment I was referring to SME, which is also the bulk of let's say, Chinese sellers on Amazon US.

Try to do what Chinese people do on Amazon, but on a Chinese platform as a SME, to sell products in China.

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

#26

Post by omgbobbyg »

dellcybpwr wrote: post #9

Not that I need a drone.. but I've thought about one in the past.. and having to not only use their app but have it connected to the internet has been a big deterrent and thus far have not used one.

I have a DJI Mini drone (which is awesome), I use it with a Google Pixel that has no internet connection (no SIM card and no WiFi) and it works fine.

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

#27

Post by zaroth »

I have a DJI Mavic Mini and I was very impressed with the hardware and software overall. My kids and I have had a lot of fun flying this little drone! It does log every flight to the cloud, showing the telemetry logs of exactly where the drone flew and what it sent and received along the way (not full video, just telemetry). I find the logs extremely cool to look over after the fact when analyzing a flight.

Their insurance program saved my butt when I lost radio contact when I flew the drone over to a friend's back yard, and had misconfigured the "return-to-home" altitude too low, so it promptly flew itself into a tree trying to get back to me. $30 to get a full replacement was a huge relief.

It doesn't bother me much that they have a copy of my telemetry logs. I wouldn't want them to have copies of the video or pictures, and as I understand it those never leave the SD card.

It would be nice to have a "local data mode", but on the other hand, their cloud service is also authorizing the flight envelope based on GPS coordinates, and it's important that the device doesn't let itself be flown into air traffic corridors and the like.

Drones are a serious responsibility, and can be misused to cause a lot of damage, I'm totally willing to trade off some amount of tracking for the ability to have off-the-shelf access to this tech.

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

#28

Post by shard »

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.

A company doesn't have to sell things to the local population to do business there. There are many companies in China which wish to access the user base that FB has. Here is an article from NYT talking about the $5B that FB made from China during 2018: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/07/technology/facebook-china...

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

#29

Post by samatman »

tmotwu wrote: post #21
philips wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

It would be socially destructive if America directly admits free market capitalism wasn't globally competitive after all. They don't have any other option but to hide behind national security justifications. To those who still think this is about national security and most definitely not protectionist actions: why aren't these companies blanket banned immediately rather than given arbitrary timelines? India has demon…

Free market capitalism is a condition of peace, in the real sense that there's a spectrum from tariffs, to bans, to economic sanctions, leading to outright war.

Unilateral disarmament, where one party allows free access to markets while the other party does not, is actually a valid tactic. It's not always the wrong thing to do.

But choosing a tit-for-tat strategy instead isn't some sort of mark against free market capitalism. It just means that America has gotten tired of China defecting.

Which I approve of. Your mileage may vary.

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

#30

Post by xeromal »

wisemanwillhear wrote: post #11

> 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…

Yeah, I think the only way to "kind of" verify would be to have the consulting firm build from source and have a drone be fully operable.

Or run a public version inside a black box and monitor all traffic.

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