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

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

theregister.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 106 posts

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

#71

Post by lacker »

kube-system wrote: post #63
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.

China also primarily uses a national security justification. And neither the US's nor China's national security claims are unjustified. Election interference, propaganda, and espionage are very real and legitimate concerns that all major world powers have regarding their communication infrastructure. Trump might talk a big game to his constituents about the outsourcing of jobs -- but his economic agenda has absolutel…

China does not primarily use a national security justification. They primarily don’t even bother to justify themselves. They freely ban whatever websites they want without communicating any rationale for the ban or clearly stating what is banned.

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

#72

Post by lacker »

Aperocky wrote: post #56
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.

Closing it's own as in? With the exception of internet giants, everything else seemed to be well represented in China. name a western brand of physical good that's not available in China. Granted that our lives are more software oriented in this forum, majority of the trade in this planet is decidedly not.

Plenty of non-giant internet companies are banned in China as well.

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

#73

Post by kube-system »

The headline here is clearly misleading some of the people in the comments. The proposed ban is on US federal government purchases of DJI drones.

> “The US Congress is considering banning the US federal government from using foreign-made drones as part of its 2021 National Defense Authorization Act,”

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

#74

Post by zaroth »

somehnguy wrote: post #54
zaroth wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s possible to both understand that something is a serious responsibility as well as still crash a drone as an inexperienced operator. There was never danger to people or property (besides the drone itself). I just misjudged the one tall tree in the field between our houses which managed to exceed 30 meters, and somehow was unlucky enough for the drone to decide to fly exactly straight into the very top of…

>Worth noting that the range of the remote is significantly less than claimed in the marketing materials, which is not really surprising because they claim 4km (!) and it dropped out on me at ~200 meters. This isn't really true. While radio links can of course perform poorly or unexpectedly at times, DJI's actually does deliver on their promises. It's quite incredible what they're doing with range of the control & vi…

I must have been holding it wrong.

Seriously though, they must have a very high gain antenna to get 4km range at 2.4GHz with streaming video at unlicensed power levels, so there probably is a very specific antenna and controller orientation you are supposed to maintain to achieve that range.

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

#75

Post by coolspot »

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…

> And instead of saying it is primarily economic protectionism they make it a defense issue to try and tamp demand.

I don’t think there is any mechanism that allows such government action except the national security loophole.

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

#76

Post by kube-system »

lacker wrote: post #71
kube-system wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China also primarily uses a national security justification. And neither the US's nor China's national security claims are unjustified. Election interference, propaganda, and espionage are very real and legitimate concerns that all major world powers have regarding their communication infrastructure. Trump might talk a big game to his constituents about the outsourcing of jobs -- but his economic agenda has absolutel…

China does not primarily use a national security justification. They primarily don’t even bother to justify themselves. They freely ban whatever websites they want without communicating any rationale for the ban or clearly stating what is banned.

Of course they have justifications. They have justifications for their own people in their own legal documents, and they have a party ideology with a clear set of agendas.

"national security" is mentioned literally right at the beginning of the document that mandates the GFW.

> Article 3: The computer management and supervision organization of the Ministry of Public Security is responsible for the security, protection and management of computer information networks and the Internet. The Computer Management and Supervision organization of the Ministry of Public Security should protect the public security of computer information networks and the Internet as well as protect the legal rights of Internet service providing units and individuals as well as the public interest.

> Article 4: No unit or individual may use the Internet to harm national security, disclose state secrets, harm the interests of the State, of society or of a group, the legal rights of citizens, or to take part in criminal activities. [...]

http://www.asianlii.org/cn/legis/cen/laws/cinaispamr904/

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

#77

Post by jmpman »

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…

Let’s say there are navy sailors making Tik Tom videos on their ballistic subs, an app could in theory use its inertial sensor to record the path of the sub. Once the phone and it’s sailor has surfaced, it could upload the data.

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

#79

Post by sudosysgen »

lacker wrote: post #70
coldtea wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Currently China wants all the perks of the open global market, while closing it's own. I don't understand how this is allowed. That's the same for the US. When it suits them there's sanctions, embargoes, tariffs, and questioning/forbiding foreign companies, investments, etc.

It isn’t the same at all. China routinely bans American internet companies for no apparent reason. Whereas the vast majority of Chinese companies are allowed to sell into the US. No other country operates like China does, with such drastic anti-foreign policies.

The US routinely bans foreign companies that threaten its cash cows, Bombardier is an example.

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

#80

Post by peteretep »

kube-system wrote: post #69
zaroth wrote: post #27

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 ins…

"Fun with the kids" is a use-case with a very low need for confidentiality, integrity, and availability, and a very low risk of targeted attacks. The US federal government use-cases are obviously very different. Note that the "ban" in the article is not for consumers it is for the federal government.

For personal confidentiality, sure. For an enemy state, having the ability to have eyes on the ground at a mass scale is pretty useful though. Want to know what’s happening right now at xyz cords? No problem, someone’s flying their drone there right now because it’s “fun with the kids”
Post reply on HN