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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

#111

Post by liability »

ptero wrote: post #33
emddudley wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just publish technical information. It isn't hard. It would do huge damage to the Chinese and reinforce the US's whole argument. I doubt that it would damage China. The existence of the threat is already well publicized. I think that U.S. intelligence does not talk about specific threats because the attack vectors would probably misunderstood and underestimated by the general public. There would inevitably be pushb…

> I think that U.S. intelligence does not talk about specific threats because the attack vectors would probably misunderstood and underestimated by the general public. I doubt intelligence agencies care about convincing public one way or another. I suspect they are worried about revealing details of their methods and thus have a blanket "say nothing" default mindset.

> "I doubt intelligence agencies care about convincing public one way or another"

Why say anything at all then? Saying nothing is one thing, but they are saying something. Why the half-hearted messaging? I honestly don't get it.

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

#112

Post by jdietrich »

newaccoutnas wrote: post #10
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…

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.

That was Roomba, owned by the American company iRobot.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/25/technology/roomba-irobot-...

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

#113

Post by yhoneycomb »

Communitivity wrote: post #110
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 deserve some credit. The following is a contrived analogy, admittedly not a great one, to illustrate why I suspect they can't give specifics. Imagine if you have a gigantic elephant standing near a village. It's so big that you can only see one of the following, depending on where you stand: a trunk that can suck people up, legs that can smash, a tail that can create a wind that tosses people about. Three people…

You analogy is a perfect demonstration of the US government's tendency to make vague, ominous predictions to stoke fear in its populace so that they will unquestioningly go along with its nefarious intents (ie regime change, chemical warfare, airstrikes on innocent people).

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

#114

Post by simion314 »

Junk_Collector wrote: post #77
simion314 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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…

>Technical Question Of course you can, but even then you're still trusting the firmware that is being put out by the potentially hostile company even if you gate keep it. To check it would require a software team at least as large as the potentially hostile one for any serious attack. That's a big economic incentive to trust the manufacturer. >sending the high definition photos Or you could just send metadata, teleme…

So from your points all Chinese products should be made illegal until China will not be a threat to US, this means until China collapses or kisses US butt.

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

#115

Post by yhoneycomb »

test001only wrote: post #69
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…

This reminds me of "believe us they have bio-weapons and need to attack Iraq" trope followed in the recent past. This is just building up media narrative and trying to brainwash people, similar to what happened in the past.

I agree 100%. At this point I am strongly isolationist. If terrorists from another country really start hijacking our planes, let's come up with a solution other than war.

War only serves further destabilizes the country, and it definitely shouldn't be on the table unless someone is actually sending troops on our soil.

Last resort would be banning incoming visitors from that country. Not ideal, but a MUCH better solution than war in my opinion.

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

#116

Post by Tsubasachan »

emddudley wrote: post #24
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…

> Just publish technical information. It isn't hard. It would do huge damage to the Chinese and reinforce the US's whole argument. I doubt that it would damage China. The existence of the threat is already well publicized. I think that U.S. intelligence does not talk about specific threats because the attack vectors would probably misunderstood and underestimated by the general public. There would inevitably be pushb…

Nobody wants to give up cheap Chinese goods and buy expensive American goods (which are all made in China just the same hilariously) simply because America asks so nicely. Yeah I just ordered a Xiaomi mi9 and I feel fine.

If there was indeed a threat to national security I trust my own government to make decisions not the US.

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

#117

Post by simion314 »

usrusr wrote: post #91
simion314 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

yeah, but we should think and implement security measures in all systems indifferent of politics and economics. Imagine some terrorists hacks Tesla server and sends a command for all cars to crash. We would need all important systems to be designed in the assumption that something bad will eventually happened(hackers, company goes out of business, stupidly(see Firefox addons issue) ) etc

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

#118

Post by criddell »

8note wrote: post #82
daenz wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're comparing apples and oranges. US drones aren't doing fully autonomous killing, they're killing through policies of leaders you help elect. That's the apples. The oranges is tech we purchase (drones in particular) having backdoors. Why do you think these two are comparable?

yeah, it's more comparable to Androids and iPhones. the US government could deploy an update to turn any phone into a spy device because both apple and Google are headquartered in the US

You say that like it's a settled issue and I don't think it is. If the capability is there, companies can be compelled to use it. If the capability doesn't exist, it isn't clear that companies can be compelled to invent it.

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

#119

Post by naiveai »

tehjoker wrote: post #57

World: We're not being paranoid. US drones kill innocent civilians around the world. They're really beating the drum on China. Be intensely suspicious. China is a trading partner that does some shitty things (e.g. in Xinjiang province), but the nation focused on world domination is the one right here.

Concentration camps are just "some shitty things".

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

#120

Post by Tsubasachan »

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…

Lets be real here "because China" is a decent enough argument in the US at the moment. Just swallow the propaganda.
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