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Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist

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Re: Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist

#131

Post by qwezxcrty »

While I dislike DJI drones for theirs low hackability, I feel this is no sense as DJI's products are really very much civilian. And China do not ban iPhones or Windows because they are leaking a order of magnitude more Chinese bits (location services and telemetry) to the US controlled entities.

Honest question: is there any competent alternative to DJI drones? Better to be more hackable. DIY a drone with open source flight control boards is not hard (for me), but optimizing for battery life and having a good video downlink seems hard.

Re: Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist

#132

Post by dTal »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #69
photochemsyn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fairly broad problem across the whole phone app world, isn't it? For example, I bought an iOS app for LAN analysis, but then deleted it when it turned out it wouldn't work unless you gave it access to your physical location (I assume that was for their data marketing side business). Also, any data information collected by a US company also has 'a nonzero chance of being handed over to the American authoriti…

> but then deleted it when it turned out it wouldn't work unless you gave it access to your physical location (I assume that was for their data marketing side business). In order to use bluetooth or internet access through wireless means you must request location access because it's assumed that you can match a person's location with the access points and bluetooth devices around them (BL beacons). It sucks but Andro…

That seems a bit broken. The permission to send data over the network should be distinct from the permission to know the name of the SSID.

Re: Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist

#133

Post by ok_dad »

collegeburner wrote: post #99
1-6 wrote: post #88

Disappointed that grassroots drone companies such as 3DR died as a result of aggressive Chinese companies such as DJI pushing good quality drones for less. Now the US market has lesser alternatives and we’re having to go back to hobby kits to build anything similar to a DJI.

fr i don't think it's a coincidence that our market has been flooded by software-controlled chinesium. not to get too tinfoil-hatty but it makes sense from the chinese perspective.

We did that shit to ourselves with our offshoring and MBA bullshit. China just took advantage of it like any superpower would. America's commercial greed is what will cause it's downfall to China, if anything. Not that I even ascribe to the idea that China and the US should even be enemies, that's just more "red scare" BS.

Re: Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist

#134

Post by nebula8804 »

mschuster91 wrote: post #58
magic_hamster wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Drones have an extensive use in defense industries and just because the west produces less consumer models doesn't mean the tech isn't there. It will take banning DJI for them to quickly see they're not as far ahead as you imagine. It will probably cost more to buy though.

The thing is, consumer drones are widespread and generate a lot of data. Not just about the general performance of the drone or AI (like Tesla does), but also about weather conditions such as wind, or population densities that are classified by the drone's AI. All of this can be fed into massive data warehouses for later analysis - and the more drones one has, the better the quality of the derived data. In turn, that…

Looks like Intel sold their Drone business...to Elon Musk's brother. Interesting development although it seems like they were focused on providing light shows. Explains why we are seeing these light shows at Tesla unveiling events ha!

Re: Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist

#135

Post by bredren »

collegeburner wrote: post #99
1-6 wrote: post #88

Disappointed that grassroots drone companies such as 3DR died as a result of aggressive Chinese companies such as DJI pushing good quality drones for less. Now the US market has lesser alternatives and we’re having to go back to hobby kits to build anything similar to a DJI.

fr i don't think it's a coincidence that our market has been flooded by software-controlled chinesium. not to get too tinfoil-hatty but it makes sense from the chinese perspective.

See also smart home sensors

Re: Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist

#136

Post by petre »

i_am_jl wrote: post #47
magic_hamster wrote: post #3

They are absolutely right to do this, and private users should be wary as well. DJI's application (Mimo) has been banned from the Android Play Store for some time, with no explanation given by DJI. They offer an APK to side load, which is completely unsupervised, and requires access to your phone's accurate location and other invasive permissions no matter which of their products you are using. This is an important d…

I haven't been keeping up with the legislation updates, but the FAA's proposal for positional reporting required the drone to report the location of the drone and the pilot . It seems to still be their objective under "Why do we need RemoteID" https://www.faa.gov/uas/getting_started/remote_id/drone_pilo... >Remote ID helps the FAA, law enforcement, and other federal agencies find the control station when a drone appe…

If one wants to fly a drone in an unsafe manner they build a FPV drone themselves as opposed to buying an off the shelf regulated product with builtin geofencing.

Re: Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist

#137

Post by petre »

WrtCdEvrydy wrote: post #117
happyopossum wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

iOS handles this differently - there is a distinct permission for accessing local networks and devices, and another for location. Within location, you can choose precise or vague.

So android provides "coarse" or "precise" which maps to "wireless" or "gps" but the prompt tells you the app can get your location for either one.

That's just Google muddying the waters and claiming they respect user privacy, but then the phone asks for precise location every single time.

Re: Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist

#138

Post by viro »

xani_ wrote: post #92
z9znz wrote: post #14

Do other countries put US hardware and software companies on blacklists for their involvement with DoD? If so, then I think quite a few major US tech companies would be unable to do business outside the US and Europe.

We got some recent movements in trying to basically say "if it's US company it doesn't comply by GDPR", because US laws require companies to snitch on demand

Every country on earth requires companies to listen to legal warrants.

Re: Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist

#139

Post by petre »

orangepurple wrote: post #107
twawaaay wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. During WWII the already had radars enough to detect periscopes sticking out of sea surface from tens of miles. They were also able to triangulate subs by their short transmits anywhere on the Atlantic with pinpoint precision. People very much underestimate technical military capabilities. The issues with militaries are of a different kind -- sifting through deluge of information, prioritising, making right i…

I think periscope detection is only possible since the 1970s The opportunity to detect periscopes was exploited in early radar experiments that prompted the development of the AN/APS-116 radar manufactured by Texas Instruments in the 1970s. The AN/APS-116 is an Xband, high-resolution, fast scanning system developed specifically to provide a periscope detection capability on the carrier-based S-3 aircraft. The AN/APS-…

It has been possible since WWII, only not from tens of miles:

"During the early months of the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II, British ships using the radar set Model 271 were able to detect the periscope of a submerged submarine at a distance of 800 m (0.50 mi) during tests in 1940."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_snorkel

Re: Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist

#140

Post by ryandrake »

magic_hamster wrote: post #70
photochemsyn wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a fairly broad problem across the whole phone app world, isn't it? For example, I bought an iOS app for LAN analysis, but then deleted it when it turned out it wouldn't work unless you gave it access to your physical location (I assume that was for their data marketing side business). Also, any data information collected by a US company also has 'a nonzero chance of being handed over to the American authoriti…

> This is a fairly broad problem Permission greed is definitely an issue but it's still the choice of every developer, and there are still plenty of apps that do not do this. You were right to refuse using the app if you don't trust it. > Handed over to the American authorities At least on paper they need to have a reason, unless the corporation is very accommodating which also happens. But some companies are more st…

> Permission greed is definitely an issue but it's still the choice of every developer, and there are still plenty of apps that do not do this. You were right to refuse using the app if you don't trust it.

In fact, at least for Apple, their app store guidelines have, for a long time, prohibited apps from refusing to work without permissions. The app is supposed to gracefully degrade if the user does not consent to any particular permission. Their language seems to have softened[1] a bit since I last looked at it, but the intent is pretty clear: The developer can't just kill the app or prevent it from being used just because someone denied a permission.

1: https://developer.apple.com/app-store/review/guidelines/

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