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Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist
- coffeeblack 4y agoIs there any non CCP replacement for their DJI Pocket2 camera?
- donkeyd 4y agoPardon my ignorance, but is there any reason why a GoPro (Max) or Insta360 is not sufficient?
- coffeeblack 4y agoMostly the physical picture stabilization and the better form factor, where the bulky part of the cam is the handle to hold it.
- donkeyd 4y agoOk, that makes sense. Most other options will be bulkier indeed.
- varispeed 4y agoIsn't Insta360 Chinese too? GoPro is/was manufactured in China as well.
- AdrianB1 4y ago"Manufactured in China" (a.k.a. "everything") and "designed, built and controlled by a Chinese Party affiliate" seem to be very different. There is some risk in "manufactured in China" too, but orders of magnitude lower.
- chillacy 4y agoFrom what I heard early GoPro cameras were designed in China as well, they were off the shelf devices rebranded. Only later did GoPro start doing in house camera design.
- magic_hamster 4y agoThey 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 detail. Your phone location might be helpful when using drones (though GPS should be on the drone, not your phone) but there is absolutely no reason to use it for something like a phone stabilizer, which it absolutely requires and will not let you continue unless you turn it on. I did not reverse engineer their application but I will be surprised if there isn't a copious amount of data being sent to the back office. You might not care as an individual, but then maybe ten years from now you will visit China, and they might know about you more than you're comfortable sharing. As a side note, Aljazeera is comically ridiculous: https://imgur.com/a/HnbLy4O https://imgur.com/a/HnbLy4O
- resoluteteeth 4y ago> GPS might be helpful for drones (though it should be on the drone, not your phone) but there is absolutely no reason to use it for something like a phone stabilizer Wouldn't the app need GPS permissions just to show you where the drone is on a map, etc.?
- magic_hamster 4y ago> Wouldn't the app need GPS permissions just to show you where the drone is on a map? How so? The drone can send its own location. The app might show you your location on the map, but that's not mandatory for operating a drone. It is a good user experience, I admit, but you can operate drones without this. And it doesn't explain why phone stabilizers require location access. Tried it myself with the OM 5.
- donkeyd 4y agoNo, it doesn't, since the drone will show you where the drone is. For your own location relative to the drone, it is though. You can do without, but just showing home (take off) location on the map is not ideal.
- mschuster91 4y agoNow if there were any replacement for DJI I'd be happy... their tech stack is weird AF (e.g. you can only view synchronized flightbooks on your DJI RC controller or on the phone if you're using the sticks-only controller but not on the website or the macOS/Windows companion app, the damn expensive DJI RC controller doesn't do HDMI/DP output, the controllers can't be re-used between drone generations, DJI Fly is only available for sideload on Android ...). The #2 used to be GoPro with its Karma drone which is one hell of a beast of a drone, but they exited the market when it became clear that neither the US nor EU had any idea what they were doing regarding drone regulations (to this day the EU hasn't managed to publish the licenseable Standard Scenarios, there is exactly one drone model on the market that is classified under the new EU schema that will become mandatory Q1/23, obtaining permissions by individual restricted zones such as fire departments is a hot mess because no one there knows what to do, countries like Croatia theoretically ban camera drones without a completely intransparent special permit process...). Now, in the EU you're pretty much stuck with DJI if you want to fly in residential areas, hobby built drones and cheap China-made knockoffs that fall under the toy directive. For stuff such as gimbals, there are again virtually only DJI's Ronin series and cheap China-made knockoffs. Seriously the EU and US need to step up and establish or at least fund companies that can compete with DJI and other sanctioned entities. It's ridiculous that people have to choose between funding CCP associated organizations or cheap knockoffs that are riddled with quality issues, software bugs and license issues.
- germinalphrase 4y ago“ Seriously the EU and US need to step up and establish or at least fund companies that can compete with DJI and other sanctioned entities.” Establishing legible regulations, yes - but why should taxpayers fund drone companies? What is the public benefit in doing so?
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- dannyw 4y agoFor the same reasons taxpayers fund semiconductor fabs (CHIPS Act): local supply chains for critical infrastructure.
- z9znz 4y agoDo 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.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- oneplane 4y agoThey probably would if they aren't allies with trade agreements. But they are, and I think you know this already.
- coldtea 4y agoThey would if the US wasn't more powerful than them, and didn't have them in their pocket.
- Dig1t 4y agoChina puts most US software on a blacklist by default.
- stefan_ 4y agoChina has just about banned any foreign software services? They can't ban the hardware, of course. While in the US finding a Chinese part in military hardware is a reason to stop the line, they rely extensively on US parts.
- xani_ 4y agoWe 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
- viro 4y agoEvery country on earth requires companies to listen to legal warrants.
- snowwrestler 4y ago
- stephenitis 4y agoside question. anyone know if DJI drone use prolific within China? How does China regulate their own drones?
- fasteddie31003 4y agoThe Ukrainian-Russo war has shown the military the power of offensive drones. You think they are going to allow civilians to own such powerful potential weapons in the future? I think offensive drone warfare is just scratching the surface. I can think of a few modifications to drones, I've yet to see in Ukraine, that could increase their lethality 10x.
- _kbh_ 4y agoSome of the drones used by Ukraine have pretty wild so far, one ive seen rarely mentioned is this unknown larger drone that drops 10 grenades at a time, carpet bombing an area. https://twitter.com/uaweapons/status/1555657070245986309 https://twitter.com/uaweapons/status/1555657070245986309
- yrgulation 4y agoI imagine the ukranian weapons industry will make a killing post war. Some of their tools are impressive mvps that have a proven product market fit.
- brokenmachine 4y agoI saw a large one with eight rotors and two! anti-tank launchers strapped to it.
- firecall 4y agoAssault Rifles seem to be ok for the US government to place into the hands of US civilians.
- JKCalhoun 4y agoAgree. But I think the idea of flying a bomb into someone's car (the first thing that came to mind when I thought about it for a few seconds) is, to the powerful, a whole 'nother level of terror. Not to be so cynical/dark, but I'm surprised to have not yet heard of a targeted assassination done by an amateur with an off-the-shelf drone. I have to admit the idea is frightening.
- okasaki 4y ago
- vachina 4y ago
- speedylight 4y agoNot just any company, the article clearly states this is about preventing cohesion between China’s “private” sector and their military. Given that drones are being successfully used in Ukirane to fight Russia, how much of the market share DJI controls, and how good they are at making them in the first place… it does make sense from a strategic standpoint.
- emehex 4y agoI've been looking for a non-DJI drone with a Swift SDK for a while. Does this exist?
- ThaDood 4y agoParrot (French) drone company, I think had some Swift dev work. https://github.com/Parrot-Developers https://github.com/Parrot-Developers
- RadixDLT 4y agoplease look into https://www.parrot.com/us https://www.parrot.com/us for dji alternative
- some_random 4y agoI've heard fantastic things about Skydio too https://www.skydio.com/ https://www.skydio.com/
- missedthecue 4y agoThose look like higher end commercial-use drones.
- Arrath 4y agoI've used Parrot's ANAFI drone, actually thanks to the DoD blacklisting our DJI drones, and found it didn't measure up. It flies slowly, doesn't stationkeep in winds as well, is more prone to overheating, takes longer to boot, and other issues. As another poster recommends, I'd suggest looking at Skydio.
- 1-6 4y agoDisappointed 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.
- collegeburner 4y agofr 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.
- bredren 4y agoSee also smart home sensors
- tarsinge 4y agoWhat's not software-controlled these days? DJI has better products, consumers buys DJI, DJI is Chinese, consumer end-up with Chinese software, what's your point?
- ok_dad 4y agoWe 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.
- endisneigh 4y agoHaven’t been keeping up with this - have regular people been affected negatively by the privacy issue, ccp etc?
- autoexec 4y agoIt's hard to say. That's the problem with privacy violations. If a store charges you more than the next person for the same item they aren't going to tell you that it's because of data they bought from some third party and there's no telling where that third party got your data from or how accurate it is. If someone goes to china and they get disappeared the Chinese government isn't going to tell anyone that they were taken let alone that it was because of data they got by surveillance of their mobile device.
- alexfromapex 4y agoBuy Skydio drones instead, they are made in USA.
- simonebrunozzi 4y agoThey can only fly in the US. I am in Europe and I can't fly my Skydio - and they didn't mentioned it in clear terms.
- mardifoufs 4y agoWhy not?
- javajosh 4y agoHow did they stop you? There is no mention of this on their website: https://support.skydio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000935174-Where-can-I-fly-my-Skydio-2-2- https://support.skydio.com/hc/en-us/articles/360000935174-Wh...
- simonebrunozzi 4y agoThis is the only thing I found to try to be able to fix the issue. You can guess it's a lot of work, and not for your average user: [0]. [0]: https://skydiopilots.com/threads/no-wifi-ssid-connection-for-europe-fix-for-skydio-2.1154/ https://skydiopilots.com/threads/no-wifi-ssid-connection-for...
- dijonman2 4y agoI use a 5 year old app on an airgapped device along with old firmware on my drones for precisely this reason. It has no nanny features and allows me to be responsible for my own actions without surveillance. With that said - yes, my drone is registered.
- AdrianB1 4y agoHow does this impact Osmo Action cameras? I don't have one, but I guess it has some phone app (like all do), while still being able to function completely offline. Any information on this?
- adultSwim 4y agoI'm uncomfortable with kneecapping every successful Chinese technology company. "US tech good, China tech bad" doesn't make sense to me.
- squeaky-clean 4y agoIt makes perfect sense to me why the US Government would take that stance. I don't agree with it, but it makes sense. Even if a US based company is tracking user location or audio or whatever privacy concerns, a couple letters with a government stamp on it can get the US Gov complete access to all that data. That's not the case for Chinese tech, and the Chinese government can do the same trick of gobbling up all that available data from companies in their jurisdiction. Or I guess to put it another way, if you're dragnetting basically all possible user data from your citizens and non-citizens, wouldn't you assume "competing" countries are doing the same thing?
- Dig1t 4y agoChina kneecaps all US companies inside of China. Most US companies are banned outright, and the ones that are allowed to operate inside the country are forced to be majority owned by a Chinese entity.
- CamperBob2 4y agoSo are we better than them, or not?
- Dig1t 4y agoWhat does that even mean? Do we have the moral high ground letting a foreign corporation make money from our citizens and send the profits back to that country with no reciprocity? Which moral framework says that that is good?
- CamperBob2 4y agoThe moral framework that says, "Leave it to the consumer to decide what to do with their money." You know. Capitalism.
- AnonMO 4y agoi'm honestly surprised dji never moved to singapore when basically all their revenue comes from the US consumer drone market.
- loyukfai 4y agoOnly if they could? Doing business in China ain't as independent as you think, am afraid.
- simonebrunozzi 4y agoStupid question, but this would be relevant for the market: if people can't buy DJI drones in the US, which drones would they buy? Recreational, sports, or industrial use.
- stardenburden 4y agoYou can still buy DJI drones. It's only that the military can't anymore
- qwezxcrty 4y agoWhile 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.
- sbf501 4y agoThat's a damn shame because DJI drones are years ahead of every open source project I've used: iNav, Beta/Butter/CleanFlight, PX4*, Ardupilot... Nothing compares to the stability and ease of use of consumer DJI drones. I mean, eventually another company will get there, but not right now. (*PX4 on Hawk and Cube FCs is the best experience I've had.)