5 ms·

I'd like to find a good competitor too, and not just because of the geofencing. DJI has been identified as a national security threat by the US DOD, essentially

• MichaelApproved 3y ago
  > there's no way to be sure that every second of GPS-tagged video shot by a DJI drone isn't going into a giant server farm owned by the Chinese intelligence service. I checked your source and it didn’t back up this claim. I’m not a networking specialist but isn’t it possible to detect if something is transmitting a massive amount of data (such as video) to an undetermined destination? seems like this type of blatant data export would be easy to detect and subsequently ban the device doing it. I’m just a simple software developer, so the network stuff can go over my head sometimes (heh), but the claim that such a large amount of data is being transmitted in a way that couldn’t be confirmed enough to ban the product seems dubious.
  • aynyc 3y ago
    Given the volume of data, they can just box up the hard drives and ship via container ships or planes.
    • noknownsender 3y ago
      I assume he means at the device level.
      • MichaelApproved 3y ago
        I did. Thanks!
        • RhodesianHunter 3y ago
          I don't know how DJI works, but presumably it ships the video out to a service that you then log in to to view? If so, it's on their servers and there's no "networking" you can do to know whether they forwarded it on from there.
          • deleted 3y ago
            [deleted]
          • MichaelApproved 3y ago
            If that’s true then you’re right but I don’t know if that’s true.
          • 9witz 3y ago
            The DJI Mini Pro 3 works without Wifi and using the expensive controller, without a phone app, so the opportunities to upload captured data to China are very limited.
            • RhodesianHunter 3y ago
              Unless you use their recommended software. https://www.dji.com/lightcut https://www.dji.com/lightcut
          • pmx 3y ago
            What a strange assumption to make. No it doesn't work like this at all. The video is saved to the SD card in the aircraft, which you then remove and insert it into your computer to download the files.
            • RhodesianHunter 3y ago
              And potentially use their recommended software to work with from there: https://www.dji.com/lightcut https://www.dji.com/lightcut So not that many jumps from what I described.
          • semanticist 3y ago
  • ngcc_hk 3y ago
    You do not need to transmit the video first. But coordinate or interested person. Even a sport watch can be a security threat as demo by some exercise army personnel. They just know who and when and where these places are. For the transfer part it is much harder as said and easier to detect in peace time. But then what happen in war or proxy-war time. You have to know how many senior Russians are killed by using a phone …
    • 1024core 3y ago
      > Even a sport watch can be a security threat as demo by some exercise army personnel. In the early days of the Afghan (or was it Iraq?) war, people used Strava to figure out the locations of American bases. They'd see a bunch of smart watches suddenly wake up in the morning and start exercising at the same time, a dead giveaway.
      • Bimos 3y ago
        Recently a Russian commander got killed because he shared his daily running route on Strava which was seen by the killer. https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/11/europe/russian-submarine-commander-killed-krasnador-intl/index.html https://edition.cnn.com/2023/07/11/europe/russian-submarine-...
        • cjbgkagh 3y ago
          I wonder if killing their dumber commanders might inadvertently be helping them…
          • hackernewds 3y ago
            what a strange argument to make
            • ethbr1 3y ago
              It's fair, but they've been working on improving the quality of their officers since 1904.
• onethought 3y ago
  That release is about using DJI drones in government and military installations. There is not a suggestion that DJI is being used to do wide spread civilian spying. Meanwhile in the US...
  • pokepim 3y ago
    [dead]
  • deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
• abacadaba 3y ago
  Also a national security threat because they're game changing weapons and they make the most and best of them.
  • ramraj07 3y ago
    Best because of the price not the performance. Though the outrageousness of the black hornet drone costing 200K is too much. https://flymotionus.com/2021/11/05/flirs-black-hornet-is-the-worlds-smallest-military-drone/ https://flymotionus.com/2021/11/05/flirs-black-hornet-is-the...
• baybal2 3y ago
  > identified as a national security threat by the US DOD, essentially because there's no way to be sure that every second of GPS-tagged video shot by a DJI drone isn't going into a giant server farm owned by the Chinese intelligence service. There are far more obvious reasons for that. These drones are of enormous military value. By buying them, US consumers are funding an obvious foreign military hardware production. US money may well be funding production of drones which may once be used to correct artillery strikes on Los Angeles. DJI are particular seem to work in concert with "military civilian fusion," and have hardware, and software to defeat both very serious jamming, and attempts to fry its radio with pulsed microwaves. Military jammers for 2.4g band seemingly have near 0 effect.
  • sorokod 3y ago
    >US money may well be funding production ... This statement would be correct for any product of Chinese origin - no?
    • bonestamp2 3y ago
      Yes, and these drones would be a drop in the bucket compared to everything else bought from China.
  • ezconnect 3y ago
    Jammers don't have much effect because of the frequency hopping technology of 2.4ghz band used by hobbyist has been improved upon for years. We used to have flags and announce use frequency during the FM days, now we just go out and race without worrying about interference with other users.