[HN Gopher] Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist
___________________________________________________________________
Pentagon Puts DJI on Blacklist
Author : stardenburden
Score : 188 points
Date : 2022-10-10 12:38 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.aljazeera.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.aljazeera.com)
| AnonMO wrote:
| i'm honestly surprised dji never moved to singapore when
| basically all their revenue comes from the US consumer drone
| market.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| Stupid 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.
| qwezxcrty wrote:
| 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.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| 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 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
| ThePowerOfFuet wrote:
| > As a side note, Aljazeera is comically ridiculous:
| https://imgur.com/a/HnbLy4O
|
| You were not kidding. Wow.
| i_am_jl wrote:
| 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 appears to be
| flying in an unsafe manner...
|
| To be clear, I don't support this implementation of RemoteID
| proposed by the FAA, and I don't like that the DJI app doesn't
| allow granular control over permissions. I fully support the
| Feds' efforts in sanctioning DJI. However, I think it's
| important that we level reasonable criticisms at DJI for
| behavior that they're capable of changing.
| petre wrote:
| 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.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| This point came up in another comment, and it's definitely
| reasonable - but I still don't see why DJI would require your
| location when using products _other_ than drones, which they
| do. And as I noted before, they are providing an app which
| has been axed from the official store. Aside from this, as I
| 'm sure you're aware, any information that DJI collect has a
| nonzero chance of being handed over the the Chinese
| authorities for any reason whatsoever.
| photochemsyn wrote:
| 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
| authorities for any reason whatsoever'.
|
| The only real solution is data protection laws that can be
| enforced not just by governmental authorities, but also by
| individual and class-action lawsuits against companies that
| violate those laws.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| > 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 Android is semi-right on it.
| Something that doesn't use wireless means of
| communication doesn't need location access.
| dTal wrote:
| 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.
| happyopossum wrote:
| 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.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| Sort of off-topic complaint, but I wish Apple didn't make
| the Precise Location permission status viewable by apps.
| There's no reason they need to know if I'm obfuscating my
| location from them, and many apps look for this setting
| and refuse to work with Precise Location disabled.
|
| For example the McDonald's app doesn't allow you to use
| coupons unless you enable the precise location
| permission.
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| Some of it comes down to whether the app should rely on
| that positional data... like for catching an uber or
| something.
|
| I do think that's exploiting the ecosystem and I have a
| feeling one well placed complaint with Apple would cause
| a stern message to McDonald's... does the app tell you
| it's because of your location accuracy?
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| 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.
| petre wrote:
| That's just Google muddying the waters and claiming they
| respect user privacy, but then the phone asks for precise
| location every single time.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| > 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 strict about this and at least in
| theory accessing private information is not as easy in
| western countries. Or so I'd like to believe. I'm not
| sure in China you can tell the government official to
| come back when they have a warrant in a meaningful way.
|
| > The only real solution is data protection laws
|
| Sign me up! Unfortunately, the current state of things
| makes a lot of money for some parties, and legislators
| don't really have an incentive to do anything about this.
| However, it sends a very clear message when the Pentagon
| closes the door on some companies or when certain vendors
| like Huawei or ZTE are banned altogether.
| myself248 wrote:
| > At least on paper they need to have a reason,
|
| No they don't.
|
| They need a reason to get a warrant. But if they simply
| buy the data from a broker, they don't need any reason at
| all, and there is utterly no oversight.
| ryandrake wrote:
| > 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/
| LeifCarrotson wrote:
| > I assume that was for their data marketing side
| business
|
| You're confused: Their primary business is data
| marketing. LAN analysis or anything useful the apps might
| do are a side business at best.
| sofixa wrote:
| > 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).
|
| I don't know how iOS works, but on Android location data
| permissions are requested for anything involving
| networking (including Bluetooth, WiFi). Why? Because
| access to those could be used to estimate where the user
| is physically located, so gating it behind the location
| permission is a good way to ensure nobody exploits that.
| It's not necessarily obvious when you're presented with
| the permission screen though.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| If it's really a case of gating permissions, I still
| don't like it.
|
| I used a few apps that utilize Bluetooth without asking
| for location, even when they aren't the obvious use case
| (like headphones), although admittedly it's been a while
| since then.
|
| Afair, I don't recall the Mimo app asking me to turn on
| wifi for the stabilizer. But maybe yes and I just turned
| it off after connecting to the device. The operation of
| the stabilizer is through Bluetooth.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| For the majority of smartphone's existence no permission
| was necessary, probably because no one ever considered
| it. Then it was learned stores, for example Target, were
| using their mobile app to broadcast Bluetooth signals in
| order to track shoppers movement around the store. So
| around 2019 Android added it to the general location
| permission to use Bluetooth for anything other than audio
| transmission to/from a paired device if device pairing is
| handled by the OS, hidden from the app.
|
| In late 2021 Android changed it to a separate
| "ACCESS_FINE_LOCATION" permission, while Apple still
| keeps it under the general bluetooth permission (while
| the popup mentions it can be used to track your
| location).
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| Some of DJIs drones are small enough that they wouldn't have
| to follow that rule (the pilot GPS requirement is only for
| drones that are required to be registered with the FAA, aka
| those heavier than 250g. DJI very intentionally has a line of
| drones that weigh something like 248g)
| i_am_jl wrote:
| Yep, the Spark and the Mavic Mini series are all exempt
| from registration and RemoteID as they're 249g on the nose.
|
| I'm just pointing out why the DJI app may need the
| capabilities that it does, but you're right, for many users
| who will never own a >250g DJI drone, that permission will
| never, ever be necessary.
| resoluteteeth wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| > 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 wrote:
| No, 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 wrote:
| > GPS might be helpful for drones (though it should be on the
| drone, not your phone)
|
| Actually, for the new EU regulations, you need to broadcast
| both the position of the drone and of the operator, at least
| for everything above class C1 ("remote ID", see [1]).
|
| And in any case, drones without working GPS are _not_ fun to
| fly. DJI 's Mini 3 Pro (and its larger friends) can do by using
| the collision-avoidance stereo cameras, but others I wouldn't
| dare risk running indoors.
|
| [1] https://www.drohnen.de/20336/drohnen-gesetze-eu/
| magic_hamster wrote:
| While this is interesting (broadcast to whom exactly?) my
| main point is that DJI demands access to your smartphone
| location even for products that clearly have no use for this
| information, while giving you a sideloaded app which is
| banned from the official store. To me, these point to a trust
| issue.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > While this is interesting (broadcast to whom exactly?)
|
| It's hard to find any information about how Remote-ID is
| supposed to work, but in theory the ID packets are sent by
| WiFi NAN and Bluetooth so that they can be received by
| anyone in the radio range (which is quite important for
| authorities to track down violators, e.g. people flying
| around hospital helipads). Unfortunately, current phones
| seem to lack support hardware-wise (see [1], page 6).
|
| [1] https://www.cencenelec.eu/media/CEN-
| CENELEC/Events/Webinars/...
| phpisthebest wrote:
| >which is quite important for authorities to track down
| violators
|
| no, it is not. it is yet another power grab by the FAA
| and federal authorities to increase the surveillance
| state.
|
| I should not be required to broadcast my signal to the
| federal government to prove I am not going to commit a
| crime, that is the exact backwards of how the legal
| system is suppose to work
| sgtnoodle wrote:
| I'm not familiar with the EU side of things, but I am
| familiar with the FAA's regulations in the USA.
|
| The FAA hasn't specified an implementation. It's on the
| manufacturer to come up with a means of compliance, and
| then get the FAA to sign off on it. There is a standard
| put out by the ASTM, which is heavily based on an open
| source project, OpenDroneID.
|
| The standard moved away from NAN in the draft phase, in
| favor of vendor elements in 802.11 beacon frames. You can
| choose 802.11 or Bluetooth Low Energy. If you choose
| 802.11, 2.4ghz is required and 5ghz is recommended. If
| you choose BLE, v4 is required, and doing v5 as well is
| recommended.
| tunap wrote:
| While I initially balked at buying such spywares, I did
| break down and buy a Mini 2 last year(it's awesome!!!). I
| side-loaded the app on an old phone, sans SIM, with a
| pristine LOS install. Connected it to wifi to register &
| immediately put the phone in Airplane Mode.
|
| Been meaning to research how to independently flash the
| drone's firmware offline to wipe collected data, but
| haven't delved into that yet. Any suggestions welcomed!
| ceejayoz wrote:
| > 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, which it absolutely
| requires and will not let you continue unless you turn it on.
|
| It's for the flight restriction system. Won't let you fly near
| schools, power plants, airports etc.
| [deleted]
| magic_hamster wrote:
| This might not be the best way to go about it because what
| you care about in this scenario is the location of the drone,
| not the operator, who might stand outside the no flight zone.
| Which is another reason to use the drone's GPS signal in the
| app instead of your phone location.
|
| Either way when using a drone they will know your location,
| but there's no reason to let DJI access this information when
| using every single product they make.
| mbreese wrote:
| It might download a new restriction zone set based upon
| where the operator is. Without knowing anything about the
| internals of the drone, it would not be possible for the
| drone to have a full set of restricted areas for the
| planet. They change, get updated, etc...
|
| For a drone, I understand the requirement. If you are using
| a drone, giving up your personal GPS location isn't a big
| ask. You must be within sight line of your drone and the
| FAA may have a legitimate reason for knowing your personal
| location. (For most uses)
| kayodelycaon wrote:
| I don't see why a drone couldn't have a massive set of
| lat-long boundaries unless disk space or CPU is severely
| limited. Text doesn't take up much space.
| thetinguy wrote:
| The list of restricted airspaces is not static.
| twawaaay wrote:
| The drone can refuse to takeoff or fly into restricted space
| based just on its own GPS. It absolutely does not require to
| track the pilot.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Not all DJI drones _have_ a GPS.
| aardvarkr wrote:
| But then how would they be able to sell your location data?
| It's a crucial revenue stream! /s
|
| They do sell a tool to police and governments that allow
| them to track drone operators. The Ukraine military uses
| drones extensively to monitor the Russians from the air and
| assist with artillery accuracy but any time they would
| launch a dji drone Russia had access to that software and
| would send an artillery shell to the pilots location.
| orangepurple wrote:
| Russians, like Ukrainians, and all other government
| forces in the world, have extensive experience
| triangulating transmitted signals in warzones.
| Considering that these drones rely on bidirectional
| communication, it is obvious where the pilot is without
| hacking DJI. A drone operator in a warzone appears like
| an active microwave oven with its door stuck open
| operating from a deserted area. Militaries can
| triangulate those signals for decades.
| twawaaay wrote:
| 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 inferences, etc., not the ability to spot
| and triangulate the enemy.
| orangepurple wrote:
| 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-137 is an upgrade of this radar used primarily
| on the S-3; a limited number are also used on the land-
| based P-3 aircraft.
|
| https://www.jhuapl.edu/Content/techdigest/pdf/V18-N01/18-
| 01-...
| petre wrote:
| 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
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| On Android, anything that can broadcast a signal
| (bluetooth/wifi) require location, at least coarse.
|
| I'm not saying DJI isn't spying on everything but that's
| probably the reason. This is hilarious in hindsight because for
| years, you had to give an app call access so they could monitor
| if a call was incoming (for pausing a game for example)
|
| Edit: It also looks to be a GDPR ban.
| notatoad wrote:
| >anything that can broadcast a signal (bluetooth/wifi)
|
| it's the opposite - anything that can read a signal that has
| been broadcast by another deivce requires location
| permission. which makes sense, because if you can poll for
| nearby wifi networks or bluetooth beacons you can determine
| location, even without using the GPS hardware.
| xani_ wrote:
| Yeah, makes sense from "not confusing users" perspective.
|
| "This app only needs wifi network list, it isn't spying on
| me" would be easy mistake to make
| WrtCdEvrydy wrote:
| so Android permissions actually separate coarse and
| precise but the prompt for location is the same whether
| you request one or the other.
| mym1990 wrote:
| Wouldn't the GPS on phone be primarily so that the drone knows
| where to go in case of emergency? I have also used a drone to
| follow me while on a bicycle or in a car...it seems like the
| phone would need GPS there as well.
|
| Wondering if GPS on the drone would dramatically affect battery
| life as well?
| magic_hamster wrote:
| > where to go in case of emergency
|
| In case of emergency, drones just land where they are, or
| they could try to go back to the point of origin. Depending
| on the emergency, the drone might lose connection with the
| operator, in which case your own location is not very useful.
| I didn't run into emergencies lately but usually as far as I
| know the operator sets out to retrieve the drone.
|
| > Wondering if GPS on the drone would dramatically affect
| battery life as well?
|
| The vast majority of consumer drones already have GPS (on the
| device) today.
|
| > have also used a drone to follow me while on a bicycle or
| in a car
|
| It's more likely the drone follows you with computer vision
| although GPS could potentially help if the drone completely
| loses you. I imagine your phone location will be more helpful
| in pointing out the general direction than actually getting
| you in the center of the shot. It's not that accurate, and
| there are more variables at play like the vertical angle.
| mynameisvlad wrote:
| > In case of emergency, drones just land where they are, or
| they could try to go back to the point of origin. Depending
| on the emergency, the drone might lose connection with the
| operator, in which case your own location is not very
| useful. I didn't run into emergencies lately but usually as
| far as I know the operator sets out to retrieve the drone.
|
| The default setting on connection loss is "return to home"
| with hover or land where you are as options. "Home" is a
| constantly updated location (sent from the controller to
| the drone) if you move, which, as another person mentioned,
| is absolutely _critical_ in some scenarios like being on a
| boat where your position updates constantly.
|
| As another person also mentioned, EU _and FCC_ regulations
| will also require Remote ID, which broadcasts the drone 's
| and operator's GPS positions. The latter is used if you did
| something bad and need to be spoken to.
|
| Drone usage is somewhere where location is _absolutely_
| needed, _especially_ for critical situations where you want
| your drone to not be lost forever (and so the government
| can slap you on the hand in person if you did something
| bad).
| mym1990 wrote:
| I think the drone landing where it is could be pretty
| catastrophic given that the drone really doesn't know what
| is below. Pilots routinely fly over large crowds, traffic,
| water, etc... and a drone with no controller just landing
| into one of those things is pretty dangerous. The drone
| doesn't necessarily need to have connection with the pilot
| at all times, but if it has a reference for the last point
| of contact, it can be helpful to guide it back to a known
| location.
|
| Touche on the computer vision point!
| justsomehnguy wrote:
| > or they could try to go back to the point of origin.
|
| Great idea you if origin was on the boat.
|
| I don't know why you all on the fence here, even I, who
| never used those drones, understand what first and foremost
| it is for the ability for the drone to return to the
| current/last known position of operator.
|
| Yes, it could be used to send your location directly to
| CCP's secret service, but you can't have the GPS and eat^W
| don't have it too.
| jetanoia wrote:
| fyi the aljazeera screenshot doesn't show the dji article -
| just a cookie disclosure. Was the 'ridiculous' part in the
| article? Or their saying that the cookie gives "voice to the
| voiceless". (Which is funny)
| collegeburner wrote:
| it's ridiculous that the propaganda arm of a totalitarian
| illiberal petrostate claims to "give a voice to the
| voiceless" or "promote truth and transparency". i also really
| dislike them because their "aj+" brand puts out heavily left
| biased faux-intellectual junk similar to vox or buzzfeed
| which makes me want to punch through a wall regardless of who
| puts it out.
| lom wrote:
| It's ridiculous that the cookie banner takes that much space.
| The site is pretty unusable like that.
| coldtea wrote:
| That's the whole idea, that is should be if not a modal,
| then like a modal, to get a response from the user before
| proceeding with the site.
|
| Nothing ridiculous about it (except the GDPR law itself).
| Many news websites do it even bigger, or hide the whole
| screen with a modal white overlay.
| jon-wood wrote:
| GDPR does not mandate huge banners for every use of
| cookies. Those banners are mandated because the website
| in question wants to share information gathered on you
| with, in the case of most news websites, hundreds of
| third parties in order to make a little bit more money
| from advertisers.
| brewdad wrote:
| So pretty much the same as every other news site on the
| planet? I guess I'm not fully understanding why the OP is
| specifically calling out Al Jazeera here.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| You can barely see the title behind the cookie popup and the
| "live" section, which is one of the worst examples I've seen
| for these annoying practices.
|
| Thankfully Firefox on Android has the "reader mode" available
| right next to the url.
| inphovore wrote:
| > Aljazeera is comically ridiculous
|
| Aljazeera is a model of journalism excellence and integrity!
|
| Is this about their cookie warning? They're obligated to say
| something.
|
| If you don't take their journalism seriously, you deceive
| yourself!
| alasdair_ wrote:
| >Aljazeera is a model of journalism excellence and integrity!
|
| There are really two versions of Aljazeera. The Western-
| facing one is pretty good (although it sometimes has Russia
| Today vibes on certain topics). The non-Western version is
| tabloid nonsense.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| > Aljazeera is a model of journalism excellence and
| integrity!!!
|
| I might have been able to respond to this proclamation if I
| could find their damn website under all the popups and
| consent modals.
| RosanaAnaDana wrote:
| I wonder if its actually for a dgps application.
|
| Two GPS signals, two clocks, wireless signals being
| transmitted. You might be able to do a time differential
| offset/ correction to get a much higher accuracy relative
| position (drone and phone are very confident in their relative
| positions).
| xani_ wrote:
| >This is an important detail. Your phone location might be
| helpful when using drones (though GPS should be on the drone,
| not your phone)
|
| I'd imagine it would be important for "come back home" like
| functionality in case drone loses signal or whatever
|
| > 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
|
| App making photos or movies using GPS to tag location of the
| photo is kinda common. Refusing to work without it would be
| sketchy tho, but "developer is kinda incompetent" is common
| enough...
|
| Not saying it isn't malicious but those are easier
| explanations.
|
| Hell, it could require permissions and not send the data _now_
| , just add that tracking in update...
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| The "come back home" functionality relies on the GPS on the
| drone, but the "follow me while filming" needs the phone's. I
| saw quite a lot of motorcycling vlogs using that feature.
| RadixDLT wrote:
| please look into https://www.parrot.com/us for dji alternative
| Arrath wrote:
| I'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.
| some_random wrote:
| I've heard fantastic things about Skydio too
| https://www.skydio.com/
| missedthecue wrote:
| Those look like higher end commercial-use drones.
| coffeeblack wrote:
| Is there any non CCP replacement for their DJI Pocket2 camera?
| donkeyd wrote:
| Pardon my ignorance, but is there any reason why a GoPro (Max)
| or Insta360 is not sufficient?
| varispeed wrote:
| Isn't Insta360 Chinese too? GoPro is/was manufactured in
| China as well.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| "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.
| coffeeblack wrote:
| Mostly the physical picture stabilization and the better form
| factor, where the bulky part of the cam is the handle to hold
| it.
| donkeyd wrote:
| Ok, that makes sense. Most other options will be bulkier
| indeed.
| adultSwim wrote:
| I'm uncomfortable with kneecapping every successful Chinese
| technology company. "US tech good, China tech bad" doesn't make
| sense to me.
| squeaky-clean wrote:
| It 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 wrote:
| China 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.
| karambyt wrote:
| Maybe China should stop kneecapping their own tech by injecting
| backdoors, layering hidden circuitry into motherboards, and
| harvesting US and EU user data for whateverthefuck their end
| goal is.
|
| I mean, I get it, "poor put-upon China!", but let's be honest
| here: China needs to stop fucking around, lest they find out.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Now 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.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| DJI definitely got the jump on this market, and more
| annoyingly, they make pretty good products if not for the trust
| issues.
|
| But nothing lasts forever.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| Agreed, but my point is that without serious government
| funding and general intervention DJI are far too far ahead
| for European companies to catch up.
| magic_hamster wrote:
| 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.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| 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 data can be used by the military for
| all sorts of planning and general intel collection.
|
| Given that DJI has 76% of the market, the largest
| competitor (shockingly Intel - no idea they made
| drones?!) has 4% and the rest barely hits ~3%, it's safe
| to assume that no competitor comes even close to DJI [1].
|
| [1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1254982/global-
| market-sh...
| nebula8804 wrote:
| 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!
| Ancapistani wrote:
| Autel is "on par" - better in some areas and lacking in others.
| They're a Chinese company, though some of their higher-end
| stuff is assembled in the US. They don't "phone home" like DJI
| and don't restrict flight based on geolocation in the US.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > They don't "phone home" like DJI and don't restrict flight
| based on geolocation in the US.
|
| The latter is actually a requirement in the EU starting
| Q1/23, simply because there have been way too many people
| without any clue about drone regulations causing danger to
| general and emergency aviation. It's a good idea when
| manufacturers step up to prevent their products from causing
| harm to others.
| germinalphrase wrote:
| " 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?
| dannyw wrote:
| For the same reasons taxpayers fund semiconductor fabs (CHIPS
| Act): local supply chains for critical infrastructure.
| RobotToaster wrote:
| In an ideal world it would fund a non-profit to develop open
| source software and hardware for the good of all.
|
| In reality it will just end up funding a contractor with good
| lobbyists.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > What is the public benefit in doing so?
|
| At the moment, DJI's R&D is likely _heavily_ subsidized by
| Chinese military funds. The result of that is that DJI can
| offer its products vastly cheaper than domestic (or allied
| nations ') companies can.
|
| Therefore, the public benefit of subsidies, tariffs and
| sanctions would be:
|
| - not assisting China's military development by providing
| funds (from drone sales) and operational data from the
| drones. Even the flight logs provide immense amounts of real
| world data about the environment and the behavior - e.g. the
| Mini 3 Pro's camera based object tracking. That's _crazy
| good_ AI at work there, gotta admit that.
|
| - providing domestic and allied nations' companies with the
| opportunity to do business without being subject to Chinese
| price dumping, thus keeping wealth inside the allied space
| and outside of the CCPs cash reserves
|
| - consumers have their privacy rights respected
| magic_hamster wrote:
| The public is already funding drone research, but it's all in
| defense and military.
| varispeed wrote:
| The thing is companies in the EU can't use slave workers and
| there is no access to cheap resources that are mined without
| regulations and so on. But, big corporations are allowed to
| sidestep that by manufacturing in countries that don't care
| about that and so having huge competitive advantage over
| potential European manufacturers.
|
| For some reason the EU is not seeking level playing field
| with China.
|
| Opening tax payer funding for corporations willing to
| manufacture in the EU is an open season for corruption and
| display of hypocrisy.
| coldtea wrote:
| > _The thing is companies in the EU can 't use slave
| workers and there is no access to cheap resources that are
| mined without regulations and so on_
|
| Sure they can. In the 1940s they did it to several million
| people (a large part Jews). Up until the mid-20th century
| they stole resources and took advantage of human capital
| directly in occupied lands ("colonies"). Now they do it
| through outsourcing work to sweatshops, child mines, and
| such, in Asia, Africa, and so on. They also do whatever
| they can to keep those "unregulated mines" and cheap
| resources flowing, by by the traditional way of meddling in
| their ex-colonies, toppling governments, and so on.
| [deleted]
| fisian wrote:
| There are competitors in EU and US: Skydio and Parrot are the
| first I can think of, although their products cost more and
| aren't as consumer focused.
| coldtea wrote:
| There many companies that make drones outside of China. The
| question about replacement was more about "as good" drones...
| rlex wrote:
| Looks like parrot doesn't sell anafi anymore (only anafi ai
| which seems to be focused on enterprisey stuff), and skydio,
| while looking nice, is not foldable. So if you want compact
| photo/video quad for trips, your choice is pretty limited.
| Especially if you want to stay below 250g weight. There is
| Autel Robotics which produces quads similar to DJI, but it's
| also mainland China company.
| alexfromapex wrote:
| Buy Skydio drones instead, they are made in USA.
| simonebrunozzi wrote:
| They 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 wrote:
| Why not?
| dijonman2 wrote:
| I 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.
| endisneigh wrote:
| Haven't been keeping up with this - have regular people been
| affected negatively by the privacy issue, ccp etc?
| 1-6 wrote:
| 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.
| collegeburner wrote:
| 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.
| ok_dad wrote:
| 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.
| dchichkov wrote:
| China have a "Made-in-China" plan, one of its goal is good
| old control of means of production. Is there something like
| that in the US?
| ok_dad wrote:
| Yea, the trillions we spent being the world police for
| decades, our political push for oil to be priced in usd,
| etc.
| bredren wrote:
| See also smart home sensors
| tarsinge wrote:
| What'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?
| sbf501 wrote:
| That'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.)
| okasaki wrote:
| vachina wrote:
| speedylight wrote:
| Not 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.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| How 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?
| z9znz wrote:
| 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.
| karambyt wrote:
| The US has ITAR. If you have certain government contracts you
| are prohibited from selling products or providing access to
| certain foreign nations (blacklists), or a complete export
| blanket ban.
|
| For instance, I recently started investing in an excitingly
| expensive hobby, night vision. The tubes in those things are so
| heavily restricted that I cannot even let a foreign national
| _touch_ them, technically. Which makes it interesting
| considering my girlfriend is a Tunisian foreign national here
| on a work visa, so technically I cannot show her my cool new
| toys I spent thousands of dollars on.
| coldtea wrote:
| They would if the US wasn't more powerful than them, and didn't
| have them in their pocket.
| Dig1t wrote:
| China puts most US software on a blacklist by default.
| snowwrestler wrote:
| I guess you have not been following the various EU rulings that
| say that EU citizen data must not flow to U.S. companies
| because it could be collected by U.S. intelligence services.
| "Google Analytics Ruled Illegal" would be a typical headline.
| z9znz wrote:
| That is considerably different from blacklisting an entire
| company.
| [deleted]
| stefan_ wrote:
| China 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.
| oneplane wrote:
| They probably would if they aren't allies with trade
| agreements. But they are, and I think you know this already.
| xani_ wrote:
| 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
| viro wrote:
| Every country on earth requires companies to listen to legal
| warrants.
| stephenitis wrote:
| side question.
|
| anyone know if DJI drone use prolific within China? How does
| China regulate their own drones?
| emehex wrote:
| I've been looking for a non-DJI drone with a Swift SDK for a
| while. Does this exist?
| ThaDood wrote:
| Parrot (French) drone company, I think had some Swift dev work.
|
| https://github.com/Parrot-Developers
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| The 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_ wrote:
| Some 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
| photochemsyn wrote:
| They're certainly an optimal delivery device for biological and
| chemical weapons, and I imagine it's only a matter of time
| before such programs are revived by various powers, given the
| current breakdown in international treaty regimes governing
| what I'd call the four horsepeople of the apocalypse: nuclear,
| chemical, biological and cyber warfare.
| dmos62 wrote:
| I know you were talking about conventional warfare, but
| unless your apocalypse-causing list includes inflation
| upfront, it's not complete.
| sofixa wrote:
| How are they more optimal than the "traditional" (for the
| last few decades) method, a missile? Missiles have the
| advantages of bigger range, faster, different profiles
| (hypersonic cruise, ICBM). A drone might be harder to detect
| today, maybe, because anti-air systems didn't need to deal
| with them (while they did have to deal with missiles, so are
| optimised for that use case), but that's about it?
| photochemsyn wrote:
| Availability is much higher, so that opens the door to use
| by non-state actors. Stealth is probably also higher. I
| suppose the combination, i.e. missiles delivering cluster-
| type munitions (releasing hundreds of drones instead of
| hundreds of bomblets) is what state-level militaries would
| pursue.
|
| Little-known fact: cluster munitions (essentially, hot-
| water-heater-size cylinders packed with hundreds of small
| devices) were originally developed for the dispersal of
| chemical and biological warfare munitions over wide areas.
| A4ET8a8uTh0 wrote:
| There is nothing to allow. The cat is already out of the bag.
| Best you can hope for is regulation, which is what FAA is
| attempting to do and mitigation ( some companies have ideas on
| how to counter 'bad' drones ). In a sense, it is no different
| than it was before. People can still drive cars. People can
| still use RC toys. And people will do all sorts of horrible
| things will all manner of technology.
|
| << I can think of a few modifications to drones, I've yet to
| see in Ukraine, that could increase their lethality 10x.
|
| I don't know this, but I suspect we are only seeing some rather
| selective footage ( as with most warfare propaganda ). Just
| thinking what one could do with coordinating drones makes me
| shiver a little.
|
| Still, as a species we are oddly adaptable. Here is to hope
| permanent drone sky will not become our new normal.
| firecall wrote:
| Assault Rifles seem to be ok for the US government to place
| into the hands of US civilians.
| maxwell wrote:
| You have it backwards: the U.S. government is explicitly
| prohibited constitutionally from infringing the human right
| to bear arms.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Please let me know how to buy one, they are forbidden since
| 1936 with very few exceptions and astronomic prices.
| collegeburner wrote:
| ^^^ this comment was posted by someone who does not know what
| an assault rifle is. it is very difficult and expensive to
| get ahold of a assault rifle these days and has been for
| almost 40 years.
|
| though yeah i think we should repeal that law, there is
| nothing wrong with civilians owning assault rifles. the
| federal government is _literally not allowed_ to pass or
| enforce laws against this because it clearly infringes the
| individual right to keep and bear arms. we can only hope some
| time in the next few years the NFA, GCA and FOPA are struck
| down, along with all the asinine regulation that has forced
| so many small gun manufacturers out of business, increased
| gun prices for American consumers and retarded innovation in
| civilian small arms.
| ethanbond wrote:
| Yes same for tactical nukes
| theodric wrote:
| Legalize recreational nukes
| collegeburner wrote:
| legalize nuclear bombs... bees make honey
| karambyt wrote:
| I hate this argument because it's fucking stupid. I think
| we can draw a clear and logical line between "gun" and
| "doomsday device".
| [deleted]
| ethanbond wrote:
| Yeah, there's a line _somewhere_ obviously, but it's also
| not defined by "is it an arm? Okay then you have a right
| to bear it!"
|
| As technology advances, either we have to be comfortable
| with more and more destructive devices being in the hands
| of everyday people, _or_ we have to be comfortable with
| restricting access to more and more devices that qualify
| as "arms."
| JKCalhoun wrote:
| Agree. 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.
| andrei_says_ wrote:
| Remember the D.C. Sniper attacks?
|
| Not sure if grenades are as available to the public as
| bullets and if I remember correctly bombs are illegal to
| make.
| giantrobot wrote:
| The past thirty years of offensive drones has shown the
| military power offensive drones. The US fields drones from the
| size of passenger aircraft to tiny little palm sized ones. It's
| also been firing missiles from them for decades now.
|
| Drones in warfare are not new at all. Even the use of
| commercial drones is not new.
| thriftwy wrote:
| Both sides are purchasing these specific DJI drones in large
| quantities to be used by personnel on the ground to spot each
| other. It is a commodity not unlike binoculars were a century
| ago.
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