8 ms·

Drone Maker D.J.I. May Be Sending Data to China, U.S. Officials Say

124 points by nbmh 9y ago

irunbackwards 9y ago
I thought this was like a for sure thing already.
- abakker 9y ago
  Yeah, the army already issued a memo saying that they were not using DJI until this was resolved. That was back in August.
  - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
    That the Army is considering using them at all is interesting.
    - wmf 9y ago
      Aren't DJI drones the best? The military applications of quadcopters seem obvious.
      - flavio81 9y ago
        Quadcopters are in the lower tier of all drone types. Fixed-wing drones are more suited to military applications due to greater range and payload capacity, not to mention speed.
        qq66 9y ago
        There are too many different "military applications" to say that. For sending a drone into a building with possible enemy soldiers, a rotary-wing is definitely better than a fixed-wing.
        jsjohnst 9y ago
        Who says the only use case the military has is to carry weapons and/or perform remote surveillance? Just as plausible they’d use them to survey military owned buildings looking for structural defects, promotional videos of military life, or any other use case that a normal commercial user of DJI products might have.
        abakker 9y ago
        Fixed wing drones require missions, procurement, permissions etc. rotor drones give you plenty of airborn vantage and photography ability for next to no money and minimal risk.
        trhway 9y ago
        The VTOL and hovering capabilities are very useful platoon-level tactical capabilities. Typical usage example from Donbass war - the first 30 sec. of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHo7x2Vcjjg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHo7x2Vcjjg
        pjc50 9y ago
        But Raptor/Predator drones aren't man-portable. Highly maneuverable portable drones are going to be a key part of urban conflict in the next century of the ongoing war in the middle east, just as the RPG and IED have been.
        Density 9y ago
        The army uses man portable fixed wing drones very often.
        ceejayoz 9y ago
        > Fixed-wing drones are more suited to military applications due to greater range and payload capacity, not to mention speed. Ah, yes. The same reasons the Army no longer uses any helicopters at all.
      - fma 9y ago
        I get the impression that the Chinese government constantly violets intellectual property of American companies. I'd have no problems if the US government copies DJI designs for military purposes. Return the favor.
        seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        The basic stabilization work was done in American universities (Stanford 2004 to be precise), so I think it is more of a value proposition (mass produced, cheap).
        abakker 9y ago
        Replying to this thread as a whole. I talked to a General in the army netcom a week after that ban, specifically, I was presenting on the commercial drone market uses. At the time of the ban, the army indicated that they had several thousand DJI drones grounded by that order.
        hrowaway183 9y ago
        Have you actually bought one before? They are the most expensive in the industry. Saying all the work on stabilization is done by the US simply shows you have a lack of understanding what make a drone great. DJI has one of the best flight times. It’s image stabilisation and video quality is unmatched in the industry. Its ability to handle wind turbulence and object avoidance is second to none. Not to mention it’s software features is top notch. All these count to make it the most popular drone in the industry. P.s I know you love to trash talk China and say America is great all the time. But I think you are stereotyping a bit here. The amount of bias in your comments is quite obvious. Make is question how you are a researcher. Learn to judge something by its merits.
    - totalZero 9y ago
      Quality per price is pretty good, and they are the lion's share of the consumer market. Other drone companies hire DJI to consult on, or even design, components of their hardware and controls. So while it's interesting, and probably unwise, it's not altogether loony for groups within the US Department of Defense to use their technology.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
saurik 9y ago
The response to this issue, which was mostly news from August but is coming up again today due to the new probe, was that DJI decided to add an "offline" mode. https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/14/dji-adds-an-offline-mode-to-its-drones-for-clients-with-sensitive-operations/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/14/dji-adds-an-offline-mode-t...
crappybird 9y ago
All android phone are definitely sending data to United States. Why is sending data to one country better than sending data to another? For US citizens, this might be irrelevant (not so much if we go by the leaks). But for everyone living anywhere else on the globe, owning a smartphone means usually owning an endpoint for one of the giant corporate data sinks which its government can easily access. I understand that it is the price I have to pay for a free (sic) OS and play services. But I use it because of a lack of viable libre and open alternative. And I have about as much choice as someone in the market for a decent quadcopter unwilling to send data to China.
- astebbin 9y ago
  The U.S. has strong legal protections against unreasonable search and seizure, as shown in the Apple vs. FBI case after the San Bernardino attack. My understanding is that China has no such privacy protections, either in principle or in practice.
  - jlgaddis 9y ago
    Yeah, it's not like the U.S. can get a top-secret blanket order for call records of everyone in the country or anything. /s
    - chronic824 9y ago
      Having a requirement for a blank order is better than no requirement, as is in China. Would you rather live in China?
  - tehlike 9y ago
    patriot act is rather broad for ensuring strong legal protections.
  - Veratyr 9y ago
    Sure but the US also has a very broad definition of "reasonable", where just about any kind of information you share through or with a business is a "business record" and doesn't require a warrant. Not to mention the blanket surveillance, use of Stingrays without a warrant and near total lack of privacy law. The US might not be as _bad_ as China but it's still far from _good_.
tobiasbischoff 9y ago
you dont say...
pjc50 9y ago
For every $1,000 drone bought from DJI, the military isn't buying a $10k+ drone from Raytheon or Lockheed-Martin. I'm sure that factors into this somehow ..
- dovdovdov 9y ago
  Data rates might be higher to the US. ;)
mmagin 9y ago
Relevant link from recently https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/dji-left-private-keys-for-ssl-cloud-storage-in-public-view-and-exposed-customers/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/dji-l...

124 points by nbmh 9y ago

irunbackwards 9y ago

I thought this was like a for sure thing already.

abakker 9y ago
Yeah, the army already issued a memo saying that they were not using DJI until this was resolved. That was back in August.
- seanmcdirmid 9y ago
  That the Army is considering using them at all is interesting.
  - wmf 9y ago
    Aren't DJI drones the best? The military applications of quadcopters seem obvious.
    - flavio81 9y ago
      Quadcopters are in the lower tier of all drone types. Fixed-wing drones are more suited to military applications due to greater range and payload capacity, not to mention speed.
      - qq66 9y ago
        There are too many different "military applications" to say that. For sending a drone into a building with possible enemy soldiers, a rotary-wing is definitely better than a fixed-wing.
      - jsjohnst 9y ago
        Who says the only use case the military has is to carry weapons and/or perform remote surveillance? Just as plausible they’d use them to survey military owned buildings looking for structural defects, promotional videos of military life, or any other use case that a normal commercial user of DJI products might have.
      - abakker 9y ago
        Fixed wing drones require missions, procurement, permissions etc. rotor drones give you plenty of airborn vantage and photography ability for next to no money and minimal risk.
      - trhway 9y ago
        The VTOL and hovering capabilities are very useful platoon-level tactical capabilities. Typical usage example from Donbass war - the first 30 sec. of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHo7x2Vcjjg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MHo7x2Vcjjg
      - pjc50 9y ago
        But Raptor/Predator drones aren't man-portable. Highly maneuverable portable drones are going to be a key part of urban conflict in the next century of the ongoing war in the middle east, just as the RPG and IED have been.
        Density 9y ago
        The army uses man portable fixed wing drones very often.
      - ceejayoz 9y ago
        > Fixed-wing drones are more suited to military applications due to greater range and payload capacity, not to mention speed. Ah, yes. The same reasons the Army no longer uses any helicopters at all.
    - fma 9y ago
      I get the impression that the Chinese government constantly violets intellectual property of American companies. I'd have no problems if the US government copies DJI designs for military purposes. Return the favor.
      - seanmcdirmid 9y ago
        The basic stabilization work was done in American universities (Stanford 2004 to be precise), so I think it is more of a value proposition (mass produced, cheap).
        abakker 9y ago
        Replying to this thread as a whole. I talked to a General in the army netcom a week after that ban, specifically, I was presenting on the commercial drone market uses. At the time of the ban, the army indicated that they had several thousand DJI drones grounded by that order.
        hrowaway183 9y ago
        Have you actually bought one before? They are the most expensive in the industry. Saying all the work on stabilization is done by the US simply shows you have a lack of understanding what make a drone great. DJI has one of the best flight times. It’s image stabilisation and video quality is unmatched in the industry. Its ability to handle wind turbulence and object avoidance is second to none. Not to mention it’s software features is top notch. All these count to make it the most popular drone in the industry. P.s I know you love to trash talk China and say America is great all the time. But I think you are stereotyping a bit here. The amount of bias in your comments is quite obvious. Make is question how you are a researcher. Learn to judge something by its merits.
  - totalZero 9y ago
    Quality per price is pretty good, and they are the lion's share of the consumer market. Other drone companies hire DJI to consult on, or even design, components of their hardware and controls. So while it's interesting, and probably unwise, it's not altogether loony for groups within the US Department of Defense to use their technology.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]

saurik 9y ago

The response to this issue, which was mostly news from August but is coming up again today due to the new probe, was that DJI decided to add an "offline" mode. https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/14/dji-adds-an-offline-mode-to-its-drones-for-clients-with-sensitive-operations/ https://techcrunch.com/2017/08/14/dji-adds-an-offline-mode-t...

crappybird 9y ago

All android phone are definitely sending data to United States. Why is sending data to one country better than sending data to another? For US citizens, this might be irrelevant (not so much if we go by the leaks). But for everyone living anywhere else on the globe, owning a smartphone means usually owning an endpoint for one of the giant corporate data sinks which its government can easily access. I understand that it is the price I have to pay for a free (sic) OS and play services. But I use it because of a lack of viable libre and open alternative. And I have about as much choice as someone in the market for a decent quadcopter unwilling to send data to China.

astebbin 9y ago
The U.S. has strong legal protections against unreasonable search and seizure, as shown in the Apple vs. FBI case after the San Bernardino attack. My understanding is that China has no such privacy protections, either in principle or in practice.
- jlgaddis 9y ago
  Yeah, it's not like the U.S. can get a top-secret blanket order for call records of everyone in the country or anything. /s
  - chronic824 9y ago
    Having a requirement for a blank order is better than no requirement, as is in China. Would you rather live in China?
- tehlike 9y ago
  patriot act is rather broad for ensuring strong legal protections.
- Veratyr 9y ago
  Sure but the US also has a very broad definition of "reasonable", where just about any kind of information you share through or with a business is a "business record" and doesn't require a warrant. Not to mention the blanket surveillance, use of Stingrays without a warrant and near total lack of privacy law. The US might not be as _bad_ as China but it's still far from _good_.

tobiasbischoff 9y ago

you dont say...

pjc50 9y ago

For every $1,000 drone bought from DJI, the military isn't buying a $10k+ drone from Raytheon or Lockheed-Martin. I'm sure that factors into this somehow ..

dovdovdov 9y ago
Data rates might be higher to the US. ;)

mmagin 9y ago

Relevant link from recently https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/dji-left-private-keys-for-ssl-cloud-storage-in-public-view-and-exposed-customers/ https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2017/11/dji-l...