FCC Tries to Ban DJI Drones and other Chinese Made Drones in US

[Basspig]

In a release today, the FCC has announced that it is seeking to ban DJI drones and other Chinese made drones on the grounds of national security:

Top FCC Official Calls For Ban of DJI Drones, Citing National Security Risk

DJI could join Huawei on the list, effectively banning the sale of its products in the United States.

petapixel.com

 

[Deleted member 62848]

Crazy ,what's the difference between using a phone camera to a drone camera,or Google earth apps , satellite images, they all can be intrusive in some form,should be more fear of smart TVs that sit and watch you or the surveillance cams on traffic lights and buildings and street corners etc
Seems FCC has nothing better to do than pic on drones, I can't say what I think of that
FCC should stand for foreign corrupt companies

 

[dirkclod]

I say BS

 

[Meta4]

In a release today, the FCC has announced that it is seeking to ban DJI drones and other Chinese made drones on the grounds of national security:

That's not the FCC seeking to ban DJI drones.
It's one of five commissioners, making comments that are just an uninformed rehash of the same old misinformation that has been going round for a few years now.
This particular commissioner is nearing the end of his term, and is a hangover from the previous administration, a former aide to Ajit Pai.

 

[WV. Rootman]

I guess I'm just stupid. I believe the guy. "everything from high-resolution images of critical infrastructure to facial recognition technology and remote sensors that can measure an individual’s body temperature and heart rate,” Commissioner Carr said in a ******* statement."
That infrastructure thing, might be why I can't fly around our dams here in WV. That is what the workers at the dam said. Burnsville dam has "no drones" signs around the whole reservoir.

If China was obvious on what they did, they would be stupid. They have to be smarter than the US. to execute an undetected espionage. Is that too deep. You have to think a little on that one.

 

[snowghost]

Reminds me of my mother's account of being a little kid in Dutch East Indies before the war. She noticed all these Japanese people in all walks of life, but they all had cameras--even guys in little fishing boats. Always a camera. Preparation for the invasion.

Edit: I should mention that some of the people my mom saw fishing with cameras showed up as soldiers at her POW camp.

 

[DoomMeister]

Guess we need to shut down YouTube, Instagram, Vimeo, Facebook, Twitter, etc., etc. because they have unbelievable amounts of high resolution imagery of critical infrastructure with GPS coordinates, time and date, etc. embedded in the EXIF data from every type of camera in the inventory.

So if we stop drones from broadcasting how are we going to implement RID that was mandated by Congress? Oh I know, get rid of the rube running his pie hole in high gear without his brain engaged.

 

[WV. Rootman]

When I was a child, my father worked at a research facility. He was bad and brought home something he shouldn't have. A black wire, that when you shined light in one side, it came out the other. It was called fiber optics. Back then, if you told someone that light can shine through a wire, they would have laughed you off. With the knowledge that people had then, it was unconceivable. It just didn't add up. The same applies here. We just don't have that knowledge to know what big government knows. So, if you say you know and the government finds out. You may come up missing. Lol.

 

[dronesky]

Okay drones need to be vetted blue suas in U.S. to protect from spies So..... That means next ALL drone pilots need to be vetted by our government otherwise what's the point in a U.S. made drone flown by anyone a spy simply flies drone and sends these pictures back to the motherland No benefit for security that I can see here

 

[mossphotography]

It's incredibly (& I mean incredibly) unlikely this will amount to anything. For a government agency to literally kill an industry is beyond the pale. We're using our D.C. contacts to make sure people who matter actually know the truth, and more importantly the consequences, of this stupidity.

 

[WV. Rootman]

It's incredibly (& I mean incredibly) unlikely this will amount to anything. For a government agency to literally kill an industry is beyond the pale. We're using our D.C. contacts to make sure people who matter actually know the truth, and more importantly the consequences, of this stupidity.

I disagree with you. I guess money talks and will have its way. You are name calling. I'm amused that you know so much about espionage.

 

[Capt KO]

Is this so called problem with China drones in the firmware or software? Either can pass US inspection for a "Deep Throat" spy hack. Send them over naked and add US approved brains at purchase. and demand a "fix" for existing units. Better than banning but only if this actually gets into congressional committee.

 

[alsobrook4336]

I will be praying and thinking positive thoughts this hobby is all I get to do other than that I’ll just work on my electrical trade and on my land flying my droneIs my only break in life FCC always coming up with some kind of plan just shut us down I’ll just say it’s not going to happen

 

[Adamborz]

Well I own 3 DJI drones and I’m a more than just a little concerned about China’s rhetoric regarding Taiwan etc. Threatening WW3, seriously? I realize DJI is private but even American companies had to be co-owned by China (and share tech) to operate there.

Now, I doubt China looks at my real estate photos, but I agree we shouldn’t be using DJI drones around any sensitive government building for security/ surveillance etc.

BTW, I bought DJI because they seem to be the best, but I would gladly buy from a US company if we ever get our act together and produce a reliable and technologically superior drone here.

Problem is, American companies ship their stuff overseas to save money. Now nothing (an exaggeration) is made in the USA any more.

 

[jaja6009]

I just want to read about the smoking gun. Something like, "secreted in the flight log sent back to DJI's Chinese servers, there was personal information from the user, biometrics from the user, financial information from the user". Seeing how large image and video files are, I still do not see how they would be getting all of this data as concerning images and video, but I am in no way an expert in this.

I try not to discount what would be valuable information in espionage, as things like images may have a wealth of information in them that may not be apparent until it is. Relational databases are used to enter ALL information into it until you find the links, trends and relationships in things that would otherwise never be linked.

But, haven't multiple independent entities shown that if you use DJI products in Local Data Mode, there is no information leaving the drone?

A scary thought is, what if our cybersecurity experts are unaware of of a drone spying on us, when it is right in front of them.

I try to keep an open mind in either case.

 

[Meta4]

I try not to discount what would be valuable information in espionage, as things like images may have a wealth of information in them that may not be apparent until it is.

Apart from the fact that your photos and videos don't end up on DJI's servers anyway, the idea that someone in China trawls through millions of photos of parks, beaches, sunsets and autumn leaves, searching for high value espionage material is just laughable.
Even more so when you think about it and realise that if they wanted photos of high value targets, they can freely travel to those locations, photograph all they like of the subjects of interest from the ground, with their own drone or from a light plane.

No-one is examining your drone videos for espionage value.

 

[Basspig]

The one big flaw in this story is that the FCC is tasked with regulating radio communications. It's not a national security agency. The FCC guy is talking outside his authority.
If it wasn't for my wife pestering me to buy a drone, I would never have gotten into this hobby, as I know it would become like running a hobby broadcast station in 1910--soon to be regulated out of existence.

 

[jaja6009]

Apart from the fact that your photos and videos don't end up on DJI's servers anyway, the idea that someone in China trawls through millions of photos of parks, beaches, sunsets and autumn leaves, searching for high value espionage material is just laughable.
Even more so when you think about it and realise that if they wanted photos of high value targets, they can freely travel to those locations, photograph all they like of the subjects of interest from the ground, with their own drone or from a light plane.

No-one is examining your drone videos for espionage value.

I still do not think they could possibly be "stealing" videos and pictures, but if they somehow were, there would be no person going through it. It could easily be stored by date, coordinates from metadata. AI, facial recognition and relational databases look for trends, relationships. I bring up this route, as I run a database, and while it is a simple one, I do use it with geomatics to attempt to find trends in things. And as I said the value of information may not be apparent until it is. Think of the Brian Laundrie case recently. Did the family at the camp ground know when they took a picture that it would show the Laundire vehicle in the background and this would be something of interest to the case as far as timeline? Now compare that to the innumerable images taken by drones all over. They may contain nothing, or it may contain something valuable on some level. Implausible? Yes. Possible, yes. Any type of mass surveillance is going to contain 99.999% of nothing.

Now back from my journey into paranoia, I still think that I am unconvinced DJI is stealing images and pictures and this FCC commissioner is just more of the previous attempts to go after the leading drone maker. I just worry if they are banned I own 3 DJI drones (insidiously sitting behind me right now) and I worry that they may become paper weights.

 

[dirkclod]

If all you guys worry about is pictures we take with the satellite
Technology and cameras we all have ..USA/ China and god knows who else that can see what you are wearing I can’t beleave you
are worried about all this. Is not only silly but stupid.



And let me say if I have to delete one more post from 1 member he won’t be posting no more. And he knows who he is
Not that I disagree with him but I can’t take sides modding.

 

[jaja6009]

I may be straying off topic but I want to share one more thing about what I am trying to convey.

Also I preface with - I do not believe they are stealing images and videos.

My point is more about mass surveillance in general. The collection of every type of data possible, store it, sort it and be able to revisit it. When first looked at, it does not contain anything apparent. But when needed it does exactly that, contain something you need.

To sort it, when I hooked up Amazon Photos for my 70ish mother, she was absolutely amazed that all of the photos were automatically sorted by date, place and even face. I explained that her Pixel phone stores coordinates in it along with time and date in the photos. I also explained how Amazon's AI sorted her pictures using facial recognition.

Now I have three examples of an image that at first glance contains nothing, but at a later time could be valuable.
I love Google Earth and mapping in general. One day I decided I was going to find myself on Google Earth. I checked my home and work and the roads I would take to get there. Low and behold there I was in the parking lot of work. Now say that wasn't work and it was a parking lot of somewhere I went to conduct a crime. Well now this image has value to the police. Yes I know faces are blurred but your cell phones and drone data is not.

Something I found funny was, I continued to look at work places. We have a policy that you cannot use city resources to wash your car while working. Well low and behold, I found someone I know staring at the Google car as they were washing their car. This person remembers this event too and said they were surprised to see the Google car drive to within 10 feet of them and then turnaround. If you want to be technical, this could easily be used to write up this person and once again the image had no apparent value for anything work management related other than Google Earth showing you the world, but now there is a value of enforcing a rule broken 2 years ago. (No nothing became of this as it was actually too funny to take seriously.)

And finally, I mapped an area to test hardware and software. A sewage line later leaked in this area. We then went back to this map to see if the area in question was showing any signs of leaking (which is didn't) to ascertain if we could pinpoint when it started.

Tinfoil hat now removed, but placed in a safe place.