DJI says DOI’s drone program review has “lack of credible evidence”

[LUIS MARTINEZ]

You just had to post a “tin hat” picture.

Couple weeks ago I had a meeting with a person that wanted to discuss various surveillance methods. The reason is not pertinent. At first he gave the appearance of being serious and having something to share. That didn’t last very long, and went into the sewer when he mentioned he was wearing a foil lined cap. End of meeting...

On a different note it seems many think that espionage and surveillance is done to obtain a massive, one time discovery. With the exception of web based hacks, it’s usually not. What usually happens is a long process that collects many small pieces of information that analysts link together to make a “big picture”. Lot’s of small things that by themselves are meaningless tell a very clear story when collated. Changes, movement, developments, routes, patterns, schedules, are all well defined with enough small pieces of info. That’s one of the ways we found IED’s. We looked at roads from above many, many times to see when something looked different from all the times before. When something changed there was usually cause for a closer look.

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WHO SAYS YOU TUBE IS WORTHLESS????

 

[PatR]

. I still fail to see how a DJI video of my doghouse will lead to Chinese Armageddon.

Not everyone is taking pictures of dog houses, they know how to separate wheat from the chaff. Who knows, your dog house might have something near enough to be interesting that was also captured in the photo.

As for “Homeland”, I think we both know only the technology they want people to know about gets air time. I did day-night aerial border patrol in other countries...

 

[Meta4]

Not everyone is taking pictures of dog houses, they know how to separate wheat from the chaff.

The effort to sort through mountains of meaningless drone video to separate it from anything of any espionage value would be incalculable.
Anyone really seeking valuable information isn't going to wast the time and effort sorting through drone flyer's photos and videos.
They would buy a plane ticket, rent a car and go and see what they were interested in or charter a light plane and go flying.
Your home videos are not of any espionage value.

But I'm still wondering how the baddies actually get their hands on this treasure trove of priceless information contained in everyone's photos and videos.
The notion that your drone somehow sends it all back somewhere is as hard to believe as the supposed value of the imagery from thousands of hobbyists.
It's a paranoid fantasy that doesn't stand up to analysis.

 

[Mavic Mac]

The government has hired more employees (spies) that have "stolen" more classified & sensitive information then my drone could ever be able to film.

 

[LUIS MARTINEZ]

Not everyone is taking pictures of dog houses, they know how to separate wheat from the chaff. Who knows, your dog house might have something near enough to be interesting that was also captured in the photo.

As for “Homeland”, I think we both know only the technology they want people to know about gets air time. I did day-night aerial border patrol in other countries...

I know, you can tell me but you'll have to kill me.

 

[Philztoy]

Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get me lol
... I just know that they are never getting my doghouse. because I know that I am NEVER getting a dog!

So the NSA had HUGE banks of computers in huge complexes to go through all kinds of "worthless" data. All of which they must have been able to sort and find when it became relavant.

I think China, which is quite computer advanced, could store and search hundreds of thousands of GPS coordinate pictures and videos to find a particular area of interest if desirable for them. Could be just for corporate advantage, could be military installations or background knowledge. Most of it is worthless. Under the right circumstances some might be valuable.

U.S. companies who wanted cheaper labor just gave trade secrets to China when they manufactured their goods cheaper in China. The China government makes the U.S. company have a Chinese company partner if they want to manufacture in China. I'm an Intellectual property attorney. I have clients trying to stop Chinese goods, being sold without their knowledge, out the back door, all the time. And usually it is with their own tools they gave the Chinese company. Perhaps that is a digression but China is looking for every advantage.

I signed (clicked through) some DJI use agreement I never read (probably waiving any and all rights I might have had for the benefit of firing up my DJI drone). If I have sd cards in my drone or controller they could download the videos and get them. Mine are pretty worthless as far as I know. I have given up some of my "precious" videos on the DJI share app (or whatever it is). Basically if they wanted it I would be giving it to them voluntarily. And there are a lot of DJI drones flying around some of them too close to bases and crashing into army helicopters. Some of those videos might have interest to China, who knows>

It seems like our government wouldn't just dump the program or ground useful and expensive DJI drones if there wasn't some inkling of possible malfeasance. Even when I take off my tin hat, that looks like at least circumstantial evidence to me.

Has there been any updates as to the reasons they grounded the DJI line?

I love my DJI drones. But I don't think it is out of the question for the Chinese government to use our collective "them" if they thought there was something of value.

 

[Meta4]

If I have sd cards in my drone or controller they could download the videos and get them.

A lot of people seem to have similar feelings ... but never look into how could DJI get your videos.
If DJI drones were somehow uploading videos, users would have noticed by now.
Your drone or controller doesn't have the ability to send your precious imagery to China.

It seems like our government wouldn't just dump the program or ground useful and expensive DJI drones if there wasn't some inkling of possible malfeasance.

I'm sure it couldn't possibly be political wrangling?

 

[Philztoy]

A lot of people seem to have similar feelings ... but never look into how could DJI get your videos.
If DJI drones were somehow uploading videos, users would have noticed by now.
Your drone or controller doesn't have the ability to send your precious imagery to China.

I'm sure it couldn't possibly be political wrangling?

I guess if one wants to tune one's tin hat to that frequency he could go down the "political wrangling" conspiracy road instead. Could it be more Russian collusion even?

Personally, I don't really see a few hundred drones getting to the forefront of the multi billion dollar china trade deal radar, but you never know. My direct from DJI mini got held up in customs in Alaska for a few days for unknown reasons. The government would have to be getting uncharacteristically detail oriented for that "mini" conspircy theory to apply though.

All tin hats throne aside, the whole thing, to me, looks like they had a reason to stop using the drones.

As to how do they get the videos, I don't know about how long or how many DJI Updates you experience but there sure is plenty of time during my hours of updates when my drone and controller are hooked up to the internet with a really slow percentage bar creeping along... plenty of time to download feature length frickin films! Granted DJI has never once listed "improved counterintelligence downloading" in the upgrade bullet points I have seen. Nor have i ever heard of anyone reporting this happening. But if they are doing it, I wish they would stop it so my upgrades would go faster!

Well, I better go put up my Farraday tent for the night since I threw all the darned tin hats aside.

 

[Meta4]

As to how do they get the videos, I don't know about how long or how many DJI Updates you experience but there sure is plenty of time during my hours of updates when my drone and controller are hooked up to the internet with a really slow percentage bar creeping along... plenty of time to download feature length frickin films!

But your videos and stills are captured on an SD card and most users copy that to their computer and clear it.
It would be the world's worst intelligence gathering that depended on only those users that left imagery on their SD card and occasionally updated firmware to collect espionage material.

 

[Philztoy]

But your videos and stills are captured on an SD card and most users copy that to their computer and clear it.
It would be the world's worst intelligence gathering that depended on only those users that left imagery on their SD card and occasionally updated firmware to collect espionage material.

lol Probably true that it would be really inefficient. I can't even figure out how to get files off of the sd cards in the "smart controller", so DJI would have to have some wizardry to do that!

The time it takes for those updates is soooo long. They have enough time to call the Chinese consolate over the phone and ask if they want that guy from Michigan's videos again. They probably just say "no but make sure his update takes a half an hour and requires two more updates before he is done. I wish that guy would clear out his SD cards!"

Still espionage is all about patience so you never know. I'll have to go watch that tin hat video again! lol

 

[Philztoy]

WSJ News Exclusive | Interior Department Adopts Restrictions Aimed at Chinese Drones

The new policy follows the temporary grounding of the department’s drone fleet last year amid rising concerns that the devices could be used for espionage.

www.wsj.com

new article on subject

 

[R.Perry]

I doubt if the concern is with what is on the SD card, it is most likely about images being captured during the flight. Remember the drone is transmitting whatever the camera sees right back to your tablet, those images could be captured remotely. Also, remember when you format your SD card it is only deleting the image pointer, not the entire image. No different than deleting something on your computer, it is still there unless you sweep the drive. Each year I do a clean sweep of my drive obviously after doing a backup to a external drive and it amazes me how much better the computer runs after. SD cards, hard drives leave a lot of junk on them.

 

[Philztoy]

I doubt if the concern is with what is on the SD card, it is most likely about images being captured during the flight. Remember the drone is transmitting whatever the camera sees right back to your tablet, those images could be captured remotely. Also, remember when you format your SD card it is only deleting the image pointer, not the entire image. No different than deleting something on your computer, it is still there unless you sweep the drive. Each year I do a clean sweep of my drive obviously after doing a backup to a external drive and it amazes me how much better the computer runs after. SD cards, hard drives leave a lot of junk on them.

What do you use to sweep them? Do you do the cards separately? That is probably a good idea to make sure everything is running smooth.

 

[PatR]

If the aircraft is transmitting flight data back to a manufacturer, a well established fact for DJI products, it can be transmitting anything else the drone “sees”. High def imagery is not required and extremely fast data streaming is present for such imagery. If the drone is linked to a third party app the app itself can become the carrier for data transmission.

The issue is not specific to DJI, although they (specifically the Chinese) are the most prevalent in the practice, it’s a problem with any drone linked to the internet, whether in the air or on the ground. The days stream is never a one way road as two way communication has to be established for one article to recognize it has linked with another.

As for collecting millions or billions of apparently useless information to be sifted through for useful information, that’s precisely how it’s done. Even our government has multiple alphabet agencies employing thousands of intel analysts doing exactly that 24 hours a day, not to mention automated programs that capture 100% of the digitally transmitted data in the US to be searched using automated programs for keywords, which in turn trigger follow on investigation.

Any country with over a billion people can certainly afford to employ a million or so of them for intelligence work, especially when so many of them will work for a full belly and a. place to sleep.

Some of the folks in this forum might want to read Sun Tzu’s book the Art of War. It’s a required textbook for military’s all over the world and many advanced college business courses. For good reason.

 

[PatR]

For those like me that had the linked WSJ article blocked due to lack of subscription, the attached link takes you to the same article provided by a different source.

WSJ News Exclusive | Interior Department Adopts Restrictions Aimed at Chinese Drones

 

[Philztoy]

(sorry about the blocked link) see if this works.

 

[PatR]

DJI complains about a lack of "credible evidence". I'm willing to bet they would like to find out exactly what our government knows and how it obtained the information in order to learn of our investigative processes..

 

[R.Perry]

What do you use to sweep them? Do you do the cards separately? That is probably a good idea to make sure everything is running smooth.

I have two programs, the one I use most often is "Clean Sweep", It will clear everything off your drive other than the fist sector data that has all you computer information on it.
As for the SD card, you will notice when you format it will ask you if you want a quick format, normally a check box to accept a quick format. Remove the check and the format will go sector by sector clearing the data. It is more time consuming but what I like about it I'm not needing to overwrite old data as I capture new pictures.
Now there is a program out there that will totally strip a drive, I highly don't recommend it. What it does is goes to sector 1.001, writes a 0, adds one to the address and writes a 0. It is written in machine code so once it is started there is no stopping it. It was originally written as a Trojan to destroy hard drives, today all computer security software checks for it. I don't remember the name they gave it.
I think a lot of people that hand highly sensitive information on their computers would use it to quickly destroy that data.

 

[Meta4]

Remember the drone is transmitting whatever the camera sees right back to your tablet, those images could be captured remotely.

While you're remembering that, consider how far the drone can transmit.
I haven't noticed any spies in a van following me when I go flying.
I wonder where they are.

All this silly paranoia about drones is amusing.
If you want to exercise paranoia, apply it to all the mobile phones and the data they do collect and share.

 

[R.Perry]

While you're remembering that, consider how far the drone can transmit.
I haven't noticed any spies in a van following me when I go flying.
I wonder where they are.

All this silly paranoia about drones is amusing.
If you want to exercise paranoia, apply it to all the mobile phones and the data they do collect and share.

I don't think it has anything to do with paranoia, the government is worried about their people flying into sensitive area's and someone capturing the video or other data. They could care less about what private citizens are doing other than telling us were we can and can't fly.