Drone Origin Important for U.S. Government.

[PatR]

I have yet to see the Dept. of Interior document but evidently it’s got DJI’s panties in a wad.

DJI Statement On U.S. Department Of Interior Drone Order

DJI, the world’s leader in civilian drones and aerial imaging technology, is extremely disappointed by the U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) order released today which inappropriately treats a …

www.suasnews.com

 

[Kristina Fowler]

I'd like to know the origins of the notion that DJI is swiping data from drones and sending it back to the Motherland. I have yet to see anything definitive about that. All you hear is "possible security risks". Can't the same be said for all DJI competitors made in China?? Why is everybody beating up on DJI?? Personally, I think it's unfounded rumor and conjecture. Granted, China has been portrayed as wearing a black hat when it comes to stealing trade secrets and intellectual property - and perhaps rightfully so - but where is hard proof that they're secretly sucking JPGs and GPS data from drones?? I think you can trace the origins to some guy down at the barbershop.

This is interesting: "For the past several months, my team and I have conducted a careful examination of several popular DJI drones to ascertain how data is collected, used, and stored through normal drone operation and use. Kivu’s analysis of the drones and the flight control system (drone, hardware controller, GO 4 mobile app) concluded that users have control over the types of data DJI drones collect, store, and transmit. For some types of data, such as media files and flight log s, the drone user must affirmatively initiate transmission to any remote server. For other types, such as initial location checks or diagnostic data, the user may prevent transmission by deactivating settings in the GO 4 application and/or disabling the Internet connection."

This supports DJI claims that "there's nothing to see here.... move along". But then again, DJI and Kivu could be in cahoots, and Mr. Rogers was a Russian asset.