No More DJI drones? Your thoughts?

[Maxmars]

Maxmars & Guyfriday,

While I agree with the basic theme of both of your posts (and they are similar, thus the combined response), I think you may be missing a key element of my point.

No, the drone world will not keel over dead without DJI.  Equally, DJI (the company) manufactures very little of the drone itself.  They engineered it, and they assembled it, but most of the parts for DJI drones, as with virtually all other drones, comes from components made in Asia (specifically China), but not by DJI specifically.  And, this is kind of the point...this isn't a DJI issue, which is why it's an "issue" here (in the OP).  These components are in virtually all drones...even military ones.  In particular, the printed circuits for the GPS tracking systems, and the gyro stabilization systems, which are critical to stable flight, are manufactured overseas.  These are the parts being targeted.  So, why DJI then, right?

Well, that's a good question.  Part of the answer is contained in how much market share DJI commands, the lion's share.  Yes, private parties do build their own drones, BUT they're using the same parts DJI is using.  This is why the action against DJI in particular makes no sense.  I'm not defending DJI here; I could care less about them.  But what I am arguing for is stopping this nonsense.  Yes, you can find 100 varieties of drones on Amazon, AliEx, Temu and more for way cheaper.  And...they all suck badly.  DJI drones are much better quality, much more stable and use much better gear...this is why they're being targeted...because they actually "work" (unlike the other garbage).

The point here isn't DJI.  Yes, DJI is big enough to stand up and say something about it, and now they are.  The more central issue is the drone component technology, which is hundreds of companies.  This move on DJI was just an effort to take down the big guy first.  The rest of the players will be easy to take down after the precedent is set with the market leader, the guy who builds the best of the best drones for both amateur and professional users.

See the point now?

Ah, I see now.

Yes, perhaps the focus on the accepted excuse for the legislation as "Chinese spying" is an incomplete or a cosmetic matter. 
Where they might get better results (given the focus) is if they actually scrutinized and acted against manufacturers of components which specifically lead to the whole 'streaming data' to someone other than the owners/operators. That seems to me a matter of engineering and design... enabling and perhaps hardcoding the capability within the device.

The brand itself is only a corporate label... a revenue repository, as it were.
I don't disagree that this restriction is a half-measure which plays well as a dramatic aspect of the story... but really doesn't address the problem itself.

As to why it matters here in the OP is relatively simple... it is the subject offered up for discussion.  A request for our thoughts...

[FlyingClayDisk]

Ah, I see now.

Yes, perhaps the focus on the accepted excuse for the legislation as "Chinese spying" is an incomplete or a cosmetic matter. 
Where they might get better results (given the focus) is if they actually scrutinized and acted against manufacturers of components which specifically lead to the whole 'streaming data' to someone other than the owners/operators. That seems to me a matter of engineering and design... enabling and perhaps hardcoding the capability within the device.

The brand itself is only a corporate label... a revenue repository, as it were.
I don't disagree that this restriction is a half-measure which plays well as a dramatic aspect of the story... but really doesn't address the problem itself.

As to why it matters here in the OP is relatively simple... it is the subject offered up for discussion.  A request for our thoughts...

Appreciate the reply, as always, Max.  I just wanted to clarify my intent.

Discussion, as always, is welcomed!!

FCD
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panda got some chonk goin when ya pronebone her:

[Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/07/3a/24/...55fe20.jpg]


Edit: Sorry, that was a might vulgar. This is the DJI Mini 2.

My point exactly.  DJI is not a silcon chip manufacturer, nor a printed circuit board manufacturer.  This stuff was all contracted out.

Thanks for the pic.  It exemplifies exactly what I'm talking about. 

The notion that DJI, as a company, manufactures all the "guts" of these drones is just, well, silly.  This goes far deeper than what we see at the surface in the House and Senate!

This is about..."Do as we say...not as we do!"

It's about control.

And to 'flyguy' who suggests there are lots of other methods more clandestine to suppress freedom...well, you'll get no argument from me.  I am just pointing out this one, likely one of many, for y'all's consideration.  Yes, there are constraints on freedom too numerous to mention; don't you think we should flag them ALL up? 

This is a big one in my opinion (right next to firearms, but I've kept firearms out of this discussion intentionally, so as not to distract the point).

[pianopraze]

I think the government should stay the heck out of it.

i have a DJI mini 2. Built my own mini drone. Both have advantages.

DJI batteries suck. Seems like the DJI batteries are to DJI drones what ink is to printers… a money making scam.

[FlyingClayDisk]

I think the government should stay the heck out of it.

i have a DJI mini 2. Built my own mini drone. Both have advantages.

DJI batteries suck. Seems like the DJI batteries are to DJI drones what ink is to printers… a money making scam.

Oh absolutely!!  One of the many ways DJI could make their product proprietary so you'd have to buy the single most expensive consumable from DJI, even though it's assembled with a collection of non-proprietary components.  DJI wouldn't be king if they'd have made their drones compatible with RC car / aircraft batteries.  Heck, DJI could probably give away their drones for free just so long as you'd buy your batteries from them!

[Maxmars]

At the risk of being grossly Off-Topic, I thought I would add something here...

Within the context of the OP we had discussed that going after the drone manufacturer was kind of obtusely off-target since the offending tech really didn't come from DJI, but instead from it's component manufacturing partners...  I figured it would be better if they went after these entities rather than the "brand-holder" who is more fundamentally a commerce activity...

Here is a story where Huawei, which is frequently included in the "spying for China" trope, has a particular 'component manufacturer' that may be closer to a true component in the whole "spying" angle of the stories we are treated to in the press...  As if they are 'zeroing in' on the culprits who actually "make" the products the government is concerned about.

From ArsTechnica: US suspects TSMC helped Huawei skirt export controls, report says
Subtitled: US probing whether TSMC helped Huawei make AI chips.

Yesterday, it was reported that the US Department of Commerce is investigating the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) over suspicions that the chipmaker may have been subverting 5G export controls to make "artificial intelligence or smartphone chips for the Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies," sources with direct knowledge told The Information.

....

For the past four years, the US has considered Huawei a national security risk after Huawei allegedly provided financial services to Iran, violating another US export control. In that time, US-China tensions have intensified, with the US increasingly imposing tariffs to limit China's access to US tech, most recently increasing tariffs on semiconductors. As competitiveness over AI dominance has heightened, Congress also recently introduced a bill to stop China and other foreign adversaries from accessing American-made AI and AI-enabling technologies.

Since US officials have long considered Huawei to be a state-controlled entity and blocked Huawei from accessing US-made 5G chips considered essential for AI applications, it was concerning when Huawei launched the Mate 60 smartphone with 5G chips. As 9to5Mac put it, "Nobody could understand how that was possible given that Chinese companies did not have the technology required to make the chips."

Just something to consider alongside the OP, which I mean not to diminish or obscure in any way.

[UltraBudgie]

To comment on that intelligently would require quite an expanded context of the relationship between TSMC, Huawai, China, and Apple.  Instead, I will just point out the sly silliness of labelling a 5G baseband processor an "AI Chip".

"Chinese social media users report Huawei phones automatically deleting* videos of the protests that took place in China, without notifying the owners. *Not sure if it's from the cloud or device level Our sci-fi movies have not even imagined this level of dystopia…"

[FlyingClayDisk]

At the risk of being grossly Off-Topic, I thought I would add something here...

Within the context of the OP we had discussed that going after the drone manufacturer was kind of obtusely off-target since the offending tech really didn't come from DJI, but instead from it's component manufacturing partners...  I figured it would be better if they went after these entities rather than the "brand-holder" who is more fundamentally a commerce activity...

Here is a story where Huawei, which is frequently included in the "spying for China" trope, has a particular 'component manufacturer' that may be closer to a true component in the whole "spying" angle of the stories we are treated to in the press...  As if they are 'zeroing in' on the culprits who actually "make" the products the government is concerned about.

From ArsTechnica: US suspects TSMC helped Huawei skirt export controls, report says
Subtitled: US probing whether TSMC helped Huawei make AI chips.

Yesterday, it was reported that the US Department of Commerce is investigating the Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. (TSMC) over suspicions that the chipmaker may have been subverting 5G export controls to make "artificial intelligence or smartphone chips for the Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies," sources with direct knowledge told The Information.

....

For the past four years, the US has considered Huawei a national security risk after Huawei allegedly provided financial services to Iran, violating another US export control. In that time, US-China tensions have intensified, with the US increasingly imposing tariffs to limit China's access to US tech, most recently increasing tariffs on semiconductors. As competitiveness over AI dominance has heightened, Congress also recently introduced a bill to stop China and other foreign adversaries from accessing American-made AI and AI-enabling technologies.

Since US officials have long considered Huawei to be a state-controlled entity and blocked Huawei from accessing US-made 5G chips considered essential for AI applications, it was concerning when Huawei launched the Mate 60 smartphone with 5G chips. As 9to5Mac put it, "Nobody could understand how that was possible given that Chinese companies did not have the technology required to make the chips."

Just something to consider alongside the OP, which I mean not to diminish or obscure in any way.

Oh man, Max!  Not a distraction at all, but rather a great point!  The Huawei situation is a great example, albeit a much larger one, which illustrates the very heart of the issue.  The Huawei 'beast' has so many heads it's hard to even pick a place to begin!  Huawei is a great example of both how evil China can be from a technology perspective as well as the complete opposite end of the spectrum, how actions such as the ones against Huawei by the US and other governments can also have blowback and unintended consequences.  Gosh, where to even begin?  A lot to unpack here...

Maybe one of the easier places to start with would be some data points:

• The Huawei sanctions exposed just how deeply embedded major Chinese telecommunications and semi-conductor manufacturers are with the Chinese government.
  
• The Huawei sanctions, initially, appeared to cripple Huawei financially (before the Chinese government stepped in and started subsidizing them to save them).
  
• Following the sanctions, Huawei turned around and attempted, pretty successfully, to corner the 5G technology market, stockpiling 5G chips and components so competitors supply lines were negatively affected.  (i.e. Huawei retaliated against sanctioning countries by reducing supply lines of non-sanctioned products from competitors).
  
• The Huawei sanctions also illustrated how such actions can have negative collateral impacts on other manufacturers in related sectors.  TMSC is a great example here.  On the one hand TMSC led the Asian charge on Huawei prohibitions (to cooperate with Trump's initiatives), only to turn around and circumvent those same cooperative actions in order to avoid financial injury.  On the other hand, the situation with TMSC also illustrated the technical complexity (and futility) of taking surgical action against a single manufacturer in a biblically vast and complex networked technology sector.  This is especially true when the countries taking action represent only a microscopic minority of the manufacturing side of the equation.
  

And this list goes on for miles and miles...and miles, but these are some of the top takeaways (short of writing a novel here, or several).  Wow, did you ever open up a can of worms, Max!  LOL!  But, your point is spot on and well timed.  We can't really have the drone discussion without examining much larger examples of essentially the same thing.

I guess if I were to summarize a bottom line right at this point in my reply (without exhaustively itemizing the Huawei situation, which would be near impossible), it would be this...

Two points here:

1. At a very high and superficial level, we have to weigh the value of certain technologies overall against the sum of their parts, warts and all.  And...
   
2. There is more than one way to 'skin this cat', and we need to be prepared to take alternative approaches to solve problems like these without upsetting the entire market in the process.  This is where I was coming from earlier with my suggestion about instead of attempting to force manufacturers into technical compliance, why not take the easier path of blocking what these devices can communicate with?  Remember, (in the case of Huawei, and drones) they only communicate with wireless (5G, WiFi, etc) for a very short distances, and they have to communicate with a terrestrial host (i.e. the telco).  That 1st "hop" is out of our control, but the distance of that hop is only a couple miles (not all the way to China) (Even less than a couple miles for 5G, more like a few hundred meters).  The downlink side after that 1st hop is 100% under our control and highly regulated.  Stop the comms at that point instead of trying to control the uplink side of the device itself (which is what the sanctions attempt to do).  Unless the device is communicating directly to a satellite in orbit it has no ability to 'spy' for anyone further than a mile or so away.  And, if the Chinese 'spies' are that embedded in our society, then that's a much larger issue anyway.  (Forgive me, this is a very difficult concept to articulate here because there's a key technological point which must be understood and I'm not sure I am explaining it well enough).
   

Let me try to articulate this last point a little better because it applies to both the drone discussion as well as the Huawei situation. It's also an important point to understand technically.  ...

I am going to use a cell phone as an example because it is more readily understood (but just understand the same basic concept applies to a drone).  A cellular phone has to be able to link up with a "cell", and this cell is under the control of the telco carrier (not the Chinese).  A cell is essentially just a geographical area.  As the cell phone moves around geographically it switches from cell to cell.  But each one of these cells is under the control of whatever carrier a person has their service contract with.  Once a phone leaves an area where there are available cells it loses comms (basically has "no service").  But when the phone is inside an area with cellular service, that service provided is 100% under the control of the carrier providing the service (again, only that company, not the Chinese).  Right at that point a signal goes one of two ways.  The signal is either a voice call which is sent out via the PSTN (public switched telephone network), or the signal is a data signal which gets sent out via Internet connections.  Both of these directions are under the complete control of the service provider (this is a key point).  If the phone is calling John Doe, then the service provider can ensure it only calls John Doe (and not Xi Jinping also).  Same for Internet; if the cellular phone is calling a website which looks up to Deny Ignorance dot com, then the routers at the service provider can make sure it only calls up that website (and not some Chinese spy network). 

For any Internet network connection there are a series of calls.  Some of these calls go to the IP of the website itself, and some of them go to other places like the IP's of advertisers via cookies and other tools.  In any case, the entire list of calls from any Internet request can be captured and examined.  If there is a IP which goes to Xi Jinping's house, well, block it.  Same for any spy network; just don't allow it to communicate with its host (by blocking it).  Same concept for phone calls.  It's not like these devices have some magical way to communicate via other means, they have to follow the protocols which make the Internet and PSTN work.  And, these are known technical details down to the very last bit and byte.  There's no mystery here.

That phone (or drone), even if it's issued directly from the People's Liberation Army itself, can't communicate with anything other than what the local service provider (i.e. cellular company) allows it to communicate with.  Right there, you have stopped the spy phone dead in its tracks, and you haven't required even a single change in the technology of the phone itself (or drone).  Boom!  Done!  This is the 'other' way to skin the same cat.  It's a few lines of code in some Internet routers and telephony switches, not thousands of lawyers, engineers and politicians gyrating around and traveling all over the world for years on end.  The solution isn't as flashy, and doesn't involve diplomatic missions, and its a helluva lot cheaper, but it works just as effectively.  (Bummer for all those politicians and government bureaucrats who just got sent home, but oh well!)

If I were to draw an analogy here...what we're trying to do with the Huawei issue is effectively "boil the ocean", when all we really need to do is boil a pot of water.  Same goes for the drone issue.  Mountains out of mole hills, and, well...you get the idea.

P.S. - And lastly, just some technical footnotes.  Can something like a cellular phone communicate with a satellite?  Yes, they can, BUT they are specific devices and they're not cheap, so you're not going to find such technology in a $300 phone.  Besides this, China doesn't have anywhere near the satellite coverage to cover the entire US with communications satellites of their own.  So, unless we're trying to solve some 'other' country's problem, cellular phones and drones only have a limited number of ways they can communicate with the outside world, and these methods are fully under the control of service providers within the boundaries of the US.

Sorry for the long (very) reply, just a lot to unpack here.  Whew!  Plus, I've glazed over lots of intermediate details just to save time and space.

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I should probably point out one other thing which I alluded to above, but didn't really flesh out.

I spoke of how a cellular phone and/or drone links up with the 'mothership' when that mothership is a cellular provider, but there's another way a cell phone can uplink to a device and this is WiFi.  WiFi isn't under the control of a cellular carrier, so what about these connections?  (GASP!)

So, a couple of points here.

1. No, a WiFi device is not always under the control of a cellular service provider, but they're under the control of someone (else who fielded them?).  We could create regulations to prohibit network providers from communicating with certain addresses, BUT we've got enough regulatory controls on about everything.  However, much like a "cell" in cellular calls, a WiFi router only has limited range.  And...
   
2. If we're worried about the Xi Jinping having a WiFi router hiding behind every bush and spying on all of America, well, then we've got much bigger problems than the cell phones and drones which connect to these devices!
   

Bottom line, we're making much ado about not a lot with this spying thing.  Is it a problem?  Yes, to a degree, but it's not anything like those Chinese "weather" balloons which traversed the US.  Now THOSE were a serious, serious, problem!  Why?  Because they DID link up with Chinese satellites, and they WERE collecting and transmitting information about very sensitive military and national security assets back to the Chinese government.  Those were highly sophisticated and powerful devices...and they were also bigger than your car (and weighed about as much too). 

This whole surveillance discussion needs to be kept in perspective, and the best way to do that is by sharing information about the realities of what's out there.  It does no good to be gnashing teeth and wringing hands over stuff the MSM whips everyone up into a frenzy over if it's not really a problem.  And...the drones really aren't a problem...unless we let them be a problem.