(10-19-2024, 04:37 PM)FlyingClayDisk Wrote: 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?

(10-19-2024, 05:03 PM)Maxmars Wrote: 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...

(10-19-2024, 04:52 PM)UltraBudgie Wrote: panda got some chonk goin when ya pronebone her:

[Image: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/07/3a/24/073a24c63a42eac23eccdfa56655fe20.jpg]


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

(10-20-2024, 05:27 AM)pianopraze Wrote: 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.

(10-21-2024, 02:53 AM)Maxmars Wrote: 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.

• 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.
  

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).
   

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!