DJI Problems

Joined
Feb 18, 2020
Messages
41
Reaction score
6
Age
81
DJI has more problems than just layoffs and income reduction, etc, Congress has its sites on the fact DJI is a CCP owned company and has transmitting data back to China with the drones! They will firstly want to take all drones form Police Depts, etc. then due to the fact the CCP is an evil empire and at odds right now with the world I can see them coming after all the drones, Its common knowledge DJI has ability to gather data and transmit back to China, They indicated they stopped doing this and had 3rd party examining the drones, especially for Law Enforcement, but the further purchase of drones for the US Govt was halted, Now with the world problem the CCP has caused I now wonder what the firmware updates could actually be. !!!!
 
Yep, I've been suspicious of DJI and Communist China for some time now, especially after hearing about their free drones to the public officials. Just why would they do that?? Also, I really hate that DJI drones are made there because I am now boycotting anything made in China, especially after I researched how their food is prepared! Everyone should check that out soon.
 
I don't think you have much to worry about. The data they capture is your flight data summary, to keep track of your flight times and locations as a convenience to you. Even if they used that data, I'm not sure how much it would help, as they are not getting video data. We would all be noticing huge usage in our cellular history if they were transmitting video from the iPad. It's conceivable they could be sending one or two frame captures back to China, but that's about it I think. As for CCP owning DJI, it's a communist country. All corporations must have a CCP member on their board of directors by law. And in addition, at any time the CCP can take money from one corporation and move it to another corporation at will, and nothing can be done about it. That's how China works. So that 150 million dollar fraud announcement DJI made in Jan 2019 could have simply been a transfer of funds by the CCP to another company, or the CCP government. If you noticed there were never any details released explaining the fraud that made any sense. Their explanation is their employees "inflated the cost of parts and materials for certain products for personal financial gain." That makes no sense, and I come from a tech manufacturing world. I personally think CCP saw the success of DJI and helped themselves to the money to finance another company they would like to grow. This is why it's taking DJI so long to release new models recently. New model releases have slowed down, likely because Frank Wang had the wind knocked out of him. He lost his will to innovate, a symptom of communist rule over time.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Mickey-G and MTO
Yep, I've been suspicious of DJI and Communist China for some time now, especially after hearing about their free drones to the public officials. Just why would they do that??
Why? Because the CCP can do that, at will. DJI has no control of their destiny, it's in the hands of the CCP, secretly. Check out the book Stealth War, by Robert Spaulding, a USAF General.
 
Last edited:
DJI has more problems than just layoffs and income reduction, etc, Congress has its sites on the fact DJI is a CCP owned company and has transmitting data back to China with the drones! They will firstly want to take all drones form Police Depts, etc. then due to the fact the CCP is an evil empire and at odds right now with the world I can see them coming after all the drones, Its common knowledge DJI has ability to gather data and transmit back to China, They indicated they stopped doing this and had 3rd party examining the drones, especially for Law Enforcement, but the further purchase of drones for the US Govt was halted, Now with the world problem the CCP has caused I now wonder what the firmware updates could actually be. !!!!
This is old "news", the original story has been around for a couple of years and been debunked multiple times.
It's just been revived by this attention seeking congressman to play to the current anti-China paranoia.
gaetzgasmask11-540x303.jpg

Your drone does not gather data and transmit back to China and the suggestion that drones are secretly collecting espionage is ridiculous.
Yep, I've been suspicious of DJI and Communist China for some time now, especially after hearing about their free drones to the public officials.
Just why would they do that??
As a public relations exercise.
There's nothing suspicious about it.
I can understand how joe public might be swayed by this stuff.
But it's disappointing to see flyers who should understand what their drone can (and can't) do, get taken in by it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jjfromaus
Technically its not the drone sending receiving data its your phone or ipad. So it would be hard to blame DJI solely for "data leakage" if there was any. Your service provider, Apple, Samsung etc. are all complicit in data transfer. Easy to get round technically if some have an issue.
 
Technically its not the drone sending receiving data its your phone or ipad. So it would be hard to blame DJI solely for "data leakage" if there was any. Your service provider, Apple, Samsung etc. are all complicit in data transfer. Easy to get round technically if some have an issue.
Well, it's totally DJI's doing to MANDATE you signing up with DJI's website and registering the drone before the drone will fly. With that registration your app knows where to send the data, China. I think that's pretty much falls into DJIs court of blame to get data from you. They do it with the notion that it's a service to you to keep track of your flight history, but you cannot opt out of that service. Your app can collect and transmit data unless you always fly without maps. Nobody can be sure what data they get. We would like to think it's harmless and innocent, as great as DJI is. This is the reason people suspect things, because it smells fishy. They still don't allow a NO INTERNET flight option to the public, you must register. They claim to be making a government edition that doesn't use the internet, but they won't be offering it to the public. You have to ask yourself, why not?
 
They do it with the notion that it's a service to you to keep track of your flight history, but you cannot opt out of that service. Your app can collect and transmit data unless you always fly without maps. Nobody can be sure what data they get. We would like to think it's harmless and innocent, as great as DJI is. This is the reason people suspect things, because it smells fishy. They still don't allow a NO INTERNET flight option to the public, you must register. They claim to be making a government edition that doesn't use the internet, but they won't be offering it to the public. You have to ask yourself, why not?
If it's a big issue for anyone, it's not at all difficult to keep your data to yourself.
It would be pretty stupid for DJI to implement a program that's so easy to avoid.
If collecting data was their intention, the idea that DJI is secretly siphoning off your flight data, is as silly as the idea that there's any espionage value in people's flight data.
You only have to look at what's in your flight data to see that.
 
  • Like
Reactions: jjfromaus
If it's a big issue for anyone, it's not at all difficult to keep your data to yourself.
It would be pretty stupid for DJI to implement a program that's so easy to avoid.
If collecting data was their intention, the idea that DJI is secretly siphoning off your flight data, is as silly as the idea that there's any espionage value in people's flight data.
You only have to look at what's in your flight data to see that.
Yes, sharing your data can be avoided, but thousands don't, believing like most that DJI would never do anything ethically wrong. Although I would like to believe DJI wouldn't do anything unethical, and they originally didn't intend to collect our data from the US, it is possible to do if they wanted to. They could easily sneak screen captures among all the flight data packets if they wanted to, but I don't think that's occurring. We know that's possible, because they are very smart, designing very cool products the US fumbles at. The fact that DJI isn't 100% in control of their product's security (like Apple is), anything is possible. To believe otherwise is naive. The fact that DJI has a CCP member on their board of directors, that could be a ticking time-bomb. We all know that if the CCP wanted to, they could march into DJI and create their own department of software hackers and demand unfettered access to DJI's network. DJI couldn't do anything about it, and we all know DJI wouldn't dare tell anyone it's happening, for multiple reasons. In a communist country, anything is possible. Anything. The CCP makes all rules and laws, the people have no say. You can't deny that. Hoping our worse fears won't happen is all we have. Hope. There are no public audits allowed in China, hence the logical concern.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: MTO
They could easily sneak screen captures among all the flight data packets if they wanted to
All that's needed to build a convincing case is that you somehow have to explain how DJI or their evil masters can get anything of any use at all from screen captures, flight data or anything else that might be in the app.
I've heard the conspiracy theories a hundred times but none have ever addressed this rather critical element.

When citizens of China or almost any other country can visit your country and drive around freely looking directly at anything that interests them, even fly their own drones or light aircraft, why would any evil genius bother sorting through a mountain of drone flyer's flight data or screen shots on the off chance that there might be an espionage gem in there?
 
Hmobley is this a draft for the introductory text sequence to the next Star Wars movie?
 
why would any evil genius bother sorting through a mountain of drone flyer's flight data or screen shots on the off chance that there might be an espionage gem in there?
Sorting through millions of photos could automatically be done with AI, if they wanted to. The CCP are already experts at that, tracking people with public cameras everywhere, not just airports. People are tracked and categorized by facial recognition to monitor people suspected to not be loyal to the state. Each suspect has a data file, all captured, sorted, and flagged with AI. The luxury of GPS coordinates from each drone photo helps to sort and catalog aerial POIs by place and time, allowing an evil entity to focus on specific areas of interest, with a timeline. This is very feasible, doing it in a way to be easy to quickly access information, if they wanted to, making libraries of photos for each area of interest by LAT/LON. It would be like Google images, on steroids.

Are they doing this? I "hope" not. Could they do this? Yes, and after the programming is done, it would be automatic and easy. The Chinese are smart. We taught them a lot about what they know, in our own universities, here in the US. Including AI. Then they go home and compete with the US. Go figure.

I wonder if China would allow Skydio to sell their drones in China with the same registration and "phone home" options that DJI has embedded. Or would they forbid their government entities, or anyone in China from using them?
 
Last edited:
Are they doing this? I "hope" not. Could they do this? Yes, and after the programming is done, it would be automatic and easy. The Chinese are smart. We taught them a lot about what they know, in our own universities, here in the US. Including AI. Then they go home and compete with the US. Go figure.
Now we just have to come up with a reason they might want to engage in such a pointless exercise.
What are you going to find in people's flight data or imagery?
Really the whole conspiracy theory falls apart there.

I've analysed data from hundreds of flights.
I can see where they lost their drones and why, work out what they did wrong, see where they were flying (backyards, beaches, parks etc), how fast, how high, etc, etc.
But I can't see how anything of any use to anyone is ever going to show up in recorded flight data.
The idea is really preposterous.
 
The idea is really preposterous.
That's your opinion, but we can't depend on that if we're ignorant of CCP's motivation, and how far they're willing to go. That's an unknown that nobody in this forum has accurate and complete knowledge. Would you bet your country on your opinion, that the notion of CCP secretly using DJI drone data is "preposterous", when you know it's possible? I too think it's unlikely this is happening today, but I cannot say it's impossible in the future, or a preposterous idea, when we all know how smart DJI is, along with the fact that CCP controls all corporations in China.

I personally have taken many hours of video of trains and tracks, because I'm a rail-fan. That national infrastructure by itself could be valuable information to bad guys, and that's just one example. If you believe there will never be another world war, IMO that's far fetched. It will happen someday, and it won't be pretty. Data collection in today's world is like oil in the 70's. Everyone is collecting data because it's valuable, and free in many cases. IP theft is raging, stealing IP by hacking into US computers from China, Iran, and Russia. The country that acquires the most data, with the ability to put the data to work (AI), will win the next world war, guaranteed. You may think that's paranoid, but very bad evil lurks around the world, I hope we all agree that's a fact. Other countries have very screwed up ideologies, versus our culture (based on honesty, integrity, ethics and hard work) that we often take for granted. We're blessed to be in the US.

Can satellites do the same thing as our drones? Yes, in a big way. Do other countries observe the US from above? You bet, just like we do ourselves, looking at overhead satellite photos. Is that data useless? No, it has been the basis of many strategic security decisions for years. So why wouldn't drone photos be helpful? You gotta agree the quality of data from our drones would likely be better than satellites, with views from many different directions to augment satellite data. I think that's easy to understand, and respectfully I don't think it's a preposterous thought.
 
Can satellites do the same thing as our drones? Yes, in a big way. Do other countries observe the US from above? You bet, just like we do ourselves, looking at overhead satellite photos. Is that data useless? No, it has been the basis of many strategic security decisions for years. So why wouldn't drone photos be helpful? You gotta agree the quality of data from our drones would likely be better than satellites, with views from many different directions to augment satellite data. I think that's easy to understand, and respectfully I don't think it's a preposterous thought.
I've pointed out why I believe this to be completely ridiculous but it doesn't seem to have made any difference.
As it's pointless to say it all over again, I'll abandon the discussion.
 
Every image that can be captured by a dji drone is already available on Google Earth!!! That's Google the non-Chinese company that makes it available.
Our data is being harvested every minute of every day, it's the modern way. I'm not saying the theory is not plausible that the CCP could use collected data, but as others have mentioned, what is the possible gain.
 
Every image that can be captured by a dji drone is already available on Google Earth!!!
We all know that's not accurate, but I do agree there is lots of data there. And I hope we have even better satellite imagery of China at our CIA's immediate access.
what is the possible gain.
The gain is increased quality and quantity of photos, providing higher quality aerial angles not available from satellites, as explained in post #14.

Using Google maps satellite view, looking at Palos Verdes peninsula, south of Los Angeles, you can zoom into Albalone cove. You click the little yellow man in the lower right corner, which overlays about 50 or 60 little blue dots on the satellite aerial image. This gives clickable links to spherical LAND photos, available today. You can even hold CNTL and drag the mouse to get a 3D view, seeing the cave in the side of Portuguese Point.
Now just imagine, to augment Google's currently available data, clicking a CCP flag
1588951041738.png
, next to the yellow man, and up pops thousands of red dots overlaying the same area, providing thousands of AERIAL drone images of the same area. That particular data might not be super valuable, because of location, but drones can go where you cannot walk or access in many areas of our country. These images can be in places nobody can access. And yes, some people fly where they shouldn't, because they can, not to mention government workers flying DJI drones in secure areas (this has been stopped) with FAA waivers, unlocking the DFZ restrictions.

With all of the newer DJI drones capturing video to the iPad in 1080 resolution, random screen captures would be pretty nice quality, way better than satellite captures. CCP could acquire billions of these screen captures, collected over time. If China did this, the CCP would have instant access to views of our country from their computers that our own government would not have. This I believe is doable. Is it being done today? I don't want to think so, and I "hope not".

An analogy would be, seeing a beautiful wife in the shower behind a bubble hazed glass door. You can see her body outline, and color of her skin, but you don't have a clear view. Then replacing the hazed glass with clear glass. Now you have a view that's more interesting, augmenting the previous view with valuable, detailed, actionable data. Much more data!
 
Last edited:
Your app can collect and transmit data unless you always fly without maps. Nobody can be sure what data they get.
^^ This ^^

i smh at the people here who always say who cares about ur flight data as if the flight data is the only data possible 2 send. hello? what about the data on ur phone, ipad or pc? ez to send to china with or without flight data. no video or all ur pix cause that would be 2 obvious with data use but for sure ez to transmit everything else on ur device. so ez that it makes no sense 2 think they are not doing this in some way.
 
seeing a beautiful wife in the shower behind a bubble hazed glass door. You can see her body outline, and color of her skin, but you don't have a clear view. Then replacing the hazed glass with clear glass. Now you have a view that's more interesting, augmenting the previous view with valuable, detailed, actionable data. Much more data!

I'm afraid we'll need to see photos of this exact analogy to better understand your point.
 
This is old "news", the original story has been around for a couple of years and been debunked multiple times.
It's just been revived by this attention seeking congressman to play to the current anti-China paranoia.

Your drone does not gather data and transmit back to China and the suggestion that drones are secretly collecting espionage is ridiculous.


Meta4, I notice you have mentioned on this thread and another that this 'old news' has been debunked multiple times.
And you say that "Your drone does not gather data and transmit back to China...".

I would be interested in any material you have regarding the debunking and that they DJI drones don't gather and transmit back to China. Should make some interesting reading. Thanks.
 

Recent Posts

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
143,066
Messages
1,467,352
Members
104,933
Latest member
mactechnic