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Comment by malermeister

4 months ago

Here's a dark conspiracy theory for ya: Consumer drones (including DJIs) are being used in warfare more and more frequently, including the war in Ukraine.

The Chinese government, while not openly supporting Russia, has been repeatedly accused of covertly doing so. Imagine what kind of harm a device used for reconnaissance could do if it secretly works for the other side.

16 comments

malermeister

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Staple_Diet  4 months ago

That's not a theory as much as it is an acknowledged fact, and why DJI are banned from many 5-Eyes facilities.

L_226  4 months ago

no even that - DJI are potentially collecting thousands if not millions of hours of telemetry about how small drones are used in real-life combat. This is absolutely invaluable to developing countermeasures or optimising their own offensive platforms.

  • tomaskafka  4 months ago

    Also mapping all of the western world, and sending the most detailed 3d maps of western infrastructure to servers of a company that's a part of the chinese military complex.

sofixa  4 months ago

DJI's app wasn't on the Play Store for years before Russia invaded Ukraine, so that's somewhat unlikely.

jijijijij  4 months ago

I very much assume, involved militaries are aware of this possibility and are not blindly trusting Chinese consumer drones right off the shelves, have soldiers in every unit install random sideloaded apps. Lol.

They likely flash verified firmware and use a verified app version, not the latest one from DJI's website... Maybe they have their own code, by now. Especially with reconnaissance drones. The Ukrainians probably need to do this, not just because of the obvious possibility of a "backdoor", but RF adaptability in the EM warfare situation.

I would worry more about contractor John Doe bringing a compromised private phone to a government or industrial facility. Not sure a highres video feed from a drone could be easily exfiltrated unnoticed, anyway, since they usually don't come with WWAN hardware built-in. But the phone itself would be able do all sorts of reconnaissance and become an attack vector in a sensitive context. Then again, this is not specific to drone (software), but all untrusted software people install.

WhereIsTheTruth  4 months ago

Are you suggesting we should ban Starlink because it is used in warfare both in Ukraine and in the middle east?