Chinese drone-maker DJI denies aiding Russia's Ukraine invasion
- Reference: 1648539067
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2022/03/29/dji_denies_aiding_russia/
- Source link:
DJI's involvement in Russia's illegal invasion first became an issue around March 11, when allegations emerged that Ukrainian users were unable to use a DJI drone detection product called DJI [1]AeroScope that the Chinese company bills as "a comprehensive drone detection platform that rapidly identifies UAV communication links, gathering information such as flight status, paths, and other information in real time."
Russian users could run AeroScope, leading to accusations that DJI was assisting Moscow.
[2]
DJI is already a pariah in the US, which has included it on the Entity List forbidden to access US tech, [3]and banned the US military from using its products. The USA has even [4]forbidden investment in the drone-maker on grounds it is effectively an arm of China's military and has actively assisted surveillance and repression of the Muslim Uyghur minority in China's Xinjiang province.
[5]
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China and Russia recently struck a renewed friendship both nations said was "without limits". While China has not actively supported Russia's illegal invasion, the prospect of a Chinese company effectively taking sides by denying Ukraine access represents a highly controversial turn of events.
[7]Alphabet's Wing drone unit inks supermarket delivery deal
[8]India bans drone imports to help local manufacturers take off
[9]Heart attack victim 'saved' by defibrillator delivery drone*
DJI hosed down the allegation, [10]stating it was "working with customers to resolve some AeroScope malfunctions in Ukraine that we suspect are related to interim loss of power and/or internet services."
But the issue didn't go away. Two days after that denial, Ukraine's vice prime minister and minister for digital transformation Mykhailo Fedorov [11]made a similar allegation – claiming Russia has access to an enhanced version of AeroScope that has a range of 50km. Fedorov asked for Ukraine to be offered access to the same long-range service, and for all DJI products operating but not acquired within Ukraine to be grounded, to reduce Moscow's ability to use its drones.
DJI [12]responded with a tweet pointing out that all of its products broadcast info that can be consumed by AeroScope, and that geofencing use of its products in Ukraine was impractical.
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Geofencing may also have been unwelcome, as Ukraine has regularly released [14]footage captured by drones to illustrate its self-defense efforts.
Allegations that DJI was aiding Russia persisted and on March 26 a new claim emerged: that DJI was sharing GPS coordinates of drones operated by Ukraine's defense forces with Russia.
DJI again denied the allegation. But the [15]accusation name-checked retailers that sell DJI products and called on them to remove the drones from their shelves.
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One retailer – Germany's Media Markt – stopped sales of the drone-maker's products.
DJI fought back with a [17]press release that refutes the latest claim and labels efforts to have retailers drop its products "a coordinated campaign making false allegations against DJI via thousands of spam messages containing the same content."
The Chinese company maintains it's just a humble company trying to offer users an elevated view of the world. Yet the US clearly has a different view of DJI. And now, rightly or wrongly, so do many more people around the world. ®
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[1] https://www.theregister.com/2017/10/27/dji_aeroscope_short_range/
[2] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2YkLY0RE0XmBnG@JpBN2kwQAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[3] https://www.theregister.com/2017/08/04/apparent_us_army_memo_bans_dji_drones/
[4] https://www.theregister.com/2021/12/17/usa_bars_investment_in_eight_chinese_tech_companies/
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YkLY0RE0XmBnG@JpBN2kwQAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YkLY0RE0XmBnG@JpBN2kwQAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/03/wing_coles_drone_deliveries_canberra/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2022/02/11/india_bans_drone_imports/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2022/01/06/defibrillator_drone_heart_attack/
[10] https://twitter.com/DJISupport/status/1503000839404744704
[11] https://twitter.com/FedorovMykhailo/status/1504068644195733504
[12] https://twitter.com/DJIGlobal/status/1504206884240183297
[13] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44YkLY0RE0XmBnG@JpBN2kwQAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[14] https://twitter.com/DefenceU/status/1508492476348346375
[15] https://twitter.com/Dang01150781/status/1507359933955780642
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_onprem/personaltech&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33YkLY0RE0XmBnG@JpBN2kwQAAAI4&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://www.dji.com/au/newsroom/news/dji-statement-on-recent-allegations
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Giving away control
The whole concept where you connect your stuff to the internet under control of a third party is equally risky and suspect. Yes, we all "love" the cloud. Just until it is used against you, which inevitably will happen, sooner or later.
Drones are no exception, but a mere instance where you bought a Trojan horse and smiled while hauling it into your home. You get what you paid for.
If you want to see which drones are in your area, just fire up a set of goggles / video receiver - the video feed is not encrypted, and typically it's GPS coordinates will be displayed on the OSD (HUD), along with a handy bearing and distance to the person controlling it.
DJI drones would make pretty crap weapons platforms for strapping bombs to though - their Thrust to Weight ratio is pretty shit as they use plastic for the chassis, not carbon fibre. You would be way better off building one yourself using INAV or BetaFlight flight controllers - they don't announce their position in the same way as DJI ones do, have no in-built geofencing, and can be configured to send telemetry (GPS position etc) back to the transmitter. This link is specific to that drone and that transmitter (it uses channel-hopping) and is essentially not snoopable.
"One retailer – Germany's Media Markt – stopped sales of the drone-maker's products."
This should be done for as many businesses which continue to profit from Russia as is practical.
E.g. UK public sector contracts with Infosys should be rescinded, but maybe Sunak's wife wouldn't like it. Sunak wouldn't know anything about that of course.
Re: "One retailer – Germany's Media Markt – stopped sales of the drone-maker's products."
I agree with the sentiment. But we need to be careful, if we include all of China's companies in that, we risk splitting the world with an iron curtain again.
Anything we can do to reduce dependency on Russian oil and gas would be better. That hits them where it hurts and is targeted specifically at Russia.
Not surprising
It's a closed platform and there is obvious military application for drones. There are tools that will modify the firmware, so perhaps it is possible for Ukraine to redo the firmware so their drones are not broadcasting unique identifiers so they don't show up on Aeroscope, since that's how the product works.
It's actually an interesting dilemma for the west. DJI drones are a security risk, so how do you counter that threat? One way might be ban DJI drones from military / government use and change procurement to favour open platforms. But if you favour open platforms then you run the risk of bad actors obtaining those same drones and abusing no-fly zone rules, turning them into flying bombs or whatnot.
But since there are already a number of open source drone projects maybe it's time to just accept the risk and embrace the change to open source.