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'We're Not Being Paranoid': U.S. Warns Of Spy Dangers Of Chinese-Made Drones
Drones have become an increasingly popular tool for industry and government. Electric utilities use them to inspect transmission lines. Oil companies fly them over pipelines. The Interior Department even deployed them to track lava flows at Hawaii's Kilauea volcano.
But the Department of Homeland Security is warning that drones manufactured by Chinese companies could pose security risks, including that the data they gather could be stolen.
The department sent out an alert on the subject on May 20, and a video on its website notes that drones in general pose multiple threats, including "their potential use for terrorism, mass casualty incidents, interference with air traffic, as well as corporate espionage and invasions of privacy." "We're not being paranoid," the video's narrator adds.
Related: Department of Homeland Security Terror Bulletin Warns of "Weaponized Drones"
(Score: 5, Insightful) by RedGreen on Wednesday May 29 2019, @08:18PM (11 children)
What about all those other devices in everyones pockets right now the cell phones made in China. Built in mic, camera and gps tracking of every citizen in the US. The the TVs of the smart variety all over the place with just about the same level of spying able to be done. In short that ship of security, has sailed a long time ago, when you gave all those job to the Chinese for the cheap as dirt products you wanted. Screwing your fellow Americans out of a job so you could get the cheap slave labour produced products.
"I modded down, down, down, and the flames went higher." -- Sven Olsen
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rupert Pupnick on Wednesday May 29 2019, @09:44PM (10 children)
Drones in general pose multiple threats, but somehow Chinese drones are the worst threat because... they can somehow send images captured by private citizens back to China? Like, a Chinese intellegence agent in this country couldn’t simply buy a drone and do it themselves? Meanwhile, American tech companies are sending detailed design and manufacturing documentation for some of the most sophisticated consumer electronics in the world to low cost Chinese producers.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Mykl on Wednesday May 29 2019, @11:32PM (9 children)
This.
I find it incredible that companies are prepared to hand over so much critical information about their products to a country which is known to be so 'relaxed' about IP laws.
The rise of China as a superpower was largely (mostly?) funded by western companies looking to save a few bucks by sending all of their manufacturing there for the past couple of decades. It's really been a triple-whammy: Weakening the domestic labour market, strengthening the Chinese market and providing massive cash injections to their economy, and providing a wide swathe of IP to be stolen and copied wholesale.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday May 30 2019, @12:10AM (5 children)
It isn't just stolen IP -- that is worth whatever it is worth now and has some short term value. What China got out of offshoring was the generalized know-how in high tech manufacturing processes as well as examples of marketable design/software/hardware/whatever -- the tools to do things and examples of how to do them (*). The knowledge gained in this learning stage can only mean that Chinese manufacturers and developers will at some point exceed the capabilities of those who sought a short term gain by closing up manufacturing here and moving it elsewhere. We have educated them, given them their first jobs, and now they're close to going off on their own.
(*) I recently bought an eSATA/USB hard drive dock, Chinese made with some Chinese name as the manufacturer. The device works but what I really noticed, the packaging was Apple level nice, just beautiful. I've seen that more and more with various Chinese gadgets I've bought -- I see that super flimsy crappy corrugated cardboard or garish glossy design elements less and less -- a lot of the stuff is being packaged quite elegantly. Chinese manufacturers are really savvy -- they've done the hard labor for others for decades now and they've learned how to do it really well. They are at (or soon to be at) the point where they don't need those others anymore.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @01:06AM (4 children)
Came to says this too.
The whole 'china is stealing our IPeez' thing is heavily overblown. Yes, it's a problem for a small company when the exact product that was being produced in China is duplicated and resold under a Chinese brand for a quarter the price. That is one issue. But, I keep hearing talking heads going on like some Chinese guy finding out how Cisco or whoever are doing their networking is some sort of super trade secret that is lightyears ahead of general expertise in the field. This is bogus, the know-how and experience in the field is the biggest indicator of success in a company. Many western companies in the race for short term gains are outsourcing all of that overseas and keeping the 'management' (which is basically a sales network and branding). The problem with this is that over time, like the Japanese first, then the Koreans, the Taiwanese and Chinese brands for technology driven products will eventually become even more sought out than the western brands.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by takyon on Thursday May 30 2019, @02:05AM (2 children)
Or you are wrong.
R&D is expensive and uncertain. Having a government-backed hacking operation to steal trade secrets for your company is a big help. The economic entanglement between the West and China only gives it more opportunities to steal information.
You can't even fault China for this. It's the smart move, and they are largely getting away with it.
That's not to say that China can't do it on their own [nytimes.com], but the Iceeu Pee theft is part of a winning strategy.
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 30 2019, @02:18PM
"Trade secrets," should not be the issue unless one is concerned about hacking or more conventional forms of business espionage. I acknowledge this is exactly what you're aiming at, but this isn't the issue at hand here.
This is basically government panic about the way drones can be used.
(Score: 2) by Phoenix666 on Thursday May 30 2019, @05:43PM
It is karma. The United States industrialized so quickly by stealing trade secrets from the British back in the day.
There must be a significant cultural component to the ability to internalize them, though. American companies have outsourced manufacturing to Mexico, also, but that country is in no way on its way to becoming anything but another level of basket case.
Washington DC delenda est.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Farkus888 on Thursday May 30 2019, @12:30PM
I use that as a metric of a company. The engineer, mechanic, coder and other similar doing the work jobs go on one side of the scale. The management, marketing and sales go on the other. If group 2 is bigger than group 1 the company is in long term trouble. The basic premise is that a good mechanic does not need marketing. People need things fixed, they will hunt the mechanic down. The group 2 people have nothing to offer without group 1. They slightly improve efficiency, can't improve the efficiency of nothing.
(Score: 1, Disagree) by legont on Thursday May 30 2019, @01:32AM (2 children)
This.
I find it incredible that companies are prepared to hand over so much critical information about their products to a country which is known to be so 'relaxed' about IP laws.
The rise of America as a superpower was largely (mostly?) funded by British companies looking to save a few bucks by sending all of their manufacturing there for the past couple of decades. It's really been a triple-whammy: Weakening the domestic labour market, strengthening the American market and providing massive cash injections to their economy, and providing a wide swathe of IP to be stolen and copied wholesale.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by Rupert Pupnick on Friday May 31 2019, @04:22PM (1 child)
If you’re trying to make the point that America throughout history has reaped benefits at the expense of other countries, I totally agree, but you could do it with less snark and far better historical parallels.
(Score: 2) by legont on Friday May 31 2019, @11:54PM
My point was that what China does to the US is almost exactly what the US did to the Great Britain. I believe the relationships will develop the same way as well. There will be war. Then we'll become closest friends under Chinese leadership.
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.