| Cloud whistles have become another example of the unforeseeability of technology.
Source: The Verge
As the Russian-Ukrainian conflict intensified, many companies were passively involved, and the original business and position, and even the technology itself, became complicated.
On March 16, local time, the DJI AeroScope (hereinafter referred to as the Cloud Whistle) system was tweeted by Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mylhailo Fedorov as one of the accomplices in helping Russia to do evil. "Please block the products you helped Russia kill!"
In a letter to DJI founder Wang Tao, Fedorov said DJI had shut down Ukraine's cloud whistle function but remained open to Russia. Russia used the positioning function of the cloud sentry to attack Ukraine, causing innocent casualties among the military and civilians. He wants DJI to block Russian drones in Ukraine and provide data on Russian drones in Ukraine.
Wang Tao, the founder of DJI
In response, DJI has responded many times. On March 17, DJI responded on Twitter that DJI did not have user data. On March 28, DJI responded again in an interview with the Observer Network, "The claim that DJI is unilaterally open to Russia is nonsense, and civilian drones cannot directly navigate missiles." ”
After DJI stood on the cusp of the storm, MediaMarkt, which cooperated with DJI, was also affected. Due to the sale of DJI drones, the Twitter account of Wonder City was swiped by netizens. Subsequently, Wondercity removed DJI products.
Not only Russia, but also Ukraine have also used DJI civilian drones for military purposes. According to the New York Post, the Ukrainian military used drones to drop beer bottles containing combustibles at Russian troops to stop the Russian offensive.
When the original civilian drones became the military weapons of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, DJI's position became particularly important. For now, the controversy surrounding DJI, Ukraine and Russia continues.
Recently, DJI spokesman Adam Lisberg and 3 relevant people were interviewed by the foreign media "The Verge", and the following is the editorial compilation of the direct face based on the report.
(Note: Interviewees included drone expert David Kovar, Brandon Lugo, director of operations at aero Armor, a prominent U.S. aerospace telescope dealer, and Taras Troiak, a DJI dealer.)
A
According to Ukrainian sources, Russia is now using the DJI cloud sentry system to locate the location of Ukrainian pilots, and find people and destroy them.
But initially, DJI's cloud sentry system was designed for public safety. The popularity of civilian UAVs has brought potential threats to airports, nuclear power plants and other places, cloud whistle as a UAV detection system, can analyze radio frequency signals, the mainstream UAV detection, grasp its heading, altitude, speed and pilot position information.
Since 2017, every drone DJI has sold has released a special signal that specializes in receivers that decipher the drone and pilot's position. If a drone maliciously approaches a crowded place such as an airport runway or a stadium, law enforcement can act quickly to avoid risks.
DJI mainly sells two types of cloud whistle receivers: a "Portable Unit" with a clamshell, screen, antenna and battery, and a remote "Stationary Unit" ( Stationary Unit " . It is designed as a giant antenna that needs to be connected to the server via an Ethernet cable or cellular modem.
DJI Cloud Whistle Portable Unit Receiver
According to DJI's official website, the latter is designed for large sites, and under ideal conditions, its detection range can reach 50 kilometers and relevant information can be obtained within 2 seconds. The portable reception range is only one-tenth of the fixed type, that is, 5 kilometers.
Cloud whistles work by transferring data to DJI's public servers (hosted by Amazon's AWS) and then to the drone owner's private cloud, or even an offline server, for security.
In terms of price, different receivers vary greatly. Lugo, director of operations at aero Armor, a well-known U.S. aerospace telescope dealer, said the portable receiver he knew would sell for $10,000, compared to $25,000 to $150,000 for the G8 model stationary receiver. In addition, DJI said the cost of the installation was under $10,000.
DJI had imagined that if someone with ill intentions got a cloud whistle receiver, the consequences would be unimaginable. As a result, DJI says, its system will only be sold to legitimate official agencies. But DJI did not anticipate what would happen during wartime when a legitimate buyer used DJI products with missiles.
Now that Ukrainians and their civilian drones are being recruited to fend off Russian troops, the advantages of cloud sentry have turned into deadly, unforeseen flaws. Once exploited by the Russian military, the exact location of Ukrainian drone pilots could be targeted.
Lisberg explains, "From the very beginning, we made it clear to all dealers and distributors that cloud sentries could only be sold to legitimate operators, police and security forces. ”
DJI said that civilian drones transporting their own location information, just like cars to hang license plates, is one of the necessary links to build a safe drone flight environment.
B
The Ukrainian military attaches great importance to drones, even urging some drone owners to join the fight, and these devices are also used to track the location of Russian pilots.
But DJI recently received allegations from Ukraine. Kiev-based DJI dealer Taras Troyak said the cloud sentry receivers of the nuclear power plant "magically" failed after russia invaded Ukraine, some of which were used to defend Ukraine's nuclear power plants. There are also rumors that DJI weakened Ukraine's cloud sentry receiver signals.
Ukrainian Vice President Fedorov said: "The Russian army uses an extended version of the DJI cloud sentry taken from Syria, covering an area of 50 kilometers. He also said That Russia uses cloud sentinels to navigate its missiles.
Letter from the Vice President of Ukraine to DJI
DJI acknowledged that Ukraine's cloud sentry receiver was malfunctioning, but vehemently denied anything to do with it. "All the allegations that DJI deliberately tweaked cloud whistle functionality to help some people or hurt others are completely false, and no credible person can prove that what we encountered at Aero Scopes is not a technical problem." Lisberg told The Verge that the failure could be caused by a power or network outage.
As for whether DJI has provided Russia with an extended version of the cloud sentry receiver, which is farther than the Ukrainian receiver? Lisberg said he had never heard of a military version of cloud sentry that was longer than 50 kilometers. Controversy aside, at least Ukraine and Russia can use cloud whistle receivers, which is clear.
At present, DJI has helped some of Ukraine's unworkable cloud sentry receivers back online and said it would continue to cooperate with Ukrainian operators.
C
Another controversial issue is that DJI or Ukraine can't just turn off the cloud whistle signal so that the pilot is not targeted?
First of all, this is not something that DJI can turn off over the Internet, the drone is not sent over the Internet, it sends cloud whistle signals to receivers running nearby through standard 2.4GHz and 5.8GHz frequencies. Even the owner of the drone can't turn it off, "these are all encoded in a packet of data, which is part of the data transmission that you can use to command and control the drone."
However, cloud whistle is a late-updated firmware, and in theory, some early DJI drones may be able to shut it down. "If you don't install the new firmware for cloud whistles, drones can still fly very well," Lisberg admits. But this can threaten public safety.
Equally important is that Ukraine is not asking DJI to shut down Ukraine's cloud whistle signals. The Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister wants DJI to provide information on every product DJI makes in Ukraine, including where and where to buy maps, and to block drones in Ukraine except Ukrainian users.
At this point, DJI said, "We can't track the location of the cloud whistle, and there is no drone sales data, and people have a big misunderstanding about us." "It is reported that DJI's sales link is passed down layer by layer by distributor- dealer- public. Lugo confirms this: "They don't have direct access to user data. ”
In 2017, a hacker called Kevin Finisterre discovered that DJI had made public a portion of its Amazon AWS cloud data that included "flight logs of accounts related to the government and military domains." At that time, the U.S. military began to suspect that it was using the DJI drone.
Three years later, the hacker uploaded another block of data from the same vulnerability — an online heat map of global drone activity. Theoretically, without some sort of tracking behavior, DJI would not have been able to generate such a graph.
But DJI's Lisberg says it doesn't exist. He firmly said that DJI does not have the user's flight data unless the user uploads it themselves. Although the above hackers said that DJI's Fly app may get user data through the "auto-synchronized flight record" function, the current US version of the app has turned off the feature by default.
"While the app encourages you to share your drone's information and the device's 'daily diagnostic and usage data,' you can choose to ignore it." Drone expert David Koval said he was confident the company wasn't stealing flight data information right now. Consulting firms and U.S. government agencies have repeatedly conducted independent security audits and have not found such problems.
"For all DJI products, your data is your own, and just like our drones, we offer data hosting services for the convenience of customers who want to use data hosting." Lisberg writes, "We're not a data company, and we don't want to be a repository of customer data. ”
Since 2017, DJI has successfully persuaded many law enforcement agencies. "People have observed the traffic situation and they can't draw any conclusions yet."
Despite Leithberg's assurances, DJI dealer Taras Troyak advised, "Pilots should not update any DJI apps and turn off geolocation on their smartphones." ”
Asked if DJI would withdraw from Russia, Lisberg said, "For 15 years, DJI has been trying to stay away from geopolitics. "Shutting down the cloud sentry receivers will not necessarily stop the Russian military from tracking these drones.
In hindsight, Koval argues that the cloud whistle was a pretty bad invention that exposed, identified, and located those who fought for the nation. But in terms of law enforcement, it's a great invention that protects our vital infrastructure.
He likened it to the unforeseen uses of technology itself, like Toyota might have been associated with the image of militants using machine guns to mount pickups. These uses can have an unfortunate impact on their owners.
Original link:
https://www.theverge.com/22985101/dji-aeroscope-ukraine-russia-drone-tracking，The Verge，《DJI DRONES, UKRAINE, AND RUSSIA — WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT AEROSCOPE》