I disagree with banning them, and I disagree with the FCC's argument that all drones inherently have a dual purpose as a paramilitary device... but.
Every DJI product I've interacted with has reeked of spyware. Many (all?) of their products brick themselves from the factory until you install an app, create an account, and pair to the device to "activate" it. Both the app installation and PII acquisition are mandatory, regardless of whether they're necessary for correct device function.
Hopefully, this opens the floodgates to a new, more competitive market for drones, where these forms of malpractice don't fly (heh). I'm not optimistic.
Why can’t they just require government agencies to purchase US-made drones? Why is this a bigger threat than any of the millions of foreign electronics used to communicate in the U.S.?
Because there's a non-trivial element of the current USG (and probably a decent sized portion of American voters) who think we'll be at war with PRC within the next couple years, at some point when the next Taiwan invasion windows open (April and October each year). From that perspective, this is prudent policy. If you don't think this is likely, or don't care about broader historical or geopolitical trends, then yes it's very annoying.
That doesn't explain it, though. In this case and the TikTok case, nobody has been able to cite exactly what all these "personal data" are. Not once have I seen a citation of what TikTok has "stolen" from users, somehow defying data sandboxing implemented on mobile devices.
This fake hysteria over drones is even worse, considering that the drones don't have the means of sending arbitrary data to remote servers.
There is nothing to prepare for because the only possible war between the USA and China is a nuclear war and such a war has no victor. Both countries are "prepared" in terms of nuclear weapons.
The USA is clearly not prepared to sacrifice any of its own cities to prevent an invasion of Taiwan.
All this sabre rattling and military buildup only serves to put money in the pockets of the military industrial complex and/or build military capabilities for each country to exert its will within its own sphere of influence.
> There is nothing to prepare for because the only possible war between the USA and China is a nuclear war and such a war has no victor.
I think there are 2 false statements here. First, you could have conventional conflict alone, the same way you had WW2 without extensive use of chemical weapons.
Second, there are possible paths to have a winnable nuclear war, actually, the US did have one a couple of decades ago and it won. I do agree that saying this out loud though is dangerous because the reason for nuclear taboo is also based on the perception of "end of world" it has.
Department of Interior tried that, but "Interior faces challenges with maintaining a sufficient drone fleet because drones compliant with its policies are more expensive and do not always have sufficient capabilities, among other issues, according to officials."
At least theoretically, there could be code in the China-made drones that allows them to be taken over in the event of a war between China and the US. In practice, this is probably just protectionist.
A lot of them are controllable from mobile devices through apps that could have new code remotely deployed to them - for example https://www.dji.com/downloads/djiapp/dji-go-4. The apps are mostly for controlling the camera, but presumably they're not airgapped from the flight controls.
And they run heavily encrypted firmware, so you have no idea what is actually happening. There is so much CPU power in those things it puts your cell phone to shame and a lot more sensors to boot. Some models have 8 onboard cameras.
It's right down the street from US domestic coffee, semiconductor, game console, laptop, rare earth mineral, graphite, and banana industries. All these US industries are protected by baseline and reciprocal tariffs.
Corruption and nepotism does not get much more blatant than this. The president's son is involved in one of the American drone companies that stand to gain the most from this policy. Their investor presentation boasts about regulations as the first bullet point under the title "Our competitive advantage".
That's an optimistic take, a more pessimistic take is that this is a tactic to lock marketshare for Wing, Zipline, Amazon and stall investment in drone delivery services while production catches up.
edit: I'm speculating here that the supply chain wasn't already state-side for these players without knowing much about their business model
This has nothing to do with "China spying on the US" and has everything to do with "US citizens piercing the total information control matrix and questioning the government".
DJI is a global drone company and they're popular in Japan as well for agricultural drones . I recall the head of the American branch Colin Guuin, wanted more share and control of the company and they booted him out and he started his own drone company which is not doing so well
Not sure why you're being downvoted. Even if you ignore the legitimacy of security concerns about foreign drones, this action gives more monopoly control over drones to the US government.
If some US drone manufacturer crosses the administration in some way, say in terms of backdoors or lack thereof, it's one less option for the consumer.
Think chat control in the EU but based on executive order in the US, and drones.
Its probably safe to assume that there are external interests that monitor social forums and work to sculpt the conversations to fit their interests.
Not like a full-on conspiracy or anything but I wouldn't say it's beyond the pale for that kind of conversation control to be SOP for some groups somewhere.
Also, we already know that many foreign countries have intentionally hired people to do specifically that.
Between the two (TikTok & DJI) ByteDance is the bigger threat to the US. But...Gotta have my vertically shot, short form, ad-laden, misinformation canon!
If the US does actually ban DJI drones the price of them will skyrocket (there's no good competition at the price point), DJI will do their little rebrand shuffle they did last time, and we'll have wasted a few news cycles (by design).
>But...Gotta have my vertically shot, short form, ad-laden, misinformation canon!
It's incredible that people will say this with a straight face, then export Instagram to the rest of the world and proceed to cry "Free Speech" when Meta bans come on the table.
It's incredibly hard for me to square if the concern is "ByteDance is the bigger threat to the US" or if the concern is "ByteDance is the bigger threat to my stock portfolio"
> incredible that people will say this with a straight face, then export Instagram to the rest of the world and proceed to cry "Free Speech" when Meta bans come on the table
This sounds like a straw man.
I worked on the TikTok ban bill. I'm also a huge sceptic of our own social media companies.
The difference is that ByteDance's product is not the same here as in the homeland. It's designed to be a misinformation canon only outside of China. Instagram is a misinformation canon everywhere. Did I say I thought Instagram shouldn't be burned to the ground just the same? No. But I'd rather start with foreign nationals if you really have to know. We're not getting rid of Instagram anytime soon, but one less platform is a win regardless.
Wonder when the TrumpDrone "made in america" will be announce. Just like the TrumpPhone, no doubt it'll end up being made in China. The jokes really do write themselves.
I disagree with banning them, and I disagree with the FCC's argument that all drones inherently have a dual purpose as a paramilitary device... but.
Every DJI product I've interacted with has reeked of spyware. Many (all?) of their products brick themselves from the factory until you install an app, create an account, and pair to the device to "activate" it. Both the app installation and PII acquisition are mandatory, regardless of whether they're necessary for correct device function.
Hopefully, this opens the floodgates to a new, more competitive market for drones, where these forms of malpractice don't fly (heh). I'm not optimistic.
Why can’t they just require government agencies to purchase US-made drones? Why is this a bigger threat than any of the millions of foreign electronics used to communicate in the U.S.?
Because there's a non-trivial element of the current USG (and probably a decent sized portion of American voters) who think we'll be at war with PRC within the next couple years, at some point when the next Taiwan invasion windows open (April and October each year). From that perspective, this is prudent policy. If you don't think this is likely, or don't care about broader historical or geopolitical trends, then yes it's very annoying.
That doesn't explain it, though. In this case and the TikTok case, nobody has been able to cite exactly what all these "personal data" are. Not once have I seen a citation of what TikTok has "stolen" from users, somehow defying data sandboxing implemented on mobile devices.
This fake hysteria over drones is even worse, considering that the drones don't have the means of sending arbitrary data to remote servers.
They do, the DJI app can send whatever it wants. In China, all flight logs are sent to the relevant authority for enforcement.
If you think that is likely there won't be a USA or much of the rest of the world anyway.
So this whole thing is utterly stupid
> If you think that is likely there won't be a USA or much of the rest of the world anyway
America and China will probably find themselves in a proxy and/or hybrid war before 2035 (unless China stops trying to invade Taiwan).
None of that requries a nuclear exchange, nor even conventional strikes by China on the American homeland or vice versa.
[flagged]
There is nothing to prepare for because the only possible war between the USA and China is a nuclear war and such a war has no victor. Both countries are "prepared" in terms of nuclear weapons.
The USA is clearly not prepared to sacrifice any of its own cities to prevent an invasion of Taiwan.
All this sabre rattling and military buildup only serves to put money in the pockets of the military industrial complex and/or build military capabilities for each country to exert its will within its own sphere of influence.
> There is nothing to prepare for because the only possible war between the USA and China is a nuclear war and such a war has no victor.
I think there are 2 false statements here. First, you could have conventional conflict alone, the same way you had WW2 without extensive use of chemical weapons.
Second, there are possible paths to have a winnable nuclear war, actually, the US did have one a couple of decades ago and it won. I do agree that saying this out loud though is dangerous because the reason for nuclear taboo is also based on the perception of "end of world" it has.
Department of Interior tried that, but "Interior faces challenges with maintaining a sufficient drone fleet because drones compliant with its policies are more expensive and do not always have sufficient capabilities, among other issues, according to officials."
https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-24-106924
At least theoretically, there could be code in the China-made drones that allows them to be taken over in the event of a war between China and the US. In practice, this is probably just protectionist.
Taken over how, though? They are controlled by short-range radio, and have no cellular transceivers.
A lot of them are controllable from mobile devices through apps that could have new code remotely deployed to them - for example https://www.dji.com/downloads/djiapp/dji-go-4. The apps are mostly for controlling the camera, but presumably they're not airgapped from the flight controls.
And they run heavily encrypted firmware, so you have no idea what is actually happening. There is so much CPU power in those things it puts your cell phone to shame and a lot more sensors to boot. Some models have 8 onboard cameras.
Its probably protectionism to protect/boost the domestic drone industry
What domestic drone industry?
It's right down the street from US domestic coffee, semiconductor, game console, laptop, rare earth mineral, graphite, and banana industries. All these US industries are protected by baseline and reciprocal tariffs.
We have a big semiconductor industry! We just didn't have TSMC.
Skydio and Freefly and a bunch of defense contractors. Skydio is pretty big, IIRC
The entire point is to force the creation of one
A US drone industry would still have to compete with China on the global market. The entire developing world doesn't give a shit about US sanctions.
Perhaps Trump Jr's Unusual Machines.
Not sure what's going on with the content on the Reuters page (amtrak? ) but here's the content that went out on the wire:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/us-adds-dji-other-foreig...
weird
Corruption and nepotism does not get much more blatant than this. The president's son is involved in one of the American drone companies that stand to gain the most from this policy. Their investor presentation boasts about regulations as the first bullet point under the title "Our competitive advantage".
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/zacheverson/2025/10/29/donald-t...
[2] https://www.unusualmachines.com/about-us/company-presentatio...
That's an optimistic take, a more pessimistic take is that this is a tactic to lock marketshare for Wing, Zipline, Amazon and stall investment in drone delivery services while production catches up.
edit: I'm speculating here that the supply chain wasn't already state-side for these players without knowing much about their business model
Ding ding ding
It's even worse than that. Foreign drone-critical components are also banned.
https://www.fcc.gov/document/fcc-updates-covered-list-add-ce...
Flight controllers? ESCs? Who knows!
If you have a DJI drone in the US, its going to go up in value. I expect to sell my beat-up DJI Mini for at least as much as I paid in the next year.
I'm not so sure this will happen. Existing models aren't being banned and DJI can continue to import and sell them.
Which makes the ban even dumber than it is on its face.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/us-adds-dji-other-foreig...
> UAS and UAS critical components produced in a foreign country …
Forces drone engineering and manufacturing into the US if they want to sell anything to anyone in the US.
This has nothing to do with "China spying on the US" and has everything to do with "US citizens piercing the total information control matrix and questioning the government".
DJI is a global drone company and they're popular in Japan as well for agricultural drones . I recall the head of the American branch Colin Guuin, wanted more share and control of the company and they booted him out and he started his own drone company which is not doing so well
Not sure why you're being downvoted. Even if you ignore the legitimacy of security concerns about foreign drones, this action gives more monopoly control over drones to the US government.
If some US drone manufacturer crosses the administration in some way, say in terms of backdoors or lack thereof, it's one less option for the consumer.
Think chat control in the EU but based on executive order in the US, and drones.
Its probably safe to assume that there are external interests that monitor social forums and work to sculpt the conversations to fit their interests.
Not like a full-on conspiracy or anything but I wouldn't say it's beyond the pale for that kind of conversation control to be SOP for some groups somewhere.
Also, we already know that many foreign countries have intentionally hired people to do specifically that.
Too many people have abandoned reason for madness.
article seems to be about amtrak?
If the TikTok process is any guide with this administration, it's pretty predictable how this will turn out.
Between the two (TikTok & DJI) ByteDance is the bigger threat to the US. But...Gotta have my vertically shot, short form, ad-laden, misinformation canon!
If the US does actually ban DJI drones the price of them will skyrocket (there's no good competition at the price point), DJI will do their little rebrand shuffle they did last time, and we'll have wasted a few news cycles (by design).
>But...Gotta have my vertically shot, short form, ad-laden, misinformation canon!
It's incredible that people will say this with a straight face, then export Instagram to the rest of the world and proceed to cry "Free Speech" when Meta bans come on the table.
It's incredibly hard for me to square if the concern is "ByteDance is the bigger threat to the US" or if the concern is "ByteDance is the bigger threat to my stock portfolio"
> incredible that people will say this with a straight face, then export Instagram to the rest of the world and proceed to cry "Free Speech" when Meta bans come on the table
This sounds like a straw man.
I worked on the TikTok ban bill. I'm also a huge sceptic of our own social media companies.
The difference is that ByteDance's product is not the same here as in the homeland. It's designed to be a misinformation canon only outside of China. Instagram is a misinformation canon everywhere. Did I say I thought Instagram shouldn't be burned to the ground just the same? No. But I'd rather start with foreign nationals if you really have to know. We're not getting rid of Instagram anytime soon, but one less platform is a win regardless.
Do USA has a domestic drone industry?
Skydio
They’ve left the consumer market and only do defense now
Every drone manufacturer is a future defense contractor.
Awesome, cool. Which consumer drone from Skydio can I bu- oh wait, I can't.
Thanks, Adam!
Wonder when the TrumpDrone "made in america" will be announce. Just like the TrumpPhone, no doubt it'll end up being made in China. The jokes really do write themselves.
And also undelivered because they don't exist.
The TrumpPhone has never even launched. Everything is just scam and lies.
I was under the impression that anyone into drones were using 3D printers and building their own.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6chNEaXb-o
I mean, like, I guess I'm just a nerd, but where is the fun in buying a premade expensive quad copter?
There are broad applications for drones, not just hobbyists. In fact I think hobbyists are probably the minorty of buyers these days.