Hello Fellow Yuneec Pilot!
Join our free Yuneec community and remove this annoying banner!
Sign up

Advances on "Drone Origin Security Enhancement Act"

Joined
Dec 21, 2017
Messages
1,115
Reaction score
417
Age
66
Location
MidWest - Iowa
And... Here's Your Sign....
What was thought to most likely die through House or Senate, both have bills have cleared the 1st level within their committees.
A BAN for several US Govt (non-military) Agencies to purchase or retain drones or drone components made by a list of Countries.
This effects the Drones, electronics, gimbals, cameras, etc made by or associated by countries on the BAN List.
This is targeted primarily at China and their associated countries and focused on DJI that holds roughly 70% market share.
But, this effects ALL Chinese companies... that includes Yuneec, Autel, etc... and so far no exception granted for "Govt Edition" platforms.
It's NOT brand focused anywhere...it's Country focused.... and several Non-China companies use China camera components or have some electronics manufactured in China to reduce manufacturing costs.

 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: FLDirector19
Can’t say I didn’t see this coming.
You & me both... a China BAN on any electronic UAV components will be a hard hit... similar to Apple and several USA companies, I'm sure seversl sUAV companies are having various parts made in China to reduce cost. It could be a larger BAN than realized... those that feel the trade disputs added cost... it won't compare to having to manufacture all the components outside of China controlled markets & countries.

I think DJI saw it in the Tea Leaves too; and why DJI has been prepping USA and other countries owned buildings for manufacturing & assembly... a few more production modules and they could meet the USA made specs using other countries and relocating various facilities and Staff. That depends on desired market... If Fed Govt is in cross hairs... if so, you'll see a new "Brand" in next 1-2 years that looks and smells like DJI.

I see it more impacting to a lot of other companies. Yuneec was hoping their Govt Ed H520G would be a salvation market for them... they'll most likely loose that prospect and high margin profits.

Similar to Kaspersky... got (wrongly) booted from Fed Govt but remains market leader and consistent winner of accomplishments & awards... and their labs still Dx for Govt approved products. Just saying if Fed Govt isn't your primary market... it's a sore spot but not a critical business impact. If the Fed Govt was a solution to survival, it's a potential devastating impact.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FLDirector19
Plus... if these "Bills" fly as justified... then reality would be any data handling electronics that could be attacked next.

The Alexa, Google devices are manufactured where? The various phones, tablets, smart TVs electronics made where... and the Big Boy Cisco Network Hardware primarily in every company... those circuits manufactured all in USA... don't think so. The Kaspersky engine was in basically every high level Switch or Router... that was a small problem to correct compared to Chinese made US Spec components.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FLDirector19
In response to the above I think the DoD just addressed those concerns by awarding a multi-billion $$ cloud contract to Microsoft. They deliberately left Amazon and Cisco out of the running. Interestingly, Google was miffed as they believed the award process was intended to favor Amazon.

We have been at war with China digitally for at least 25 years and that’s not going to end any time soon. We need look no further than advances in China’s rocket program and military aircraft developments to recognize their level of IP and engineering design theft is beyond comprehension. Toss in China’s national intelligence laws requiring any Chinese company or individual to provide support for intel gathering efforts and we should quickly understand that no amount of trust can be given to Chinese owned manufacturers, regardless of where they perform assembly operations. A leopard does not change its spots as it changes locations.
 
I agree with a good portion of that... but...

You feel Microsoft is the American option of security? Our US Federal Courts migrated to MS cloud about 2 yrs ago... or still migrating in some fashion... it was a long road to get it localized into USA and separated into a private cloud. MS employes a lot of nationalities and located around the globe... I'm not convinced that's a secure channel either; The seperation is a handful of $80-150k staff with permissions... and we known the pressures or incentives that work.

Actually in my opinion, security is bringing it back out of the cloud onto hardware & storage within your reach and direct control. A "visible" breach will occur... when is the question. Other concealed breaches won't be detected until they want most likely to be detected... sorry a little cloak & dagger does exist in reality too.

But MS is primarily SW, not Infrastructure hardware or the FW on the hardware. MS isn't in that arena. Altos is a major Govt Firewall player, and Cisco is the infrastructure.

Then add in all the contract IT because on the Govt "books" it's a lower budgetary cost. A lot of that internal and external contract IT staff are from all around the globe... barely understandable English... and since we're an equal opportunity entity... we need a percentage from several countries. Even MI camps are heavily populated with contract IT, we can't trust a team of Sp4 or Majors to manage our deployment DB or Intel DB.

Now what about the phones sitting on the desks or cells in pockets. The TV's in briefing rooms, etc.

Just stating the possibilities are much greater in so many other electronics than a sUAV on a 15 minute power up cycle collecting images sub-par to legally flying observation... aka weather planes and satellites.

Regarding the companies setting up USA plants... that's so true, no argument. But if they meet the specs... they pass mustard and are given equal opportunity... tis the American way correct... what, is logic and applied common sense suppose to apply? Been watching the news lately?
 
  • Like
Reactions: FLDirector19
We are more in agreement than not. The use of cloud data storage means the data will never be secure as the storage medium will be under constant attacks to hack and obtain the data.

Anything that links to a non air gapped server or computer is not secure and cannot be made secure for as long as it can connect to the web. For precisely that reason the Chinese were able to obtain the histories of over 23 million people from the federal Office of Personnel Management. Anyone that had been issued or applied for a security clearance can access their application files through the Chinese government.

From my perspective the greatest threat we face comes from what has made life easier; computers and the internet. To avoid politics I left out politicians.

As for watching the news of late, remember I live in California, where insanity and lack of personal responsibility and common sense permeates every aspect of life. We won’t delve into the international side as my blood pressure would sour to astronomical levels. Watching our country consent to allowing another country to again commit genocide is beyond comprehension.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FLDirector19
We are more in agreement than not. The use of cloud data storage means the data will never be secure as the storage medium will be under constant attacks to hack and obtain the data.

Anything that links to a non air gapped server or computer is not secure and cannot be made secure for as long as it can connect to the web. For precisely that reason the Chinese were able to obtain the histories of over 23 million people from the federal Office of Personnel Management. Anyone that had been issued or applied for a security clearance can access their application files through the Chinese government.

From my perspective the greatest threat we face comes from what has made life easier; computers and the internet. To avoid politics I left out politicians.

As for watching the news of late, remember I live in California, where insanity and lack of personal responsibility and common sense permeates every aspect of life. We won’t delve into the international side as my blood pressure would sour to astronomical levels. Watching our country consent to allowing another country to again commit genocide is beyond comprehension.
Tracking ya on all points... and on the no comment points. It's alarming and frustrating what took 200+ yrs is prey to mass weakness.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FLDirector19
Following the path of the Roman Empire pretty well.
Almost the same parallel foot trail too, as we merrily stroll to decay! We touched on this in a previous post about a year ago... thinking it was near the "low" pt... a year's past hasn't improved.

Many good things about IT, I do enjoy photo & video editors as example... but coupled to the internet it has introduced a layer of compromise well beyound the foresight the campus engineers to join systems for educational improvement and the positive benifits of sharing information.

The private sector moved many core assets back to local services & storage to improve security, control and customer service. While the profit organizations were moving back, the Federal Govt was busy completing it's design to move outward to cloud services... typically the Govt is about 4-7 yrs behind technologies. Hopefully core functions will move back, but from my view it won't be for sometime because they're still migrating outward.

Regrettably, it'll probably take an event of devastation to get the Govt ship to begin turning around... and not just IT and Security, but mindset too.
 
  • Like
Reactions: FLDirector19
Little will change until those managing servers and data bases are held financially liable to all that are impacted by a data breech. The penalties have to go well above and beyond providing credit monitoring. Without penalty there is little incentive to make change.
 
Little will change until those managing servers and data bases are held financially liable to all that are impacted by a data breech. The penalties have to go well above and beyond providing credit monitoring. Without penalty there is little incentive to make change.

I disagree.

At the risk of exposing more ignorance, I believe it is those from above whose directives, by way of budget setting, that need to be held accountable.

“We must cut costs” seems to take priority over doing things the right way.

Just sayin’

Jeff
 
  • Like
Reactions: FLDirector19

New Posts

Members online

No members online now.

Forum statistics

Threads
20,955
Messages
241,593
Members
27,286
Latest member
lahorelaptop