My word of caution to the community at large, or rather maybe just more narrowly tailored to the Mavic tuning/unlocking/etc community as a whole is to be careful of false prophets. In this particular instance, for those that don't already know, I wanted to give the heads up that "superman", aka "hostile", aka "Red Herring" guy, aka "DJI Problem" (on twitter), aka "/d0tslash" aka "KF" aka Kevin Finisterre (okay you get the point, the guy has like a gazillion aliases) is not what it appears or seems to be. Or at the very least, I'll qualify my remarks and just state my opinion that I believe there has been a great misrepresentation. And his true intent and larger bigger picture motive is counter to the mission of drone freedom.
Some in the community have labeled this guy "superhero" or "savior" and believe him to be in essence more or less "on our side"... but nothing could be further from the truth.
The TL;DR, version is this: "KF" aka Kevin Finisterre recently released some recent exploits that made Mavic and some other DJI drones "root"able for the primary purpose of "sounding the alarm" to the dangers of droning, and to use DJI's own customer base against them for the sole purpose of in order to forcibly compel DJI to learn from their security mistakes and to be far more locked down in all their products in the future.
So while it may seem to some or many that Kevin Finisterre did the community a favor, in my opinion his heart wasn't in the right place, it wasn't aligned with the very community that he used as leverage against DJI, the community that applauded him, the community that in part he aroused up in order to get DJI to do his bidding, and his motive and intent is largely the exact opposite of that of ours.
For example, he is of the opinion that DJI hasn't done enough to lock down the Mavic and all other drones. He told me directly that his greatest fundamental philosophical disagreement with the DJI attorney is DJI attorney /legal refused to acknowledge that DJI drones are essentially weapons of war, akin to AK-47's in the movie "Lord of War" (specifically his quote/reference) He also publicly stated in many talks that DJI is essentially guilty of "proliferation" of drones, and of allowing "military grade" hardware (including in his opinion the Mavic itself is 'military grade') into the hands of everyone (public, terrorists, etc) without sufficient "export controls" nor enough "denied party screening" or "supply chain tracking". He also is of the opinion that DJI has not done enough to publicly acknowledge the dangers and threats of its drones, including not publicly acknowledge that DJI drones are being weaponized in theaters of war, and are essentially weapons/arms that should be subject to ITAR.
This guy only "leaked" the exploits because it is his masterful attempt at bringing attention to the bigger picture problem to FORCE DJI to 'lock down' hard... Sometime that likely DJI would otherwise not have addressedd and would have been content to let the likes of CopterSafe have at it for as long as it didn't attract too much attention or bad press. He tried first to get DJI's attention the "diplomatic" way though legal channels and when that "fell on deaf ears" he took the radical extreme approach. This was in essence his way of "forcing the conversation" or in my opinion his attempt to hijack the conversation/debate and strongarm others to see things his way.
The guy works for an organization called Department 13 which specializes in “countering the drone threat”. One of his websites is called digitalmunitions and he believes that just because some bad guys in the Middle East have used Toyota trucks to do bad things (like mount guns on those trucks and used the trucks as a platform for transporting the mounted firearms) that Toyota is a proliferator of a certain type of weapon known as a “truck”. He applies the same or similar analogy to DJI drones, stating that because DJI drones have been known in particular instances to have facilitated attacks on US troops abroad by members of “ISIS” who alleged used some of these drones to drop grenades from the air, that DJI is also a weapons proliferator and an arms dealer, simply because their off the shelf drone was used as a delivery mechanism for the payload (explosive grenades).
So in his mind, it is not simply enough that the actual explosive or gunpowder or active chemical substance be classified as an explosive, danger, threat, weapon, arms etc and it is not enough that the grenade or bomb and its derivative mechanisms be classified and labeled too as weapons and arms, but that one must widen the scope, to include other derivative degrees of association however remote or nonsensical, and to arrive at the position and the social stance that if a truck is used in war in any manner whatsoever, even though it is a civilian truck, it should be classified as a weapon or an arms. And that if a drone is used to drop a grenade or a bomb, then the drone itself becomes the weapon, and should be treated and identified as no different as the actual underlying explosive mechanism itself. So it isn’t enough in his mind that we as a society regulate and control actual weapons, real arms, but that we must also take the steps and classify anything that could remotely have been associated with weapons to be themselves weapons as well.
Well that is a slippery slope if I ever heard of one. And I don’t think those in the drone community would largely concur with KF’s stance that drones are a major threat that must be controlled, regulated and countered and that toy makers like DJI should be branded as arms dealers and guilty of war crimes and proliferation.
Kevin Finisterre Reveals His Process for Security Research
Some in the community have labeled this guy "superhero" or "savior" and believe him to be in essence more or less "on our side"... but nothing could be further from the truth.
The TL;DR, version is this: "KF" aka Kevin Finisterre recently released some recent exploits that made Mavic and some other DJI drones "root"able for the primary purpose of "sounding the alarm" to the dangers of droning, and to use DJI's own customer base against them for the sole purpose of in order to forcibly compel DJI to learn from their security mistakes and to be far more locked down in all their products in the future.
So while it may seem to some or many that Kevin Finisterre did the community a favor, in my opinion his heart wasn't in the right place, it wasn't aligned with the very community that he used as leverage against DJI, the community that applauded him, the community that in part he aroused up in order to get DJI to do his bidding, and his motive and intent is largely the exact opposite of that of ours.
For example, he is of the opinion that DJI hasn't done enough to lock down the Mavic and all other drones. He told me directly that his greatest fundamental philosophical disagreement with the DJI attorney is DJI attorney /legal refused to acknowledge that DJI drones are essentially weapons of war, akin to AK-47's in the movie "Lord of War" (specifically his quote/reference) He also publicly stated in many talks that DJI is essentially guilty of "proliferation" of drones, and of allowing "military grade" hardware (including in his opinion the Mavic itself is 'military grade') into the hands of everyone (public, terrorists, etc) without sufficient "export controls" nor enough "denied party screening" or "supply chain tracking". He also is of the opinion that DJI has not done enough to publicly acknowledge the dangers and threats of its drones, including not publicly acknowledge that DJI drones are being weaponized in theaters of war, and are essentially weapons/arms that should be subject to ITAR.
This guy only "leaked" the exploits because it is his masterful attempt at bringing attention to the bigger picture problem to FORCE DJI to 'lock down' hard... Sometime that likely DJI would otherwise not have addressedd and would have been content to let the likes of CopterSafe have at it for as long as it didn't attract too much attention or bad press. He tried first to get DJI's attention the "diplomatic" way though legal channels and when that "fell on deaf ears" he took the radical extreme approach. This was in essence his way of "forcing the conversation" or in my opinion his attempt to hijack the conversation/debate and strongarm others to see things his way.
The guy works for an organization called Department 13 which specializes in “countering the drone threat”. One of his websites is called digitalmunitions and he believes that just because some bad guys in the Middle East have used Toyota trucks to do bad things (like mount guns on those trucks and used the trucks as a platform for transporting the mounted firearms) that Toyota is a proliferator of a certain type of weapon known as a “truck”. He applies the same or similar analogy to DJI drones, stating that because DJI drones have been known in particular instances to have facilitated attacks on US troops abroad by members of “ISIS” who alleged used some of these drones to drop grenades from the air, that DJI is also a weapons proliferator and an arms dealer, simply because their off the shelf drone was used as a delivery mechanism for the payload (explosive grenades).
So in his mind, it is not simply enough that the actual explosive or gunpowder or active chemical substance be classified as an explosive, danger, threat, weapon, arms etc and it is not enough that the grenade or bomb and its derivative mechanisms be classified and labeled too as weapons and arms, but that one must widen the scope, to include other derivative degrees of association however remote or nonsensical, and to arrive at the position and the social stance that if a truck is used in war in any manner whatsoever, even though it is a civilian truck, it should be classified as a weapon or an arms. And that if a drone is used to drop a grenade or a bomb, then the drone itself becomes the weapon, and should be treated and identified as no different as the actual underlying explosive mechanism itself. So it isn’t enough in his mind that we as a society regulate and control actual weapons, real arms, but that we must also take the steps and classify anything that could remotely have been associated with weapons to be themselves weapons as well.
Well that is a slippery slope if I ever heard of one. And I don’t think those in the drone community would largely concur with KF’s stance that drones are a major threat that must be controlled, regulated and countered and that toy makers like DJI should be branded as arms dealers and guilty of war crimes and proliferation.
Kevin Finisterre Reveals His Process for Security Research
