Just a privacy heads up - Or lack of !

[Hamltnlbue]

Here's one of many articles on it.
Is the World's Biggest Surveillance Camera Maker Sending Footage to China?

 

[dewster]

Yuneec is advertising privacy as a selling point for their drones:

 

[kodiak1120]

I don't have time to watch the whole video, but the beginning is total B.S. It reminds me of the uproar over Facebook Messenger's app permission a few years back. These kind of apps need those permissions. Yes, it needs to access your microphone to record sound when you record video. Yes, it needs to "access" your SD card to save the videos locally. Yes, it needs to be able to "modify" your SD card in order to be able to delete files videos from within the app. Etc. Etc. Etc. People like to make this stuff sound scary, but they are using it for app functionality. They're not listening in on your conversations or stealing you pictures, etc.

 

[LeafPeeper]

Yeah...I have to agree. Most of what I saw appears to be BS conspiracy theory crap (I watched about half). The guy is making huge leaps in his conclusions. Hitting an IP address does not constitute 'sending all your personal data'. Take the facebook attempted access...it could have been checking to see if it could connect to FB servers since posting to facebook is one of it's capabilities. It doesn't mean it's automatically sending your videos to some FB account.

I have no doubt that there is a lot of lazy programming here and lack of respect for privacy...but the leaps this guy makes are just too huge for me. I'd need more evidence before I worried. Show me some packets that contain your contacts, credit card numbers, SSN, etc...then I'd worry.

LP

 

[FlyGuy8675309]

It may not effect flight time in a way that you could even measure but his concerns are VERY valid concerning China and what they may or may not be doing with this info.
Map every square inch of the USA ? Who knows.

You mean like Google Earth?

 

[Marko9219]

This is just about like saying you don't want, and didn't ask for chemicals in your food. Too late. It's happened, it's happening and it's going to happen if you eat anything but your own home grown EVERYTHING. Data mining is part of our electronic lives. If you have ANYTHING whatsoever to do with the internet, you are going to give up your privacy to some degree. If you don't want to be a part of it, you are simply going to have to totally abandon anything with connectivity.

 

[SKYGUY_88]

Fly with your device in airplane mode. Problem solved.

That what airplane mode is really for!

 

[AllatSea]

It may not effect flight time in a way that you could even measure but his concerns are VERY valid concerning China and what they may or may not be doing with this info.
Map every square inch of the USA ? Who knows.

I'd be a lot more worried about all those Chinese chips inside practically every router in the world than them mapping the USA - they'll have satellites for that.

 

[Anthony Viscomi]

For those of you "conspiracy theory" types whom are concerned about privacy...I suggest you remove your Mavic Pilots account

Privacy Policy
"iv. Supplementation of Information. In order to provide certain services to you, we may on occasion supplement the personal information you submitted to us with information from third-party sources."

 

[darren6270]

Anyone got a tv with a webcam built in?
or a laptop for that matter

 

[AllatSea]

Just live in the UK, everything you do is on camera. The Chinese are welcome to my footage and GPS data, they can't be any worse than the maniacs we currently have running the show.....

 

[kodiak1120]

Yeah...I have to agree. Most of what I saw appears to be BS conspiracy theory crap (I watched about half). The guy is making huge leaps in his conclusions. Hitting an IP address does not constitute 'sending all your personal data'. Take the facebook attempted access...it could have been checking to see if it could connect to FB servers since posting to facebook is one of it's capabilities. It doesn't mean it's automatically sending your videos to some FB account.

I have no doubt that there is a lot of lazy programming here and lack of respect for privacy...but the leaps this guy makes are just too huge for me. I'd need more evidence before I worried. Show me some packets that contain your contacts, credit card numbers, SSN, etc...then I'd worry.

LP

Exactly... and I'm not sure what app he's even using to show all of those IP addresses, but I would be highly surprised if the app was trying to connect to all of those different addresses. My guess is his phone (i.e., other apps he has installed) is trying to connect, and not necessarily the DJI app. I also doubt that DJI controls that many different IP addresses. There would be no point.

 

[CamoGreg]

And one responder asked about using CrystalSky to get around this as it has the app installed on it already. Right, spend another $950 for the CrystalSky monitor and mount.
I guess thats the price for your privacy ( maybe ).

Why purchase CS at this price if you can have a mini 4 ???? What the marketing of DJI around this ?? Don't get the point here....

 

[LeafPeeper]

Exactly... and I'm not sure what app he's even using to show all of those IP addresses, but I would be highly surprised if the app was trying to connect to all of those different addresses. My guess is his phone (i.e., other apps he has installed) is trying to connect, and not necessarily the DJI app. I also doubt that DJI controls that many different IP addresses. There would be no point.

The app he's using is called No Root Firewall. It's totally legit - I use it too. It sets up an internal VPN and forces all traffic through it so you can effectively grant/block traffic to and from your phone. It's a great way to protect your phone to a degree when on unsafe networks....as long as you don't need to us a real VPN at the same time. You also have to have enough experience to be able to make a call whether to grant or block. That said, I stick by my position that just because an app attempts to ping an IP address, it doesn't mean it's sending out your personal data. You wouldn't know that without further packet inspection.

LP