DRONES ON THE BATTLEFIELD

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DJI drones, Ukraine, and Russia — what we know about AeroScope

Why DJI’s drones are a hot-button issue in the Ukraine-Russia war

By Sean Hollister@StarFire2258 Mar 23, 2022, 6:00am EDT

The Verge |

How are Ukrainians using their DJI drones in wartime, anyhow?

“Civilians have been using the aerial cameras to track Russian convoys and then relay the images and GPS coordinates to Ukrainian troops,” according to the Associated Press. While there have also been reports on a drone that can drop Molotov cocktails, the pictures only show it dropping a beer bottle. “I think it’s mostly aspirational,” says Kovar, while adding how ISIS and others have indeed used DJI products to drop 40mm grenades in the past.

Nevertheless, Ukraine does have some history with makeshift drone weaponry. In 2018, Smithsonian Magazine reported on the custom-made “fighting drones of Ukraine,” and the Ukrainian National Guard was reportedly using DJI Mavic 2 drones to direct airstrikes and drop homemade bombs in 2020, according to Coffee or Die.

DJI drones aside, Ukraine has reportedly also been using inexpensive military-grade drones from Turkey that drop laser-guided bombs. The US is sending 100 “Switchblade” kamikaze drones to Ukraine as well.

Has DJI stopped sales in either Russia or Ukraine?

No. “We’ve always told our distributors and our dealers, you have to follow any applicable export control laws of any country where you’re operating and the US... we’ve reemphasized that guidance since this began,” says Lisberg.

Stopping sales of AeroScope receivers wouldn’t necessarily deter the Russian military from tracking down these drones, anyhow. Troiak believes Russia already has hundreds of them in the country. And, “state-level militaries have probably figured out how to decrypt that information as well,” says Kovar. . .

What kind of oversight keeps an AeroScope station owner from, say, logging all nearby flights and selling that data?

Nothing, it seems.

“[A]s with all DJI products, your data is your data,” writes Lisberg. “We’re not a data company. We don’t want to be the repository for our customers’ data. Just like with our drones, we offer data hosting as a convenience for customers who want to use it and who have no security concerns about it. And once you generate data with our products, it’s yours to use and control and keep.”

In hindsight, is the AeroScope system a good idea?

In hindsight, is the AeroScope system a good idea?

DJI has said publicly that the situation in Ukraine goes to show that the company’s drones don’t belong in a warzone, and it’s hard to disagree. AeroScope clearly wasn’t designed for that.

“In this situation, no, it’s clearly a bad idea,” says Kovar. “[AeroScope] is exposing people fighting for democracy, whose nation is under attack, who are trying to use a powerful, very commercially available drone to defend their country, to being identified and located by opposing forces. In that regard, it’s a horrible, horrible idea. But for law enforcement purposes, to protect our critical infrastructure and such, it was an excellent idea.”

Unforeseen consequences

He likens it to other unforeseen uses of technology that have unfortunate implications for their owners. . ."

READ MORE >> https://www.theverge.com/22985101/dji-aeroscope-ukraine-russia-drone-tracking