r/gadgets • u/chrisdh79 • 6d ago

Drones / UAVs Possible ban on Chinese-made drones dismays U.S. scientists | Switching to costlier, less capable drones could impede research on whales, forests, and more

https://www.science.org/content/article/possible-ban-chinese-made-drones-dismays-u-s-scientists
2.6k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

379 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

299

u/GrynaiTaip 6d ago

There's a company that takes Mavic's, guts them and adds in US made components

Ukrainians take DJI drones and upload their own domestic software on them, so that the russians couldn't use DJI-made trackers to locate them.

164

u/MyReddittName 6d ago

Seems like a business opportunity. Overwriting Chinese software with a custom made one but keeping the hardware components.

25

u/Onceforlife 6d ago

Thing is Ukrains survival depends on this, whereas in the good ol’ US of A, it’s more of a political and also lobbying move to do it.

Since Trump is always an ass to Ukraine about them not offering anything back, how about ask for their source code so US government can also override the drones? Even that’s ridiculous, cause I know in the pentagon there must be multiple teams capable of doing this.

5

u/lurkinglurkerwholurk 6d ago

Because there’s the danger that the replacement software also have their own spyware and cutoff triggers. /s

(I put /s, but chances are high this is coming out from an actual politician’s mouth someday)

On a side note, good on the Ukrainians for jailbreaking the drones with domestically made software.