alt Hacker News> DJI collects a massive amount of telemetry data and terrain data
At first I found it hard to believe that this is data they wouldn't get more reliably, more extensively from a satellite. But then I imagine, if you were a bad actor, you wouldn't want all the video, all the exact terrain data, etc, but maybe only that near certain points of interest like energy infrastructure, transportation, etc. So this, paired with satellite data is super powerful.
Then again, for most of the US, Google street view exists so there's that, a lot of the data is already out there.
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And China has its own satellites anyhow.
I feel like blocking DJI is just politics of “we have have to do something, anything” and “hey look, we did things” even though those things are irrelevant.
You are right. Also, it's not just data from the US, it's data from around the world. It also comes in real-time or near real-time, so you gain insight into where drones are actively flying. If you've managed to fingerprint interesting users in some way, you now have stats on where they are, what they are deeming interesting to look at, and so on. You're also getting much better imagery and views of things you are not going to get from a satellite.
This is not about recreating google maps data. The US banning DJI drones is really a necessity at this point. It's not a complete solution to the problems at hand, but there is no point in supporting China in this way.