A surge in drone activity in restricted airspace over sites such as the White House, the Capitol and the Pentagon in Washington has U.S. officials concerned about possible Chinese espionage, Politico reported Wednesday.
Hundreds of Chinese-made drones have been detected in D.C. no-fly zones in recent months, according to the report.
The Senate Homeland Security, Commerce and Intelligence committees have been briefed on the alarming situation by U.S. officials and drone industry experts, according to Politico, which cited “three people privy to the meetings.”
“Everybody is very concerned and trying to figure out what to do,” a government contractor who has helped to collect drone data for federal authorities told the outlet.
The Chinese company DJI is the world’s largest manufacturer of commercial drones, with more than 75 percent of the market, according to Asia Perspective.
Recreational drones that have GPS capabilities are built with a technology referred to as geofencing that is supposed to prevent them from functioning within restricted airspace.
However, those software restrictions can be easily bypassed.
“There’s YouTube videos that could walk your grandparents through how to update the software on one of these drones to be non-detectable and to do a whole lot of other things — get rid of elevation ceilings, all kinds of stuff,” the contractor said, according to Politico.
“If you were to go buy a DJI drone at the store, it wouldn’t fly over airports or specific cities because of a specific no-fly zone. So, anything that we see in D.C. that is a DJI-manufactured product has been hacked or manipulated to enable flight in these zones.”
www.westernjournal.com/everybody-concerned-dc-edge-chinese-made-drones-detected-restricted-airspace/