Does Helium (HNT) seem fishy to anyone else?

Originally I was interested in the concept and I wanted to use my raspberry pi to mine it, so I started researching...but then I started seeing red flags. So, at first glance this whole thing seems an awful lot like a crypto-flavored ponzi scheme (an actual ponzi scheme...not the blanket term that airheads usually throw around with crypto), so I started looking into who's benefitting. I started looking into one of the "approved" miner producers (because apparently you can't make your own miner with a raspberry pi anymore for uncertain reasons???), Wuhan Huilian infinite Technology, the owners of EasyLinkin.com. They have holdings in the Cayman Islands, and their "investor relations" page lists Tong Fu Capital Holdings (also in the Cayman Islands) and...here's the really worrying part... China Electronic Information Industry Group. wtf?

China Electronics Technology Group Corporation (CETC; 中国电子科技集团公司; zhongguo dianzi keji jituan gongsi[5]) is a Chinese state-owned company established in 2002. Its fields include communications equipment, computers, electronic equipment, software development, research services, investment and asset management for civilian and military applications.[6][7] It was founded with the stated goal of leveraging civilian electronics for the benefit of the People's Liberation Army.[5] ... In March 2016, the government tasked the company with developing software to identify potential terrorists; using data on jobs, hobbies, consumption habits, and other behaviors.[9]

Have I gone full tin-foil-hat crazy or does it kinda seem like we're funding a data-hungry global surveillance network, here? Their PR videos say this is all for finding "lost pets" but their Chinese backers seem intent on using this to gather intelligence and track dissidents. There's red flags everywhere I look. Has anyone actually opened up one of these miners and analyzed what it's actually doing? Has anyone else noticed some fishy stuff?

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tldr Helium has turned its back on open-source mining and is promoting a small cadre of hardware suppliers with nefarious ties to Chinese military and Cayman Island holdings. Please feel free to correct anything I got wrong; I'm still learning.