Overview of AeroScope, a New DJI System to Track and Identify Drones

[sar104]

What I find most interesting about this proposed iD and telemetry acquisition proposal is in one of the claims, specifically that it will operate for all DJI AC. Ther have been numerous discussions here and elsewhere concerning how diffenent “lightbridge” and “occusync” are to conventional wifi and to a lesser extent how good the encryption is that is said to be employed in later DJI firmwares. The fact it is seemingly possible to recover the subject data from all AC brings the validity of a lot of what has been thought and argued concerning the DJI transmission protocols into question. It is more likely than not that all products use wifi with the wifibroadcast protocol being employed in the lightbridge and occusync equipped models. I also wonder if the proposed hardware might inadvertently acquire and log data from non DJI wifi services and wah assurances might be given around the possible use of this data.

All conventional wifi communications should be encrypted in a way that prevents 3rd party eavesdropping. DJI monitoring equipment may be able to listen to DJI aircraft, but they won't be able to decrypt other wifi traffic.

 

[With The Birds]

All conventional wifi communications should be encrypted in a way that prevents 3rd party eavesdropping. DJI monitoring equipment may be able to listen to DJI aircraft, but they won't be able to decrypt other wifi traffic.

You might be surprised how many wifi installations aren’t encrypted, I know I am. And to the extent they might unencrypt DJI traffic wholesale that in itself says something about the overall secutity of the implementation.

 

[borschelrh]

Ya I like to believe along those same lines, but I also know there are clearly those who want to know...some for noble legit reasons...others for not so legit or noble reasons

Very true. You never can tell and it is safest to assume it is all being monitored, transmitted, collected, and analyzed. As mentioned earlier the Chinese are "friendly" adversaries. Friendly in terms of trade and competition but adversarial when it comes to foreign policy. Of note nearly every electronic device in the world is manufactured in China and it is well known that chip makers (particularly Intel) embed stuff into the chips to monitor us. I think it is safe to assume the Chinese have done the same thing. They gather intelligence very differently than Americans and use the "death by 1,000 slices" method of collecting billions of small pieces of data and then combining it all. Every Chinese citizen living overseas is used actively to collect intel, often seemingly harmless, but intel is collected and analyzed. Do not underestimate China. It is still a communist country despite overt capitalistic methodologies to build up the economic and manufacturing infrastructures. Note that quite a few Chinese billionaires have been disappeared recently having thought they were more powerful than they really were. None of this is bad per se but anyone who thinks that the drone information gold mine isn't being tapped is amazingly ignorant.

However, if you really don't want anyone tapping into your data then there are plenty of home built alternatives.

 

[anotherlab]

You don'y need the actual data feed from a DJI drone to identify it with it's location and heading. If you put in multiple receivers, you can track any mobile hotspot and triangulate by signal strength. Would it be as accurate as reading the telemetry? No, but it would provide a general area and you can read the MAC address of the device. And it would alert the authorities that there was an unauthorized device in the air nearby. Which would be useful for prisons trying to prevent contraband from being flown back in.

 

[stitch0852]

I have a P3P and my iPad mini IS solely dedicated for flying. I do not use it for any other purpose. Only because it is easier. Charge everything and go. No worries about space or what else may be on it. Mini was purchased for the Phantom flights.

That said, I find it amazing/amusing how people believe they have privacy. Your image is most likely captured multiple times daily if you leave your home. Security cameras, satellite images, ATM and traffic cameras, someone using their cellphone, there is no privacy today. Your cell phone can make a map of where you have been. You ATM habits show your lifestyle.

I don’t care what DJI wants to capture. However, in order to do so they must have massive storage to store captured data and a means to capture each and every flight around the world or country.

I try to fly within the rules and general common sense guidelines and yield to manned craft should I encounter one. If this helps identify those who harm our hobby with their reckless flying, then so be it.

 

[Silversand]

At the moment I can drive my car without being on radar and all my information displayed.

....depends on what car you are driving,...and if you have your "smart phone" paired with your vehicle (also, are you subscribed to any telematics automobile service?)....

Automobile manufacturers who offer telematics will tell you that you are only tracked if the in-built system is engaged by one or several of the automobiles sensors (accelerometers, etc...)

....as far as DJI's remote ID system....I think no matter what the DJI product (even as far back as the earliest Phantoms), you are SOL to defeat any remote reader....parallel, but relevant: ....how many flat screens TVs, home appliances, etc manufactured say over the past 4~5~6 years have back-door surveillance built in? Look this up on "the Net".

SECURITY
Samsung's warning: Our Smart TVs record your living room chatter

 

[mark99]

Why they want this.
Drones capable of recording events authorities do not want recording.
They are flying 4k video cameras.

With this system with a few mouse clicks they can check if anyone has any footage they do not want them to have and in will go your front door.
It is about tracking and knowing who has filmed where.

Everything else is just an excuse to bluff the software in to having a safety point.
Drones are flying cameras and cameras scare authority, video cameras scare them a lot and flying video cameras sacre the living fking daylights out of them.

Lying to joe public is hard when you fear a video may crop up, just look at the issues cell phone videos of police beatings have caused.

They will now know not only if drone footage exists but the name and address of who filmed it.

This is not big brother, this is big daddy.

DJI are in too deep with authority, this stinks and I will not be buying any more DJI products, GDU are making first class drones now and are gaining fast ground on DJI and they trust adults to be adults without spying to authorities .

 

[WV. Rootman]

Why they want this.
Drones capable of recording events authorities do not want recording.
They are flying 4k video cameras.

With this system with a few mouse clicks they can check if anyone has any footage they do not want them to have and in will go your front door.
It is about tracking and knowing who has filmed where.

Everything else is just an excuse to bluff the software in to having a safety point.
Drones are flying cameras and cameras scare authority, video cameras scare them a lot and flying video cameras sacre the living fking daylights out of them.

Lying to joe public is hard when you fear a video may crop up, just look at the issues cell phone videos of police beatings have caused.

They will now know not only if drone footage exists but the name and address of who filmed it.

This is not big brother, this is big daddy.

DJI are in too deep with authority, this stinks and I will not be buying any more DJI products, GDU are making first class drones now and are gaining fast ground on DJI and they trust adults to be adults without spying to authorities .

You may have a point. I hope they do well. I will definitely look into it for my next drone.

 

[anotherlab]

Why they want this.
Drones capable of recording events authorities do not want recording.
They are flying 4k video cameras.

With this system with a few mouse clicks they can check if anyone has any footage they do not want them to have and in will go your front door.
It is about tracking and knowing who has filmed where.

Everything else is just an excuse to bluff the software in to having a safety point.
Drones are flying cameras and cameras scare authority, video cameras scare them a lot and flying video cameras sacre the living fking daylights out of them.

Lying to joe public is hard when you fear a video may crop up, just look at the issues cell phone videos of police beatings have caused.

They will now know not only if drone footage exists but the name and address of who filmed it.

This is not big brother, this is big daddy.

DJI are in too deep with authority, this stinks and I will not be buying any more DJI products, GDU are making first class drones now and are gaining fast ground on DJI and they trust adults to be adults without spying to authorities .

There is absolutely no evidence of video from a DJI drone being sent back to any other server, DJI or otherwise. Aeroscope does not capture video.

 

[With The Birds]

There is absolutely no evidence of video from a DJI drone being sent back to any other server, DJI or otherwise. Aeroscope does not capture video.

Is that what you think/suspect or is it fact? There is seemingly no reason why the video downlink couldn’t be captured.

 

[anotherlab]

Is that what you think/suspect or is it fact? There is seemingly no reason why the video downlink couldn’t be captured.

Which part? I said there is no evidence that video from a DJI Drone has been sent to any server. If you disagree with that, please provide the proof that video has been sent anywhere other than the remote and/or DJI app.

As for AeroScope not capturing video, DJI has stated that it is reading telemetry information. If you have anything to indicate that they are collecting video data, could you share it?

The video feed is encrypted and the bandwidth would be too much to collect reliably. To identify and locate a drone, you only need a few packets of data. You can drop most of it and still be able to locate the drone. If you drop most of the video frames, you just get noise. Also remember, the drone is sending a lower resolution video feed to the remote.

 

[With The Birds]

Which part? I said there is no evidence that video from a DJI Drone has been sent to any server. If you disagree with that, please provide the proof that video has been sent anywhere other than the remote and/or DJI app.

As for AeroScope not capturing video, DJI has stated that it is reading telemetry information. If you have anything to indicate that they are collecting video data, could you share it?

The video feed is encrypted and the bandwidth would be too much to collect reliably. To identify and locate a drone, you only need a few packets of data. You can drop most of it and still be able to locate the drone. If you drop most of the video frames, you just get noise. Also remember, the drone is sending a lower resolution video feed to the remote.

Your claim that “AeroScope does not capture video part”.

The DJI AeroScope white paper claims that the system captures radio frequency transmission to local receivers using existing UA antennas and modified C2 or video link protocols including one or more open standards (presumably 802.11 and/or WiFi broadcast protocol for DJI products. It is also separately revealed that the telemetry data is acquired directly from the video downlink stream.

It is evident that the video downlink is what is used by AeroScope to obtain the telemetry so it wouldnt be unreasonable to suspect the video might be available.

 

[Meta4]

Everything else is just an excuse to bluff the software in to having a safety point.
Drones are flying cameras and cameras scare authority, video cameras scare them a lot and flying video cameras sacre the living fking daylights out of them.

Lying to joe public is hard when you fear a video may crop up, just look at the issues cell phone videos of police beatings have caused.

They will now know not only if drone footage exists but the name and address of who filmed it.

This is not big brother, this is big daddy.

DJI are in too deep with authority, this stinks and I will not be buying any more DJI products, GDU are making first class drones now and are gaining fast ground on DJI and they trust adults to be adults without spying to authorities .

This is a wacky conspiracy theory that reeks of extreme paranoia and doesn't stand up to any thoughtful analysis.
You aren't being spied on and no-one cares what you choose to film with your drone, just the same way no-one cares what you film with any other camera you might have.

 

[Slickvolt]

Think about what you're saying - why would the Chinese authorities want to know your driving license and social security number? Do the US Govt also hold your bank account, Heath information and credit card details? Or are you saying they're hacking all those businesses too? Boy,
that's a worry. I wonder what the Chinese do with all that information? Also, if it's that's easy to hack the US, perhaps all those giant US data security businesses need to start plugging the all vulnerabilities they seem to've missed. Gawd blimey, what a load of old nonsense....

You seem unaware that the Chinese ACTUALLY DID HACK THE US GOVT, MILLIONS AFFECTED. So with that fact, it seems they are VERY interested. Try google...it’s wonderful.

 

[Slickvolt]

Very true. You never can tell and it is safest to assume it is all being monitored, transmitted, collected, and analyzed. As mentioned earlier the Chinese are "friendly" adversaries. Friendly in terms of trade and competition but adversarial when it comes to foreign policy. Of note nearly every electronic device in the world is manufactured in China and it is well known that chip makers (particularly Intel) embed stuff into the chips to monitor us. I think it is safe to assume the Chinese have done the same thing. They gather intelligence very differently than Americans and use the "death by 1,000 slices" method of collecting billions of small pieces of data and then combining it all. Every Chinese citizen living overseas is used actively to collect intel, often seemingly harmless, but intel is collected and analyzed. Do not underestimate China. It is still a communist country despite overt capitalistic methodologies to build up the economic and manufacturing infrastructures. Note that quite a few Chinese billionaires have been disappeared recently having thought they were more powerful than they really were. None of this is bad per se but anyone who thinks that the drone information gold mine isn't being tapped is amazingly ignorant.

However, if you really don't want anyone tapping into your data then there are plenty of home built alternatives.

Are the home builds at the level of being autonomous flight yet? Serious question.

 

[With The Birds]

Are the home builds at the level of being autonomous flight yet? Serious question.

They can be, if you have time and effort to invest.

 

[Slickvolt]

If you're worried, then get a tablet to download the DJI app and don't use your phone. That way they can't get much personal data. I did that as my eyes aren't very good and I needed a bigger screen than my phone to fly with.

Yes that’s what I have, but not because I’m smart...it’s was all prior to my understanding that when you first get the P4P, the first thing DJI makes you do is create and account and log in with a really secure password attempt...that should have been my first clue. Then maybe two weeks later, I learned by accident, that whenever my iPad had WiFi, or mifi connection, I was still logged in to DJI, msinger showed me that

 

[Slickvolt]

They can be, if you have time and effort to invest.

Yeah that would be true...

 

[Meta4]

Yes that’s what I have, but not because I’m smart...it’s was all prior to my understanding that when you first get the P4P, the first thing DJI makes you do is create and account and log in with a really secure password attempt...that should have been my first clue. Then maybe two weeks later, I learned by accident, that whenever my iPad had WiFi, or mifi connection, I was still logged in to DJI, msinger showed me that

And what do you imagine the implications of that are?

 

[Slickvolt]

And what do you imagine the implications of that are?

very simply, they are accessing data, and don’t want liability of being hacked.