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DJI Threatens To 'Brick' Its Copters Unless Owners Agree To Share Their Details (thesun.co.uk)
schwit1 quotes a report from The Sun: A top drone manufacturer has warned that customers' expensive gadgets will be crippled if they don't register their details on its website. DJI drones -- which cost between $1,200 and $3,000 -- won't be able to fly to their full potential or beam back footage if their owners don't sign up next week, the company warned. Those who splashed out for the snazzy gadgets will find they are limited to a teensy 50m radius and it won't be flying higher than 30m if they don't play ball. The company said on its website: "DJI will soon introduce a new application activation process for international customers. This new step, to take effect at the end of next week, ensures you will use the correct set of geospatial information and flight functions for your aircraft, as determined by your geographical location and user profile. All existing flight safety limitations, such as geofencing boundaries and altitude limits, remain the same. Even if you have registered when activating your aircraft upon purchase, you will have to log in once when you update the new version of DJI GO or GO 4 App."
I'm glad that DJI is taking the lead in preventing drones from being used in an unsafe manner. It's about time. This is wonderful news for those of us who are concerned that drones make civil aviation and passenger flights less safe.
The DJI Go app already collects location, phone numbers, live flight metrics, serial numbers, and other data. And you need to sign up and let the app forward all that data to DJI at least once to "activate" a drone (they come deactivated and won't fly until you do it). Fortunately, the application itself, or at least the Android version of it, is written in a rather crappy way by kindergarten-grade programmers, and all their pathetic attempts to obfuscate data before it goes to China are trivial to bypass. The app also uses static hardcoded encryption keys, so whoever intercepts its traffic in transit can easily decrypt it.
Somebody with skills and time should look at the firmware itself. The history says that most of the Chinese devices have laughable if any protection and it should be possible to customize the firmware.
Meanwhile the recommendations are: 1. do not DJI Go on your phone. Use a tablet that does not have cell/mobile network connectivity or sensitive data on it. 2. Do not upgrade or update firmware unnecessarily. 3. Complain as much as possible online, including to regulatory bodies (FTC, etc.) to encourage DJI to change their idiotic policies.
There are plenty of people who deliberately operate their DJI gear on older firmware and alongside an older app on their phone/tablet ... with that device in "airplane" mode to avoid any internet awareness. Of course that also costs you all sorts of nice mapping features and other goodies, but it just comes down to your priorities.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
DJI are cunning like a fox. Since the FAA's compulsory registration scheme has been nixed by the courts, DJI realizes that if it implements its own compulsory registration scheme (via the mechanism just announced), they can go to the FAA and say "we've got your back".
There is already huge concern in the industry that DJI collects so much data about your flights and then reserves the right (it's in the TOS to which you agree) to send that data back to its servers in China!
By collecting all this data and demanding mandatory registration of customers (if they want their drones to fly "as advertised") then DJI can provide the FAA (and other law-enforcement agencies) with an astounding amount of detail whenever there's an "incident report" that involves one of their craft.
The ultimate outcome of this is probably that the FAA will grant special concessions to DJI which will allow their customers to do things that other drone users will not. This may well be in the form of a "certified drone" accreditation which provides exemptions from some of the more onerous new rules that are to come if the FAA manages to convince the Senate to overturn section 336 of the 2012 Modernization and Reform Act.
Personally, I'm more than happy with DJI's move -- because I build all my own craft and therefore am not reliant in the least on them.
Another positive is that this might encourage others to start learning more about drone technology and build their own craft rather than just buying a turnkey solution from DJI. Learning about the technology makes you a safer operator because you better understand the strengths/weaknesses of the gear and you are also more aware of the importance of preventative and remedial maintenance for for the purposes of safety.
When you buy your drone you should email them and tell them you think their drone is great and you really wanted to buy it... and attach the picture of the one you bought instead.