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Ask HN: DJI possibly providing location of Ukranian drones

68 points by kevin_thibedeau ↗ HN
Apparently from this CNN report there is a suggestion (@1:57) that DJI is feeding Russians the location of Ukranian drones used to call in artillery.

Is there any scheme (alternate firmware, open source app, firewall settings) that can prevent DJI from receiving this location data?

https://youtu.be/b166ecyNBCw?t=117

19 comments

[ 2.3 ms ] story [ 66.2 ms ] thread
throwaway888abc
Some more details, not heard about solution

https://dronexl.co/2022/05/09/dji-aeroscope/

https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/28/23046916/dji-aeroscope-si...

https://mavicpilots.com/threads/disable-aeroscope-on-mavic-a...

VectorLock
>DJI spokesman Adam Lisberg tells The Verge himself that he has been misinformed all along about how AeroScope works by his Chinese R&D colleagues

Thats really bad if they're even lying to each other internally how this works.

dboreham
Much more likely they were just too lazy to audit/verify that it wasn't sending plaintext. It's also debatable whether encryption would be effective since the packets would need to be decrypted by the drone monitoring devices worldwide. At least the key could be changed in war zones though.
annoyingnoob
Interesting. Seems possible then to send your own signals spoofing drone locations. You could fill the receiver with drones that are not there.
jhugo
Yes. As always, the choice to not use encryption cuts both ways. No secrecy for the sender, but no guarantee of authenticity for the receiver.
Nomentatus
Annoyingnoob seems to have the obvious quick and dirty solution: "overwrite" the real signals; obfuscate by sending out a blizzard of false signals to mask the rare true ones.
wmf
To be clear, the data never goes to DJI themselves. DJI drones broadcast their location and other information over RF for anyone nearby to receive. In a war zone we should assume that all interested parties are listening.
jhugo
> DJI drones broadcast their location and other information over RF for anyone nearby to receive.

This is true, it's in an unencrypted beacon.

> To be clear, the data never goes to DJI themselves.

Is this true? If I fly my Spark with my phone connected, the phone sends a pretty constant stream of stuff to somewhere on the Internet. It's encrypted, so I don't know what it is, but I assumed it would include telemetry of drone parameters that could include location.

Of course, if you're in a war zone, consider just not connecting your phone... the drone flies fine with no possible connection to the Internet.

flemhans
Especially if you modded the drone (range extension hack, height limit hack), you anyway don't connect it to the phone as it may reverse the hacks.

The DJI FPV has a range of 5+ km with the range extension hack, which ignores local regulations and boosts sending power.

tristanj
Here is a video showing a DJI drone operator in Ukraine being struck by artillery seconds after landing a drone. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UZXzMUxfR6c

According to this article [0], DJI drones broadcast the following data in real-time:

– Model of drone,

– position and height,

– the story of flight,

– home point (off point),

– the position of the pilot (with GPS included in the mobile device connected to the remote).

Russia has reportedly installed DJI Aeroscope monitoring stations that can detect these signals from 30-40 miles away.

[0] https://dronexl.co/2022/03/16/risk-of-flying-a-dji-drone-in-...

ed25519FUUU
I think this is simply coincidence or this guy was spotted when he first flew off.

Russian artillery simply isn’t that accurate or that fast.

kevin_thibedeau
I guess the easiest mitigation is an app that sends a false location of the pilot. Ideally near the target so they have a chance to receive some friendly fire.
bb88
I don't think that would be too hard to do, either given an SDR or reverse engineering the firmware to give some other loctation.
ncmncm
I saw a short video where they are carefully running the drone way out in a field before turning it on, and running away after.
neonsunset
For now we’re just not using DJI near frontlines, where instead Autel is usually chosen, especially the ones with thermal sights. Being able to use open firmware would definitely be awesome, to protect lives of operators and to customize drones further.
sschueller
DJI and third parties sell equipment to track drones and even locate the pilot easily. These are available for a few thousand dollars and were meant to protect airspace such as around an airport but of course they can also be used by militaries to target an enemy.

In fact the DJI system [1] will see a drone as soon as its powered on even if it isn't even flying.

In the end any drone pilot sending signals can be tracked and the only way around this is to fly a drone completely autonomously with way points and only receive video from it. Some open source firmwares and controllers support such features.

[1] https://www.dji.com/ch/mobile/aeroscope