DJI Unveils Technology To Identify And Track Airborne Drones

12 October 2017 – DJI, the world’s leader in civilian drones and aerial imaging technology, today unveiled AeroScope, its new solution to identify and monitor airborne drones with existing technology that can address safety, security and privacy concerns.

AeroScope uses the existing communications link between a drone and its remote controller to broadcast identification information such as a registration or serial number, as well as basic telemetry, including location, altitude, speed and direction. Police, security agencies, aviation authorities and other authorized parties can use an AeroScope receiver to monitor, analyze and act on that information. AeroScope has been installed at two international airports since April, and is continuing to test and evaluate its performance in other operational environments.

More at: http://www.dji.com/newsroom/news ... ack-airborne-drones

cant wait for hackers to get hands on this and start distributing it to steal our drones and control them...

but can we say...invasion of privacy much?  geeze, dji... no commitment?  first you wanted privacy because us military occurrence now you want expose everyone?  

Yipes, ouch, damn this new fangled technology! Fly by the rules most the time and never fly in "Restricted Airspace" always flying in "Regulated Airspace" as there is not much unregulated airspace anymore.

Big Brother is always watching !

QuadKid Posted at 2017-10-16 13:40
Yipes, ouch, damn this new fangled technology! Fly by the rules most the time and never fly in "Restricted Airspace" always flying in "Regulated Airspace" as there is not much unregulated airspace anymore.

Big Brother is always watching !

technically this is just an advanced form of entrapment..

moment i see it being abused, retiring my mavic and moving on to building the hexacopter my friend and i are designing and parting.. at least that can fly fully anonymously..

On the other hand, we should all be worried about terrorists using drones to kill and injure people.  Have you seen the Intel work where they have a successfully demonstrated  a thousand drones dancing around the sky?  What if terrorists had dozens, hundreds, more drones and attacked some target here.   That really worries me more.

StanfordWebbie Posted at 2017-10-16 15:43
On the other hand, we should all be worried about terrorists using drones to kill and injure people.  Have you seen the Intel work where they have a successfully demonstrated  a thousand drones dancing around the sky?  What if terrorists had dozens, hundreds, more drones and attacked some target here.   That really worries me more.

Its an arms race - for every drone there will be a counter measure, and then a counter measure to that counter measure ....

Well, gathering some information is better then shooting it down with a laser or shotgun. But then, I don't plan to fly were I am not suppose to.

But this AeroScope system can only work, if the drone pilot is known by the authorities.
Who is going to be responsible for identifying a drone owner?
If the drone owner has to identify himself/herself when purchasing a drone, who is allowed to do the identifying?
And what about the current drone owners, do they have to identify their drones with the authorities and what if they don't get their drones identified?
What's next? A sobriety test before we fly our drones?

"He who gives up freedom for safety deserves neither" - Benjamin Franklin

Not against this system in general BUT it blows wholes in one of the claims of occusync - its meant to be encrypted.
Much was made about the end to end security of occusync when it came out but for this to work that has to be false.

If that system is able to extract serial numbers and flight data out of the telemetry screen then either the stream isn't actually encrypted or if it is, its with a static key that is either broadcast or known to DJI and therefore open to compromise by anyone else as well.  If it was properly end to end encrypted with verification it should be impossible for a 3rd party to inject itself into the chain.

That then leaves the whole system open to compromise and control by 3rd parties which is something they claimed impossible.  Historically, deliberately backdoored systems always get abused and attacked by 3rd parties given time.  

Looks like the initial claim made of proper end to end encryption with keys negotiated between the RC and drone during pairing and start up is actually a lie and either they didnt encrypt everything on that stream or they backdoored it.  Which is very worryingly.

This could be better than other more drastic solutions...

gnirtS Posted at 2017-10-17 03:11
Not against this system in general BUT it blows wholes in one of the claims of occusync - its meant to be encrypted.
Much was made about the end to end security of occusync when it came out but for this to work that has to be false.

Not against this system in general BUT it blows wholes in one of the claims of occusync - its meant to be encrypted.

The Mavic's video (OccuSync) and telemetry signals are separate, so it's possible for one to be encrypted and the other not.

and clearly not encrypted (or backdoored with a static known key) and thats the problem.
If you're getting data off a stream it isn't encrypted and it means anyone can.  They claimed initially their encryption layer made that impossible.

The next question is whether this detection system is active or passive.  If its active then even bigger questions need to be asked.