In new firmware versions they will use the existing RADIO transmitter on  the Mavic to transmit up to a few miles your Mavic serial #, your  telemetry, and broadcast that as far and wide as the signal will carry  it. At all times and in real time. So that not only can your neighbors  know when a drone is flying around but coupled with DJI's internal  "registration list" (hence why forcing all the re-activate again) and  the FAA registration list, giving police real time scanning capability  to ID the actual identity of all who is up in the air remotely via UAV  at any one given time.

So your Mavic will be "pinging" like a submarine trying to hunt down the Red October.

DJI lawyers used the same analogy as a car license plate. But the Toyota  and Ford does not mandate/force us to get license plates, it is the  state level. And the license plate is passive and merely bounces light  back, whereas the Mavic transmission is active and actively transmits  info out.

Toyota and Ford doesn't take it upon themselves to embed nor install the license plate on our cars at the factory nor do they sneak in our homes in the middle of the night to add a license plate after the fact without consent.

As for the "passive vs active" parallel and comparison, I'll just say that for the "license plate" analogy to fit, it would be like a visible sticker showing the DJI serial # and/or FAA registration # as a label or sticker on the Mavic itself, not a radio transmitter that broadcast real time info for miles and miles that can't be turned off. The closest electronic analogy that would fit would be a passive RFID or some other chip that is scannable for identification by a scanner within range, but one that does not in and of itself actively transmit or broadcast. In the same or similiar way, your license plate only reflects photons it doesn't emit them, and your toll road RFID chip is passive only, it never TRANSMITS anything.

DJI is going down a dangerous path


https://www.dropbox.com/s/v4lkyr ... %203-22-17.pdf?dl=0

RFID chip is passive only, it never TRANSMITS anything.

RFID is passive only in the sense that it doesn't transmit until interrogated. Then it does transmit a code.   Otherwise, I get your point. So what?  Just fly somewhere no one is listening.  OK,  scratch that last comment. I forgot about spy satellites.  Dude, they probably know your RC GPS location.

INCOMING !!!!

Griffith Posted at 2017-5-22 11:30
RFID chip is passive only, it never TRANSMITS anything.

RFID is passive only in the sense that it doesn't transmit until interrogated. Then it does transmit a code.   Otherwise, I get your point. So what?  Just fly somewhere no one is listening.  OK,  scratch that last comment. I forgot about spy satellites.  Dude, they probably know your RC GPS location.

reflect is not transmit

RFID is not powered

License plates reflect protons too, but that is not same as transmit.

RFID chips in toll tags don't have a power source.

this is a huge bigly difference.

/////

the analogy if Toyota was to do what DJI was doing is install license plate at the factory, and with an embedded always on 4G chip so that no matter where you are, toyota and  the government always sees your exact location, speed, and because your license plate is transmitting it back to them via cell phone signal.

" passive RFID tag draws power from field created by the reader and uses it to power the microchip’s circuits. The chip then modulates the waves that the tag sends back to the reader and the reader converts the new waves into digital data. "   - source RFID Journal


The only way your license plate analogy would work in the RF world is to blast or scan the "license plate" with broad spectrum RF and see what frequencies gets reflected back - that's assuming multiple materials exist that selective adsorb specific frequencies.

Of course, our military already has that capability.

Otherwise, I agree that the license plate analogy is "dated" at best.  New world and new technology.

adiru Posted at 2017-5-22 11:56
reflect is not transmit

RFID is not powered

Then never drive a newer BMW because they know your location all the time.

Wow, I am dead set against this happening. I do believe that drones should have forced registration like the FAA requirement that has been temporarily suspended.  Unfortunately, pretty much everything we do today is tracked such as our Internet connection, email, social media, and my car which is a GM knows everywhere then I'm going.