P3 sends data to FAA?

[dioden]

I don't think that's true. Only rumors, I guess

 

[dtitus6297]

And that's why I am still flying a phantom fc40 all modded up the way I like it. I can fly wherever I want and however I want.

I am responsible with it, but it's nice to know that I could be reckless if I wanted to....

 

[Sammynels]

No GPS unit "pings" the satellite. They are only receivers. The pick up different signals transmitted from from different satellites in a fixed orbital position on different channels and analyze the time differential triangulating your position, (although triangle refers to 3), you often pick up 17 or more signals. That's why accuracy can be as good at 6" with the best receivers- usually military. All the GPS satellites have atomic clocks in them so they are all synced to within 1 billionith of a second of each other.
Accuracy was never this good on the civilian level. The military used to scramble the signal so that accuracy was less than 100 m. Bill Clinton signed a law in his latter years as president allowing for the signal to be unscrambled for civilian use so it can be used by airplanes, delivery companies, commercial use and the general public, with the accuracy we now enjoy.

 

[Sammynels]

We now know that the NSA collected metadata on every phone call both nationally and internationally. Their collection and storage facilities are staggeringly large. But it's impossible to analyze that amount of data.
They only query the data when they are looking for something specific. If you fly near Air Force One when it's parked at JFK during a presidential visit, they may go looking for you. They may even use the FAA radar records to track where you took off from and where you landed in an effort to find you. But nobody is bothering to watch the average phantom flyer. There just isn't the resources, manpower or interest.

 

[n6vmo]

Furbys were once considered as spying for the Chinese government....

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/furbies-banned-at-us-spy-base-1046935.html

 

[Volantis]

A GPS receiver doesn't ping the satellites, and use is not logged. That's absurd.

You are likely right about not pinging a satellite.

However, there is a broadcast of the signal between the controller and P3. That signal is available to any receiver in the area. The FCC has the ability to monitor and record all radio signals. Regardless of how the P3 operates, there are means for identifying and tracking it by the government if they chose to do so. The Whitehouse flight was a fluke and has been remedied.

Since the P3 has to tell the controller how high it is and how far it is from it, that information has to be available in the radio signal, which someone with the right tech could access.

If you have a reason to not be tracked, the best option is to not fly the P3. In today's world, we should always assume we are leaving a trail of our activity, even if there is no actual tracking antenna in the area.

 

[n6vmo]

You are likely right about not pinging a satellite.

However, there is a broadcast of the signal between the controller and P3. That signal is available to any receiver in the area. The FCC has the ability to monitor and record all radio signals. Regardless of how the P3 operates, there are means for identifying and tracking it by the government if they chose to do so. The Whitehouse flight was a fluke and has been remedied.

Since the P3 has to tell the controller how high it is and how far it is from it, that information has to be available in the radio signal, which someone with the right tech could access.

If you have a reason to not be tracked, the best option is to not fly the P3. In today's world, we should always assume we are leaving a trail of our activity, even if there is no actual tracking antenna in the area.

That FCC receiver would need to be within a couple of miles of the P3 in order to receive that extremely low power 2.4GHz RF signal.

The FCC would than need to decode the data, but it may be just straight ASCII and need no such decoding.

Not very likely the FCC would be listening to our P3's directly. Not enough field agents to waste on monitoring drone RF traffic.

 

[ianwood]

You are likely right about not pinging a satellite.

Likely? There is no capability in any Phantom to send anything to any satellite anywhere.

However, there is a broadcast of the signal between the controller and P3. That signal is available to any receiver in the area. The FCC has the ability to monitor and record all radio signals. Regardless of how the P3 operates, there are means for identifying and tracking it by the government if they chose to do so. The Whitehouse flight was a fluke and has been remedied.

The FCC does not have the ability to monitor all radio signals nor is it in their remit except to enforce the proper use of radio spectrum.

 

[louforgiveno]

If you have a reason to not be tracked, the best option is to not fly the P3. In today's world, we should always assume we are leaving a trail of our activity, even if there is no actual tracking antenna in the area.

What? Why would you add the last paragraph? Are you trying to help people who might do ill with a phantom? !

 

[mimako]

The P3 does not have to send data to the FAA to be monitored. It already uses GPS to find its location. Every signal that pings a satellite is logged. Don't get paranoid unless you are planning to do something disruptive to people's lives or society in general, then you should be very paranoid. The FAA has far more serious things to consider than people using their drones under 500 feet and flying outside of airspace traffic routes.

However, you should always be mindful of what your are doing and how it might appear to someone else. We live in a world full of surveillance cameras, GPS, radio waves, cellular networks, credit cards, and other means where we leave behind trails of our activities. If you use tech to commit a crime, you will get caught. If you use reasonable respect for other's rights and properties, you will be invisible to the system.

I'm not sure of your "pinging a satellite" comment. GPS are receivers only, they don't transmit or ping anything. They can't be logged by a satellite.

 

[Meta4]

The Whitehouse flight was a fluke and has been remedied.

The White House flight was a P1 and nothing has been done to stop P1s (and many other drones) from flying there again.

 

[N017RW]

+1 Meta!

Never, Ever... let the truth 'get in the way' of a good conspiricy!

 

[J.James]

The phantom does send data to the FAA . Fact.
Not only does it record where and how you are flying it also takes control of your iPhone to photograph you and send details to the Police. It also monitors your internet usage for illegal activity, DJI are investigating the ability to penalise you for transgressions by limiting your flying, shocking you or exploding the battery, you don't even have to be online because of the stealth SIM card.
By the way, the camera on your TV and car are both doing the same.

Why would any one with an iphone need there phantom to do any of that stuff thats already prebuilt in to every apple product made for alteast the last 10 years or so and then some?????

 

[J.James]

Even the nsa does not even hide the fact that the nsa monitors and records ALL electronic commutations and every band withs world wide.. Tho the good thing is how its come out that nsa and over goverment agencys do not do it to look for any one breaking the law or doing any thing nefarious whats so ever. and only bust people who they need to black mail with private info that could be embarrassing if they need to turn the person or discredit them such as whistle blowers and any one exposing goverment corruption or crimes. So unless some one is using there drones to say bad stuff about the dear leader or to expose others criminal activity there really is no much to worry about at all. esp if they are doing any thing bad with there drone then they have nothing to worry about all all being there to busy looking for good people to go after to be concerned with even wanting to find any one doing any thing bad or against the law. In less they decide they want to take you out then they could go back to see if there is any thing at all they can use to make it seem like you did some thing wrong.

 

[F6Rider]

Your entire life is out there on the web folks, worrying about it now is like closing the barn door after the horses left, the only way to keep it from happening is to go dark and unplug from the grid. I mean you're posting most of the stuff you do either on FB or here, or Instagram or snapchat or a hundred other places. If you don't want DJI (in China) to have all of your flight info then simply do not sync you flight record to the cloud. As far a T&C's go I very much doubt any from DJI would be worth anything in any case. I could care less about the flight data, nothing in there of interest for anyone as I follow the suggestions from the AMA as I have their insurance and don't want to void it, plus I have no interest in long distance or altitude records just for the bragging rights. Realistically you can't do anything about it so why waste energy on it, or you could open your check book and start a lawsuit, let us know how that works out for you. Life is too short to wasting time and energy on stuff you can't change.

 

[acherman]

I love all the conspiracy theorists here. This is the stuff memes are made of. Haha
I wonder which data tech at the NSA watches the faces I make when I watch porn on my iPhone. He's gotta have some good laughs at that.

 

[ScottyT]

Is it? DJI is harvesting all your flight data to their cloud. Does DJI have a data protection / sharing policy? How do they handle gov't data requests? Subpoenas? Do they sell that data? What about the Chinese gov't? Do they get to see it?

It is plausible that the FAA would request/subpoena lists of repeat offenders for night flights, flights over 400ft, flights past 1 mile, flights near incidents like the highway fire last week, etc. It has been said here that the FAA is working closely with DJI on a number of things.

As for a kill switch, I'm sure DJI can disable your P3. How would they respond to a gov't agency request to do so?

That's an interesting point. In which country is the flight log data homed, and what are the data protection policies? Something that should be asked of DJI for sure.

I'm not at home but will look to trace where my synced data is sent when I get a chance.

EDIT: I used a basic network monitoring app when doing the sync and all IP addresses logged were all cloud services based in the US - Amazon and Linode. I wasn't able to quickly ascertain which one was actually being used for the data sync I was running

 

[TimBarnhart]

Tell them to sell their p3's they don't deserve to have them

 

[dottat4]

This thread reminds me of the article I read where they were going to use cell towers to track drones. Which reminds me...

 

[SitkaGrover]

I have the belief that if Anyone was actually using any information, it would more then likely be the Chinese. They make the system as well as the software that is used to video and photograph pretty much EVERYTHING(minus airports). People talk about filming power plants, dams, while on deployments, and everything in between. Any smart country would view all those pictures and videos as being great pieces of information. Thats my addition to the conspiracy. If I go quiet in the next few days...Rise up the quads and avenge me. LOL