You Don't Own What You Bought: Drone Maker Updates Firmware On All Drones To Stop Any Flights In DC
from the well-that's-not-very-nice dept
You may have heard the news recently about how a drunk employee of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (can't make this crap up) accidentally flew a DJI Phantom II drone onto White House property, leading to a general collective freakout over the security implications of these personal helicopters. In response to this, President Obama has called for more drone regulations -- which may or may not make sense -- but it needs to be remembered that the FAA has been refusing to actually release any rules for quite some time.But beyond the call for regulations, the drone's maker, DJI has decided to do a little self-regulation in the form of automatically pushing out some new firmware that blocks the drone from flying in downtown DC:
"The updated firmware (V3.10) will be released in coming days and adds a No-Fly Zone centered on downtown Washington, DC and extends for a 25 kilometer (15.5 mile) radius in all directions. Phantom pilots in this area will not be able to take off from or fly into this airspace."Even if you think it's perfectly reasonable to ban drone flights in downtown DC (a different discussion for a different day...), it should be very concerning that the company you bought your product from can magically make it that much less useful on demand without you being able to do a damn thing about it. What if you happen to live in that no-fly zone, and you bought it to use for personal reasons at a local park. You're completely out of luck because an overreaction resulted in the company breaking something you thought you bought.
Sometimes, the fact that devices you buy can be updated on the fly has benefits -- like the stories of Tesla upgrading its cars to make them better even long after people bought them. That's neat. But, it still seems immensely troubling that something you bought can be turned into a paperweight (in certain areas) by the company you bought it from.
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Filed Under: control, drm, drones, firmware, no fly zone, ownership, washington dc
Companies: dji
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Though why the U.S. needs to deputize private companies to enforce laws is beyond me.
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The term "aircraft" includes helium filled party balloons.
That's a lot party pooper!
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You are clinging on a roof, out of plain view, in a flooded area, and no drones can fly around to find you, have a nice death.
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I say "banned" because no one has banned it, the manufacturer is just planning on crippling the drone in an arbitrary area.
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To give even more perspective, it's approximately 40.1 miles from DC to Baltimore. So this manufacturer instigated no fly zone of 15.5 miles, extends more than a third of the way to Baltimore (~38.65% of the way). Washington DC has an area of 68.3 square miles (177 km²). This "no fly zone" has an area of 755 square miles (1955 km²). The state of Rhode Island has an area of 1,212 square miles (3,140 km²).
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and liberty dies from a thousand cuts...
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"It seems you want to fly your Boeing 747 into a no fly zone, this airplane can't allow this, Dave".
First think about the implications (in case of emergencies, for instance) something can have before making such stupid statements.
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That's a kind of fraud in my view.
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So do most other people. Which is why the article says "a different discussion for a different day" while it's actually addressing the slipshod manner in which it was programmed and the way in which it was applied.
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Better than the alternative..
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Re: Better than the alternative..
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Re: Better than the alternative..
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Re: Re: Better than the alternative..
My understanding is that this is not the first time DJI has added a no-fly zone in its flight controller. You also can't fly over the forbidden city with the Naza flight controller (by DJI). In fact, they have a whole list of no fly-zones preprogrammed into their FCs:
http://www.dji.com/fly-safe/category-mc
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Re: Better than the alternative..
Now, over, near, or right on top of any part of a secret orientated government facility......thats a gray area i.e. dont hide things from your nation
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Plus you can usually enter restricted airspace if you announce your position, height and target by radio. The tower might give you further instructions on course and flight-level you need to keep.
So compared to what's usual in aviation, this "self-regulation" of course allows you to do much less.
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tfr.FAA.gov
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http://www.skyguide.ch/fileadmin/dabs-tomorrow/DABS_20150130.pdf
the zones can change daily.
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Re: ha
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what will happen with driverless cars?
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Re: what will happen with driverless cars?
It would be trivial to add this technology to every car, with additional locations to be determined by unelected bureaucrats.
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I would love a citation on that. The Nissan GT-R detects racetracks with GPS to turn off the speed governor.
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Re: Re: Re: what will happen with driverless cars?
Direct from a Ferrari service mechanic while working on a Ferrari in the shop. He showed me the PC software as it was querying the car being serviced.
No -- I don't have a Ferrari myself.
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Re: Re: Re: Re: what will happen with driverless cars?
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...AND void your warranty.
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That would be about the dumbest thing ever. :-) That feature is only in Japan though, where the speed limiter is set at 111 mph.
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The slippery slope possibilities are endless!
This could likely be done on existing cars by pushing out a firmware update, at the behest of the auto maker's legal team.
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Re: The slippery slope possibilities are endless!
You could also go into your car's fuse box and yank out the fuse that goes to Onstar's GPS receiver. Problem solved.
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As for those who do, by applying tinfoil or yanking the fuse, they absolve the manufacturer of legal liability. Which is the whole point of the auto-disable feature (for both drones and cars) to begin with.
It's a feature that *isn't* defeated by yanking the fuse.
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Re: The slippery slope possibilities are endless!
http://www.ehow.com/how_7544152_disable-onstar-gps-tracking.html
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So no DJI for me
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Re: So no DJI for me
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This is why
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Re: This is why
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Automatic updates should be a *feature*, not a manacle.
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However, that's a long way off. For now, it's pretty simple to just avoid products that you can't stop from auto-updating.
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so stopping auto-updating for things that don't require communication to do their job will always be possible. It's trickier for things that do require communications, but not impossible.
The device doesn't run if you don't connect and update. Always on wi-fi that uses unsecured network for the update should do the trick. Etc. Things can get pretty bad for the non-tech-savvy. But I agree with you, so far it's not impossible.
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I have encountered this sort of thing before, and the solution is to run your own service that mimics the one it's trying to connect to.
"Things can get pretty bad for the non-tech-savvy"
Absolutely true. In fact, things are already pretty bad for the non-tech-savvy. But all it takes is a small number of tech-savvy people to put together a mitigation kit that can be used by everyone else.
I'm not claiming that any of the mitigation avenues are easy or convenient, just that they're possible. I'm thinking of the worst-case future where we don't stop this sort of insanity. At least we can provide ways to mitigate the problem for people who are sufficiently motivated to do so.
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Re: This is why
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Drone positioning relies on GPS
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I wonder...
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So let me get this straight. A drunk government employee does something stupid with drones and the solution is to pass more regulations against drones in opposed to doing more to prevent government employees from getting drunk and doing something stupid? I think the real concern here is who hired this guy and how did he get his job? Obama should be more concerned about the screening process for government employees. When the government needs to pass anti-drone laws that affect everyone to protect government from itself and its own employees something is wrong here. The only problem/threat here isn't the public it's the government and the public shouldn't be forced to bear the burden or more dumb laws just because its own employees keep doing stupid things.
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Regular citizen breaks law = huge problem
Drunk government employee breaks law = no problem
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The New DRM
It would be so much more customer friendly if they just programmed the controller to give the user a big loud warning that they were flying in a potentially restricted area and then let the user decide.
The more we lock stuff down and take human judgment out of the loop, the more opportunity for unintended consequences to bite us in the ass.
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so a government employee fucks up and everyone else get screwed twice because of it.
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This is not something new , many many, companies do this, on various platforms with the user having no say in the matter
And yes it is wrong, it will be abused........theres nothing technical that says that this is needed for a product/srrvice to function, it is something that is willfully added ontop of an already working product.........
not given the choice to refuse if you so choose is one issue, refusing because an update is not in the best interest of the buyer is a seperate matter
For security/privacy for the user, an update process, this i can accept, but you still have to give the choice, either a permanent on/off switch, or on the fly allow/deny when an update appears.......not a backdoor into products that occupy the homes of users.......a product once bought should be isolated from its producers unless the user specifically gives consent through the above examples
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Indoors?
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Re: Indoors?
Of course, once boat drones are also bricked by the vendor...
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Does nothing for Security.
Or you can roll your own - arguably MUCH BETTER - multirotor and not deal with DJI at all (which includes the standalone versions of the Naza flight Controller).
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Obama not a customer
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Re: Obama not a customer
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Plus, it's not DJI's place to set these limitations. It's the FAA's place.
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Politicians and Common Peasants
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Fuck buying anything that makes you connect to the NET.Of course the Corporations will screw with your possession which you bought legally.
And if you do want to update...............DON'T !
Use google and see what the update does before allowing your possession to update.If the update is shit then why install it ?
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Is There Clarity About The Update's Contents?
As a DJI flyer, it seems to me the following two questions are very important:
1) Is DJI being very clear about the reduced functionality the update will bring PRIOR to customers accepting the update?
2) Is there an option to NOT take the update, and continue flying in Grandfathered mode for all eternity? This would preclude opt-outers from improvements, too, but the functionality they bought would still exist.
If this kind of update is done with YES answers to the two questions above, then it satisfies your requirements about retaining the functions of the products you own. Sadly, my guess is that the answer to 1, at least, will be no.
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Re: Is There Clarity About The Update's Contents?
Good as they are, these Phantoms have a recurring "fly away" problem.
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Re: Is There Clarity About The Update's Contents?
You could still fly your DJI Phantom around DC. The device uses GPS to improve flight stability and navigation. But it can also be flown in manual modes if GPS satellites are not detected.
So...make a tinfoil hat for your Phantom, blocking the view of the sky, and the Quad will never know that it is in the DC no-fly zone, and will happily fly in manual mode, which simply takes more skill from the pilot.
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Emotional responses make for bad policy. I hope at least that "solutions" like this GPS blocking won't be adopted as law.
And can we please stop calling them drones and start calling them RC aircraft? "Drone" is a name intended to frighten people into thinking they're something more serious than they truly are.
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Different application, same old cr@p...DRM
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Re: Different application, same old cr@p...DRM
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Re: Re: Different application, same old cr@p...DRM
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Freedom of the press issue here?
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In other news, the Chinese want backdoors
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Perhaps Congress should require that US military drones
Wouldn't everyone sleep better knowing that these military drones couldn't be mistakenly used on them?
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Craiglist flooded with DJI for sale
If you want a no fly zone why not prevent the drones from going into the high value target areas but still allow them to be flown in the local park? GPS is accurate enough to do this.
DJI must be admitting that its common for their users to lose contact with their drones which will continue on their last instructed heading. The 25 mile limit allows sufficient time for the out of control drones to run out of battery.
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Nice way to give business to your competitors
DJI: We ban your drone from flying in Washington.
Every DJI competitor: We don't.
Hmm... I wonder which company is going to see more business and income?
And even then, why is it the drone maker's responsibility to force their users to be responsible? It's like a car maker saying you can't drive the car into a certain area. We can debate whether this is for "safety" or "security", but the fact is that people should be able to make decisions like this on their own: if you want to fly a drone into the White House, go right ahead... but be prepared when you're arrested by the Secret Service.
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I don't live in DC
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inside?
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Re: inside?
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Just wait
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Re: Just wait
Technology Review disagrees: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/524791/why-your-car-wont-get-remote-software-updates-anytime-so on/
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