I think this is an infringement on you’re right to privacy especially if it’s on your own property. It’s effectively monitoring information third parties aren’t suppose to be able to record

The people being detected by these drones should be notified they are being tracked, and should be able to request all info the Aerial Armor has on their drone's serial number, similar to the way you can request a user profile report from Facebook with all the data they have on your profile, or from a police record. Keeping data on people when they don't have access to it seems morally wrong, and should be illegal in my opinion.

"In the wrong hands, it could be considered an invasion of privacy." Pretty good reason to make sure that the government and law enforcement should never be allowed within 13,000 miles of it.

Being a drone pilot for a little over 2 years now, I can see how one would think this might be helping the hobby. It's most definitely going to help kill it. PLEASE don't make this software available to law enforcement/government! Give them copies of your collected data if an offense has been committed/law broken but, DO NOT give them access to using the software!

"our intent is not to get people arrested or have security go out".... But we have a direct line with the authorities so those fuckers can bum rush you.

This is scary stuff... imagine if this level of surveillance was involved with cars, people wouldn't put up with it and the drone community shouldn't put up with this surveillance either. I understand that there are bad drone pilots, but this isn't going to stop those people with ill intent.

As a commercial full scale pilot, 14+ year and counting Fpv hobbyist and more recent commercial Alta X operator I can only see a long list of cons vs the pros with this software. I had my doubts about DJI and their flight data collection but now seeing this I will definitely no longer be supporting any DJI projects and most likely will be returning to much more simple flight controllers that do not transmit or store any flight data. All flying I do is perfectly legal and within regulations but the thought of having big brother keeping an eye on all flight data along with the possibility of having control being taken over by a remote entity definitely gives me a lot of concern with personal safety and privacy. Very sad to see where the hobby/industry has come over the years with such great advances in technology that are advancing and ruining it at the same time.

You guys are taken the fun away. I want to fly a drone to feel free as a bird. But now I'm stressed on who has my data. Thanks tucktards.

This should be illegal for use expect in controlled air space only. The history part of the tracking should be illegal if it show flights in uncontrolled air space. Its no different than law enforcement tracking cars to watch for infractions while people are exercising the right to free movement on public highways. Its fine for controlled air space but it should be illegal to track flights in uncontrolled air space.

"For safety" or not this is a blatant 4th ammendment violation. And sending most law enforcement to "educate" is worthless. Majority of cops have 0 idea about FAA laws and jurisdiction, much less what a part 107 operator would know over them.

Good work comrades. This will force somebody to create a hacked, undetectable operating system.

Thank you for the information. Now we all know the good times of flying a drone are gone. It was nice while it lasted.

DJI Aeroscope is the main reason I switched to Autel... this is not used to "educate" hobbyst, this is used to "hunt" and fine hobbyst, photogaphers and videographers even if they are not endangering anyone or anything.

Thanks Greg for providing this informative video. I've always had a problem with companies who would sell their technology to the gooberment and not citizens. We're not talking about missiles, this is essentially, a fancy radio receiver. It would take 2 seconds to attach a name to each drone and one wouldn't even need a warrant. Just find where this person flies the most (their back yard), look up the address on the county's gis tax map and you got their name and everything about them. Pretty sick that some people think it's a good idea to keep a database of everywhere I decide to fly a toy. This should be illegal.

This is why I make my own drones

I've followed the remote ID discussion for some time now. While the final draft from the FAA isn't as bad as it could have been (at least drones don't have to always be interconnected), these guys from Aerial Armor have already built the dystopian tracking and logging network that we feared. Not that anyone should do something illegal--I get that, but essentially now every drone pilot has a "file" and with a click, this company can bring up a log of every flight, with all telemetry, for years. Imagine a system like this for cars: every car has a transmitter that sends out its license plate number / VIN number, GPS coordinates, current speed, etc. Then governments / companies build a network of receivers so that, with a click, the police could pull up a log of every place I've visited, dates and times, how fast I drove, whether I made an illegal left turn, ran a red light etc. Anyway I realize it has its purpose but it seems like too many steps down the wrong road to surveillance and government overreach.

This seems heavy handed. I mean, you don’t have remote ID on your car. How often are drones a serious problem. There’s is no way this “issue” justifies these actions. How long till they start taking your video feed. They have killed the drone hobby for me.

It is interesting that, at no point, was this technology described as being able to separate good actors from bad, other than ear-marking a signal for future reference. Herein lies the issue; lawful pilots should not be tracked *at all. Period.* As a pilot, I understand where good and bad places to fly are, as well as the FAA regulations I have to abide by, but I do not expect security/police to know the law. This technology leaves pilots open to harassment, since police officers can simply write you an unlawful ticket, and pin the cost of fighting the ticket *on you.* I certainly see the upside to this technology, but it has the same downside as drones - bad actors. Also, the whole idea of this system covering an entire city or county does not makes sense outside of areas with a standing TFR. We've seen cities and municipalities go after drones in an incredibly illegal way, and this would only aid them, thereby pinning the costs on the only people they do not care about - average, law-abiding citizens. This system is brilliant for large sporting events and festivals, to ensure crowds of people are not at risk, but other than that seems to tread into a 4th Amendment grey area at the very least. All the best to the people at Aerial Armor, but I heavily disagree with many of the use cases for this system.

You shouldn’t under any circumstances have to give the government your transmitter or home point location. The drone location is understandable.

With this level of surveillance, best to ban all drones. Inspecting the gutters of my own home resulting in enthusiastic SWAT team smashing down my door in the middle of the night and shooting my dog, this system is open to huge amount of abuse.

Personally I feel remote ID does very little for safety. To me it is clearly a law enforcement tool and I would much rather have some that actually makes all pilots safer when they are in the air, meaning improving situational awareness and things like reducing potential in air incidents with other aircraft.

I like the part where the guy admits that that "we integrate several other systems on the mitigation side of the technology that does allow for takeover or jamming or return to home." I mean, what could go wrong? Nothing bad ever happens when companies are allowed to track you, spy on you, and steal your data. "We only sell to governments and law enforcement" is exactly the line taken by the makers of the Pegasus spyware. And not a syllable of pushback from you, Greg.

What this does highlight is DJI outright lied about end to end encryption between the drone and controller. Ultimately for Aeroscope to be able to access this information it has to be unencrypted or using a static, pre-coded key. Either option means that any 3rd party, not just DJI, can reverse engineer the protocol and acquire the same information. It seems the claim about E2E is only for things like the video stream but NOT the other telemetry. They expose that data outside the encrypted wrapper. Something else touched on but not elaborated was the ability with other systems to take over a drone (not just jam). That would again hint at either no encryption or a backdoor in the protocol. So remember - the fact Aeroscope works at all means that its possible for any suitably advanced 3rd party to access the very same data.

Sounds like drones need full encryption for flight control and telemetry now.

Sad day for me and you. This Corporate overreach and Pilot I.D. has brought me to a hard decision. That is to drop out of my 107 classes and sell all of my drone gear. The future of the Drone Industry looks bleak. More control, more laws, more of our Fourth Amendments being erroded because of fear. Consider the public assaulting innocent pilots more and more, this all causes me to be concerned as to where this Hobby is headed. Before i invest my hard earned money i must step back and see clearly. I just want to Fly. I don't want to be spied on by the corporate world anymore than they do. This software has gutted this dream for me. DJI and it's Chinese Fear based design has now paved the way for corporations to further effect America freedoms. In my opinion this hobby has become politically toxic. Listen to this guy admit the potential threats to a pilots private information. He showed us real time and historic time flights. Habitual patterns of each pilot. Where we fly. What we fly. How we fly. He said they are collecting city wide data. He focused on any data of his choice. He used pre-collect pilot patterns and used this data to assess what he called Potential Threats. Who decides who is a threat? He said private citizen's wont have access but The corporation decides who uses it, namely corporations and Law enforcement. I understand the Law Enforcement aspects of it but again the corporation is the Gate Keeper here. All of this is already secured with Remote I.D. Big Brother? Fourth Amendment? Our privacy is worth a $50,000 For Profit investment? Sad Day for the citizen's of America and us Drone Hobbiests. I think we are watching a once fun billion dollar industry eat its children. Im out! Perhaps for now we are allowed to fly a class 1 drone for recreational purposes without Remote I.D. but i see that as very temporary. Good Luck you well intentioned Pilots. Im grounding myself. My Dream died tonight.

I can only hope that the majority of our intelligent community as drone pilots realizes that this is one of the most disturbing invasion of privacy ever witnessed inside of a hobby. The Company has literally planted receivers throughout all major cities or most according to the video to intercept GPS data going between the drone and the controller this is probably the craziest thing I’ve ever heard of. There is no way these guys aren’t going to get sued to high hell

I was seriously thinking about purchasing a dji mini 3 pro but not after watching this. Thanks dji for shooting yourself in the foot.

Now I won't have to worry about upgrading to a new drone. I just sell the current one I have, and forget about this hobby.

If a company made the public aware that they can provide tracking of you privilege to travel in your car the public would go crazy saying thats an invasion of privacy. If I'm not in a controlled area you should not be legally to track me.

I’m sure we all gave DJI lots of latitude in how this is used by buying the drone and installing apps. Most of us never read the terms and conditions we signed up to.

Considering the drone can be tracked when the drone is simply powered on and not even airborne, and drones nearly always originate from and land at the location of the operator, this is illegally tracking the location of human being who operates the drone. We aren't allowed to be tracked by our cell phones without a warrant or permission. How is this any different legally?

I think one possible good thing that could come of this is being able to charge a lot more for our drone services because of the added hoops we have to jump through.

It would be an ideal system, instead of tracking the threat level of my toy drone they started tracking the gang bangers, the criminals who have turned Chicago, St. Louis, Baltimore, NYC, Los Angeles and many other big cities into killing zones. Of course we wouldn't want to intrude into their privacy but those of us who bought something to play with (a TOY) who did the right thing, registered it with FAA etc are fair game. May even end up on NO FLY LIST because we once violated the drone rules knowingly or unknowingly. Big Brother at its worst.

This guy is exactly the problem we have in the world today.

Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

So based on this, I shall no longer use drones for nefarious activities. I shall use microlight aircraft instead.

Listen closely you can hear DJI's stock prices falling.

Will it detect model aircraft, too? I can see using it for localized areas like critical infrastructure and airports etc. But just wait. It will eventually be in use nationwide as a "radar" the same way airports use radar to track manned aircraft. It'll be the FAA's UTM system of choice. The influencers were right. The hobby is dead.

I see a lot of people talking about this technology’s potentially intrusive behavior, and privacy rights (which are all valid) but I don’t see people talking about DJI here. It is up to DJI to properly encrypt radio wave transmissions. Drones often operate at 2.4 to 5.8 ghz and this software and defense system is reading OPEN traffic signals. This means that with a raspberry pi, and a large antenna, I could theoretically, myself, do exactly everything you see here, and even take over a drone. Without encryption, devices are literally screaming in the wind to each other, and with a little bit of hardware, anyone can do the same thing. This company is specializing in making the process easy, professional, and streamlined. That’s it. Bottom line: drone manufacturers need to protect the drones, if not from this company, than from another guy down the block who might take over my drone and fly it into the ocean, or into an airport. I cannot emphasize enough how irresponsible it is to have serial numbers, and pilot locations being broadcasted in this way. You may ask yourself.. why isn’t it already this way? If I had to speculate, real-time encryption is complicated, usually requiring more CPU power and therefore battery power, to run. Additionally, encryption may add unwanted latency to the drone’s live feed (two way). Due to this, the next generation of drones may need new hardware to combat these intrusive behaviors.

This is like cops parking outside of a bar. Just waiting for you to screw up just a little then they’ll be all over you. The fun ship has just sailed.

Wow, so even if I'm not flying and just updating the firmware at home ... they will detect you ... big brother is watching all the time. I do understand the need for this system for security reasons, but it's good to know that as you fly your drone for fun you will be monitored and tracked and recorded. I also wonder how long they will store this information, and who in the future will get access to this... all and all very scary.

At some point I’ll just build my own if this gets too out of control. I draw the line at remote takeover. really takes all the fun out of it, even when you’re a good actor.

I was seriously looking at Dji but not now. I will be finding a solution with everything encrypted. does anyone know which systems are?;

Does this system detect home-made drones that are made with DJI made control boards, like the NAZA-M, for example?

You can bet your ass if they don't yet, soon, someone will be able to override your drone.

This is why I enrolled, completed this course, got my T-Shirt and continue to follow this page! Always ahead of the curve with the latest info and news!

Opens the door for Fishing Expeditions. The drone itself needs to report that it’s being tracked. Like seeing the cop on the side of the road.

With this tool ca it integrate into the FAA authorizations to see that those that have authorization to air space or altitude variance and with DJI products to can enter info such as your registration and any info you can enter to make current drones compliant with the remote ID requirements?

I often wondered why there wasn’t an encryption standard for controller - receiver communication. Seems like it would reduce interference and nosy people out.

I didn't hear this mentioned, but who sets the detection zones? Is it the company, security team, etc who paid to access this system who does this set up or does someone from the Aerial Armor's company set it and any adjustments have to go through them? I'd hope Aerial Armor would set it so the person/people accessing it can't set up points not associated with or related to where they need to monitor

Started in aerial photography with RC helis before drones were a thing. Been paid to fly over a baseball stadium during a game with an aircraft the FAA now considers a drone🤦‍♂️ I was the first person in my state to be tested for 107. After watching this, I’m done. You guys have fun with your tech.

How difficult would it be to record, modify & spoof a replay of a flight telemetry stream from another transmitter given the original telemetry data sent from these drones isn't encrypted?

Thats why u build your own drone with your own opensource transmitter like expresslrs and ignore all those fancy brands.

Thank you for making this video and letting us know who the enemy really is!

Wow. New to drones but Im done now. I don't want something that can be tracked to that extent. Perfect example of a company seeing how close they can violate constitutional rights for profit. Class action suit.

He says it gives the ability to track even before a drone takes off. So, if you're somewhere where you can't fly, you can't even boot up your drone to look at footage without fear of security storming in and Minority Reporting you. No? Abuse always happens. "They were going to fly", but didn't, hasn't, wasn't going to. And don't suggest security and cops won't still throw treats and maybe arrest you (asking questions later). This needs to be archived data, only.

What if local data mode is enabled in DJI drones? Could they still track that?

Remember, when he said that the information is not available to the general public he means it is not available from his company. You do not need any permission from anyone including the FAA or FCC to set up your own tracking system if you really wanted to and know how. There are products out there like the Radio Direction Finder DF2020T that can quickly and easily find your drone and your remote control.

It's one thing to track a drone that's in a restricted area but to track and record flight data everywhere you put a drone up???

LOL I was caught flying over Soldier Field (clip in the beginning) on an off day when there was no activity. Some guy came out to talk to me. He drove right to where I was standing from across the parking lot, so I know he had a fix on my location. I was cool and said yes to everything and we got along.

I'm interested who (law enforcement?) and how will they issue an FAA violation, and how they prove who is operating the drone.

This will be a very easy way to set a user fee on drone operators another way to tax you.

How does Aeroscope works? Does it intercept the transmission between the drone and the the controller? Or it works like a adbs system: drone boardcast its information independent from the controller transmission, and the aeroscope accquire that information?

So what do analog FPV and dji FPV air units look like? Are you tracking these as well?

OK, so what are the countermeasures?

Thank you for sharing, I don't like that big brother is watching us, of course I understand the safety aspect of the software. Good informative Video Greg

Does this system rely on DJI backend to provide tracking information? Are there companies that don’t allow flight information to be collected?

Also, since the aeroscope is off the shelf, and kind of replaced by remote id. Will the current existing aeroscope be maintained?

I support the use of this technology to monitor restricted airspace and to protect critical infrastructure....beyond that use, I have some reservations. It will not take long for bad actors or even those that want to protect their privacy to start spoofing aeroscope data....similar to using a VPN. I think this fact alone will prevent the FAA from using this as an enforcement tool to issue fines remotely....meaning the individual will need to be caught in the act. Imagine the chaos someone could cause by spoofing restricted airspace with fake aeroscope data.

"There is no private information in here!" *blurrs drone id* X D

chilling, unconstitutional without a doubt Remote ID is requiring everyone who operates a UAS to testify against themselves whether a crime has been committed or not. This violates the 5th Amendment to the constitution; "nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself" Requiring the technology to implement this violation is a HUGE bureaucratic overreach.

Very interesting. So dji only? Does it detect other brands, types, gps modules?

"Your drone invades others privacy!" Me: *and what about my privavy!?*

Oh look - now we're doing 'pre-crime'. This is bound to turn out well. LOL

Thank you @Pilot Institute for bringing this up I feel that this program is an invasion of my Privacy and It should not be commercialized. This, In the wrong hands, could be considered an invasion of privacy. It would be more considerate if all security-sensitive places for DRONE (UAV) would be officially signposted, including adding UAV-restricted arias in Maps and UAV Forecast App. Rather having Security Officials run around and put their nose in something that they don’t have jurisdiction over because of insufficient Public Noticeboards. Personally, if we see Noticeboards for security-sensitive places for UAV we should also open Google Maps or UAV Forecast App and the restricted area should be noticeable like all airfields. Only then Legal action can take place if found transgressing airspace.

Dose this work with home built fpvs that still run analog with no gps or safety features

What happens when insurance companies get a hold of this for "security" reasons? You know they can use it to check the history of the pilot. And just like they do now with cars, wait until there is a claim made before they investigate so they can deny payment for example. Plus, like they do now cars, charge double or triple the amount based on the number of historical claims in a given location like a city.

So what this guy is saying is their system passively monitors the drone, pilot, and flight path info of drones 40 miles away (even though they can filter for certain areas), and archives *patterns* of pilots to evaluate 'threat levels.' He also said that the system isn't available to the general public. He said nothing about the analytics it collects not being sold to the public by independent clients. So here's a scenario. The football stadium in the middle of my city buys one of these systems. From their location, they can monitor, record, and archive flights of every pilot in the city. I'm 30 miles away doing a roof inspection or a photography shoot. They can collect analytics on every launch I make, every job I perform in the city and sell it to my competitors, private interests, Google, or the mob for all I know. All while I have to get a license, registration, and release forms before I can sell a photo I snapped with my drone to a stock images site. That's messed up. This is *exactly* the sort of thing that is going to force otherwise lawful pilots to go rogue and start building/modding their drones illegally.

This just makes me want to return my mavic 3 pro back to Best Buy before my 14 days run out.

Does this type of software only affect dji or pixhawk and other open source flight controller's?

It’s like a robot Karen that watch’s you and then you report people 🙄

It's disgusting you can't even play with a toy without being spied on 🤬 I won't be buying dji no longer

But does this only detect DJI drones? What about other brands, like Autel? Or the various (non-DJI) FPV racing drones?

I think Texas A&M University system in Bryan - College Station Texas might be using something like this system. 1 year ago, I was told they were running such a detection system. I had received permission to fly on their property, so it didn't impact me.

Thanks Greg, for setting -up this interview, very interesting. ""Better not be that guy "" with this system around 🙂. Brandon was so thorough, I don't have any questions.

He never really talked about it but I wonder if they can detect drones other than DJI. Did I missed that? Not seeing it on their website either. I like the stolen drone feature!

Thank you! That was unexpected in respects to the details and depth of what the software is capable of doing. One thing though, a built drone from scratch, that doesn't have I'd cannot be monitored for identification. The drone is appears like a unmarked car. A ghost drone? FPV-DRONE

Does a RC car put off a different signal then a drone with that system will it show up if someone is driving a RC car on the ground because some of them now have GPS

Extending the comprehensive use case of this technology, to monitoring battle fields or crowd events, such as what is happening in Ukrainian cities at war, or "freedom" manifestation in some cities lately. As there was on another channel, a call to bring in drones to monitor Ukrainian battle field (you can even see some footage on KZfaq). This video shows exactly the counter side application to not only detect the drones but the pilot locations, then in order to be able to send the militia (or other thing) after them. The battlefield is may be not at this stage of data collection currently (what the heck about a drone spying , when you fear a missile), but surely as it is explained, it can be applied to public area where a crowd or manifestation is happening, and control who and what was covered, with permit or not, by anyone during such events (remember Washington, Chicago, Ottawa lately) . It also explains quite clearly how DJI is able to provide more sensitive information, even after events, or on a large set of data, on the drone and its owner to law enforcement, government or friendly organization.

I think this is just where the tech going. The FAA tracks every manned air flight, so why would we expect unmanned to be any different. Where I get concerned though is that companies like this are really data brokers….and you have no access to your data. Power up the drone once, in your living room to download the app and set the drone up, and they now know where you live. Every flight you ever made. While the safety aspect is there, the privacy aspect is missing. Where is the public’s right to opt out of historical logging? Where the the ability to see what data is being collected on me? In most big data applications like google, Amazon, etc., you can opt out, see your data, and request removal. None of that appears to be in this system! He seemed to hint that it might also work with drones from other manufacturers too…so yes, the hobby is dead.

This is a REAL eye opener, BIG BROTHER can get you anytime he wants to!!

Good timing. In June I was going to be making over 10K in DJI product purchases. Your company has essentially convinced me to pass on that purchase, NEVER by any DJI product again, and advocate to everyone I meet to avoid DJI products all together. As an FPV pilot - rotor craft and fixed wing - for over 6 years now, I had been watching DJI's tech offering with much interest.Thanks to your watching this video, I no longer feel safe flying any DJI product. From the drones, to even the FPV goggle systems. For example, in July I was just about to purchase several goggles, and a BUNCH of camera systems, to refit my fixed wing aircraft, and the aircraft of several club members. I'm glad I saw this, as I will not be making that purchase now. There is no way I want to put any DJI equipment on any aircraft I fly. This kind of "supervision" is NOT what I singed up for. I used to be a DJI advocate. I now hope EVERYONE sees this video, and that they come to the same conclusions I have. DJI, I you have a very nice product., easy to use and reliable. But this kind of surveillance is unacceptable to the hobby.

Never going above altitude limit again knowing that the local air base actually tracks the drone 😂 I'm sure they knew because they knew my pattern.. I flew every sunset.. One time after taking off police came from around the corner and on the other side of our river.. Scared as I was I ran home and landed in my garden, Giving them my adress 😂

Excellent presentation. Pretty interesting. I was at fiesta. I think at the pilot briefing they said they spoke to 6 to 7 drone pilots that were flying in the TFR area. I believe they said several were above 1000 feet agl as the balloons were flying.

What if you buy a drone and it has been on the blacklist? How do you prove it/remove it?

If drones operate within radio highly directional frequencies 2.400-2.483 GHz and 5.725-5.825 GHz, then, I guess, their movement may be detected through radioo direction finding and goniometry. How far and high must antennas be located?

So when their website or dji's gets hacked every bit of info goes public. Law enforcement gets a free pass bypassing unreasonable search and seizure laws. And criminals will bypass the entire system with custom firmware. So let punish the hobbyist and legit businesses . Awesome

Imagine living in Ukraine defending your country and the Russian military has this software and can track/takeover the drones your using. This software is dangerous.

Does this work with the DJI air unit or Caddx vista?

Is there a way to get a third-party RID module to meet C1, C2, and C2 for FAA. I am currently using a DJI Mini Air SE?