Airmapper
Inactive Member
@Airmapper, could you talk about any efforts or methods of thwarting China's 'phone home' stuff in the DJI drones. I've been wanting one for years but I am troubled by their access and would like to know if there's any way around it. What are the conditions that trigger it and what can be done to restrict what data / info gets sent back to China?
Not viewing the FAA's quest for dominance any more favorably than China's behaviour and want to limit my contact or exposure to the US Depts of Making You Sad any way I can. So I just keep looking at the Mavic Mini in my e-shopping cart.
Speaking based on my Mavic 2 the software environment means it "phones home" about every startup if you use the DJI go4 app and internet. This is not entirely evil, it updates the software, updates a map of places it would be really stupid to fly and locks the aircraft from taking off there, so it has a legitimate purpose. It does operate without an internet connection so I suppose it is possible to only allow it to initialize and register itself then limit it's access to the internet from that point on, however it will be hard to keep it's software up to date. Also I don't know if after so long perhaps it forces you to check in or you can't fly.
The most obvious thing it does is logs flights and thumbnails of images to your profile. This info is useful and I find it practical, but rest assured it's stored in the cloud and I'm sure China can look at it any time they like.
For me on the Part 107 side the FAA wants me to keep that software up to date, part of my maintenance of the aircraft, so they are basically asking me to let it phone home while the rest of the Government is complaining that it does. On the recreational side though, once it's working, aside from feature and bug fixes, I don't see updating the software as being vital as long as it's stable. Truth be told updates are as likely to cause issues as fix them.
For the Mavic Mini, say you used a dedicated smartphone or tablet, only turned the WiFi on long enough to let it call home and activate, from that point forward put that device in Airplane mode or whatever and use it like that, it's possible you could kill the link. However if at any point it does get a connection it will likely dump everything at once. You may be able to delete files off the aircraft and controller but it would take a software guru more skilled than me to ensure nothing makes it to the internet anyway.
I will say many of my flights I do not use DJI's app. I have 2 other apps that interface with the controller and allow me to automate flying, advanced autopilot's so to speak for mapping and automated flight paths. I don't know if China gets anything from them, but as long as there is an internet connection I'd say something could get out, the aircraft computer logs independently. Basically the aircraft has a computer onboard, the controller has one, and your smartphone or tablet provides the user interface.
I will say this, I'm worried about where this is headed. I'm wondering if it's even worth pursuing as a business unless your name is Amazon.