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Comment by ceejayoz | Hacker News Reader

> GPS might be helpful for drones (though it should be on the drone, not your phone) but there is absolutely no reason to use it for something like a phone stabilizer, which it absolutely requires and will not let you continue unless you turn it on.

It’s for the flight restriction system. Won’t let you fly near schools, power plants, airports etc.

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This might not be the best way to go about it because what you care about in this scenario is the location of the drone, not the operator, who might stand outside the no flight zone. Which is another reason to use the drone's GPS signal in the app instead of your phone location.

Either way when using a drone they will know your location, but there's no reason to let DJI access this information when using every single product they make.

It might download a new restriction zone set based upon where the operator is. Without knowing anything about the internals of the drone, it would not be possible for the drone to have a full set of restricted areas for the planet. They change, get updated, etc…

For a drone, I understand the requirement. If you are using a drone, giving up your personal GPS location isn’t a big ask. You must be within sight line of your drone and the FAA may have a legitimate reason for knowing your personal location. (For most uses)

I don't see why a drone couldn't have a massive set of lat-long boundaries unless disk space or CPU is severely limited. Text doesn't take up much space.

The list of restricted airspaces is not static.

The drone can refuse to takeoff or fly into restricted space based just on its own GPS. It absolutely does not require to track the pilot.

But then how would they be able to sell your location data? It’s a crucial revenue stream! /s

They do sell a tool to police and governments that allow them to track drone operators. The Ukraine military uses drones extensively to monitor the Russians from the air and assist with artillery accuracy but any time they would launch a dji drone Russia had access to that software and would send an artillery shell to the pilots location.

Russians, like Ukrainians, and all other government forces in the world, have extensive experience triangulating transmitted signals in warzones. Considering that these drones rely on bidirectional communication, it is obvious where the pilot is without hacking DJI. A drone operator in a warzone appears like an active microwave oven with its door stuck open operating from a deserted area. Militaries can triangulate those signals for decades.

Exactly.

During WWII the already had radars enough to detect periscopes sticking out of sea surface from tens of miles.

They were also able to triangulate subs by their short transmits anywhere on the Atlantic with pinpoint precision.

People very much underestimate technical military capabilities.

The issues with militaries are of a different kind -- sifting through deluge of information, prioritising, making right inferences, etc., not the ability to spot and triangulate the enemy.

I think periscope detection is only possible since the 1970s

  The opportunity to detect periscopes was exploited in early radar experiments that prompted the development of the AN/APS-116 radar manufactured by Texas Instruments in the 1970s. The AN/APS-116 is an Xband, high-resolution, fast scanning system developed specifically to provide a periscope detection capability on the carrier-based S-3 aircraft. The AN/APS-137 is an upgrade of this radar used primarily on the S-3; a limited number are also used on the land-based P-3 aircraft.

https://www.jhuapl.edu/Content/techdigest/pdf/V18-N01/18-01-...

It has been possible since WWII, only not from tens of miles:

"During the early months of the Battle of the Atlantic in World War II, British ships using the radar set Model 271 were able to detect the periscope of a submerged submarine at a distance of 800 m (0.50 mi) during tests in 1940."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_snorkel

Not all DJI drones have a GPS.

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