Disable Aeroscope on Mavic Air 2?

[Focal]

someone needs to make a VPN for drone networks.

 

[coolguy89]

Alright, I was looking for a solution to this as well, and I stumbled upon this post. Now that I found the solution, might as well share it, it's pretty hidden away on the inter webs.

But first, I want to clear up what other people have been saying:

• AeroScope does NOT pick up the live controller location. It picks up the Home Point location.
• AeroScope does NOT pick up the actual controller transmission, that's why it doesn't detect older models. It picks up a special other radio signal that's emitted by the drone that's been dubbed "DroneID". The signal is emitted every second (1000ms).
• Fun fact about DroneID, it's not secure! Anyone could use a simple smartphone app as an Aeroscope and pick up the serial number, HP location, etc. for free! That alone is one reason to disable it. Imagine you fly away 5-10km away from your house, anyone nearby could know where you live, because your drone is shouting it into the air.
• While you CAN disable it, it's not fully "disabled". The AeroScope will still pick up the fact that it's a drone, but the GPS of the drone and the home point will be 0, 0, the serial number and model can be totally changed, everything else blanked out, so it's pretty much useless. That stinking government agent knows there's *A* drone, and they know it's DJI, but they don't know the model, location, or any other spooky stuff the drone usually transmits.

You can disable it via sending special DUML packets to one of the drone's on-board controllers, but be advised, any version of the iOS DJI Fly app, and Android app versions that are greater than 1.5.1 will automatically re-enable it.

Also this goes without saying but don't upgrade your firmware, there is a non-zero chance it'll reset it as well. Best case scenario you have to redo it, worst case scenario it's patched.

If you need to get the old version of the Android app, get it from here. NOTE: I can't necessarily say that "it's safe", but I can tell you that the sha256sum is 83001fae51c84f47be14b84816ab1c6e5a1f3aa24af3ea1a97e816fca3cf4ec9 and that if it is a virus, then me, you, and thousands of other people are all screwed. Download the "second" variant of it (the December one).

So, here is the script that is able to send those special messages to the drone. You'll probably have some hard times understanding it, but the general gist of it is:

1. Clone dji-firmware-tools, then clone CIAJeepDoors *into* it (like a subfolder).
2. As the README says, your CWD has to be dji-firmware-tools when you run it.
3. Set USB port with --port, set serial number with -d, set purpose with -f, and add --disable or --enable.

Best of luck!

 

[droncek]

Disable drone ID:

 

[PottyMouth312]

Worked for me on my A2s.

 

[Yaros]

Doesn't work for me on latest firmware with Mavic Air 2.

 

[Cymru]

Easier now, an automated 1 click version of the software to disable it.

As before, needs to be a 1.5.1 or older version of Fly and must be Android.