Would you support a lawsuit over Remote ID?

[spsphotos]

Ok i do see the problem with my thinking as I have always felt as if the Drone was an Airplane and I am in it. So i never really made the separation to an ankle lock.

As far as the Drone Rage gun shooter coming to get me , that can happen at any time when I launch a drone at the lake in front of the entire beach or the parking lot and although its not out of the question its not viable for me.

I could just as easily create road rage on the highway as I could be careless with my drone and I feel my odds are better that I would experience Road Rage on the Road than flying in the Air .

The question for me is am i willing to give up my location to get the Benefits I want from my drone which is more freedom to make decisions within reason and the answer is YES % 100 .

You mention 4 Year and honestly , were moving much faster than that, I expect BVLOS to be in the ranks very very soon as small business and amazon our going to demand it. Covid may be a factor here.

Phantomrain.org
Coal

I did a quick Google for "drone pilot attacked" and "drone operator attacked". Last article I could find was from 2014. Lots of hits on birds attacking drones though. . I think it's much ado over something that is almost likely NOT to happen. For one, the average Joe is not going to even be aware of RID unless they did research. Some smuck standing in his yard sees a drone is not going to think "Hey, there is a RID tracker I can download to find that guy". They are more likely to take a shot at the drone with a shotgun first. The people who are more likely to get attacked are those where someone spots them physically and approaches in a "drone rage" attitude.

 

[Phantomrain.org]

I did a quick Google for "drone pilot attacked" and "drone operator attacked". Last article I could find was from 2014. Lots of hits on birds attacking drones though. . I think it's much ado over something that is almost likely NOT to happen. For one, the average Joe is not going to even be aware of RID unless they did research. Some smuck standing in his yard sees a drone is not going to think "Hey, there is a RID tracker I can download to find that guy". They are more likely to take a shot at the drone with a shotgun first. The people who are more likely to get attacked are those where someone spots them physically and approaches in a "drone rage" attitude.

I agree with you 100 % , the only point i gave into was that the phone access is going to cause more stress to people that it can do good. So because of that I can see the Phone App being the bad guy so to speak and should be shut down . But i feel what its going to take is either a petition signed or wait and see how the first national incident is handled.

 

[Salty Sam]

I am not in favor of the RID for several reasons. First, the Federal Government should not be imposing rules that would make my drones unusable and virtually make them worthless based on some date. I am sure many of us have drones hat are more than 3 years old and are still flyable.

Second, the technology exists to do the same thing with cars. What could we do if they say that as of 2025 you can not drive a fuel powered vehicle and that you had to have a chip identifying who you were before you start your car?

Finally, why not imbed everyone with a chip that would allow remote ID for everything from cashing a check to voting?

I am opposed to any process which allows Big Brother to monitor my legal activities.

What's next - take my drone, take my car, take my guns, take my gas powered boat, lawnmower etc.? Enough Government regulation!

 

[anotherlab]

I am not in favor of the RID for several reasons. First, the Federal Government should not be imposing rules that would make my drones unusable and virtually make them worthless based on some date. I am sure many of us have drones hat are more than 3 years old and are still flyable.

Changes in technology make usable technology obsolete all the time. How many people are still using 2G and 3G phones?

Second, the technology exists to do the same thing with cars. What could we do if they say that as of 2025 you can not drive a fuel powered vehicle and that you had to have a chip identifying who you were before you start your car?

But you do have to register and inspect a car. When you drive on a highway, your toll transponder and/or license plate is being scanned. If your car could fly over a house, it would be required to have a transponder too.

Finally, why not imbed everyone with a chip that would allow remote ID for everything from cashing a check to voting?

You already have that with your cell phone. Every time your phone pings a cell tower, that event is recorded. It requires a search warrant to access that data, but you are being tracked.

 

[Texbow]

I cannot think of one reason why the general public needs to have access to my location while flying my drone. I'm not concerned about my physical location being available to the FAA or Law Enforcement. I have my doubts that it's practical for real-time location to be of much use.(most flights are over fairly quickly) My preference would be for historical location data to be available to the FAA and Law Enforcement only while operating in controlled airspace. I would like to see Class G exempt from Remote ID. This would provide some relief for the kids flying the FPV drones.

 

[anotherlab]

I cannot think of one reason why the general public needs to have access to my location while flying my drone. I'm not concerned about my physical location being available to the FAA or Law Enforcement. I have my doubts that it's practical for real-time location to be of much use.(most flights are over fairly quickly) My preference would be for historical location data to be available to the FAA and Law Enforcement only while operating in controlled airspace. I would like to see Class G exempt from Remote ID. This would provide some relief for the kids flying the FPV drones.

The problem with a Class G exemption for Remote ID is the situation where a helicopter in a first responder or a SAR role is prevented from landing because someone is flying a drone close by. Being able to locate the launch position would allow LE or first responders to get the pilot to land his drone. Being able to identify the pilot would allow LEO to see if this was a first-time case or it was someone had done this multiple times.

But the general public doesn't need access to the actual data.

 

[brett8883]

The problem with a Class G exemption for Remote ID is the situation where a helicopter in a first responder or a SAR role is prevented from landing because someone is flying a drone close by. Being able to locate the launch position would allow LE or first responders to get the pilot to land his drone. Being able to identify the pilot would allow LEO to see if this was a first-time case or it was someone had done this multiple times.

But the general public doesn't need access to the actual data.

I think if the data is being used for a legitimate and legal reason then it’s all good but there needs to be sufficient safe guards in place.

Here in Utah we had a situation a few years back where every time you had a prescription filled it would go into a database that any healthcare worker or LE could access at any time with no limits. The idea was to prevent patients from filling multiple prescriptions from multiple doctors and getting extra drugs. Seems reasonable enough right?

Well it turned into the police using the database the database for anything and everything. Get stopped for a traffic ticket? LE would look up your RX history and would sometimes use that information to make assumptions about people or use it as probable cause for for searches. LE aren’t doctors so what may look like suspicious activity may be totally legit.

In Utah there is a famous case where police arrested a firefighter for doctor shopping after looking up the prescription history of each and every fighter fighter in the district. It turns out the poor guy had an inoperable mid-back disc herniation and had multiple doctors that prescribing drugs but were fully aware of and working in unison of each other.

The guy almost lost job and was almost kicked out of the Mormon church which to people in those communities is like being abandoned by their families. His life nearly ruined, he almost had his kids taken away, and he was facing jail time.

The doctors prescribing the drugs testified that they knew well that he was seeing other doctors and what drugs were being prescribed and everything was legit but he went through the gauntlet before the case was dropped.

An amendment was passed requiring a warrant before LE could access the drug database and the searches from LE dropped from tens of thousand per year to just a couple hundred.

The big drug database in the sky: One firefighter’s year-long legal nightmare

Authorities dig through prescription med databases thanks to pre-digital age precedent.

arstechnica.com

Thus this is a lesson in giving away sensitive personal information freely to LE, few of which are aviation experts. Even if you are in the right well meaning people can look at this sensitive data and draw false conclusions. This is the reason for the 4th amendment in the first place.

If there’s a legitimate reason for LE to use the data then it shouldn’t be difficult to get a warrant.

 

[Maviac]

You are sitting on your deck flying your drone totally legally and some crazy person from down the street finds your location based on the broadcast data and blows your brains out with a gun because he thinks you are spying on him.

For FAA and LE it’s the same thing as why wouldn’t you want the government tracking your every moment every day. Would you be ok with a location transmitter in your car? How bout an ankle bracket? It’s a privacy issue.

Good policy or not, that argument is not going to get any decent class action lawyer to take up the case. Crazy people can find all kinds of public information whether the government provides it or not.

I might support such a cause but I'd need to hear a good argument first. The property right one is the best (is my drone worth far less in 30 months or so?), but it needs to be fleshed out.

 

[anotherlab]

You are sitting on your deck flying your drone totally legally and some crazy person from down the street finds your location based on the broadcast data and blows your brains out with a gun because he thinks you are spying on him.

For FAA and LE it’s the same thing as why wouldn’t you want the government tracking your every moment every day. Would you be ok with a location transmitter in your car? How bout an ankle bracket? It’s a privacy issue.

If you are flying your drone from your deck, a crazy person could just watch where it landed.

 

[brett8883]

If you are flying your drone from your deck, a crazy person could just watch where it landed.

He doesn’t even need to have seen the drone to know where you are.

A scarier situation I had in mind is being out in the woods somewhere alone with an expensive piece of equipment. I personally do this a lot. Maybe they don’t want to kill you per se but people get killed for far less all the time.

It seems like common sense that having your location broadcast is asking for trouble. We could do the what if dance all day but I can’t imagine any reasonable person wouldn’t find it to be a risk. And for what? What good can come of it?

 

[anotherlab]

It seems like common sense that having your location broadcast is asking for trouble. We could do the what if dance all day but I can’t imagine any reasonable person wouldn’t find it to be a risk. And for what? What good can come of it?

It is a risk. The FAA goes into detail in the Final Rule document, section VIILA.2.ii (pages 110-115) for why the information should be available and unencrypted.

The FAA wrote that encryption would be "complex, costly, and impractical". I don't believe that to be the case. Public key encryption is easy to manage, you are seeing it right here with this web site using HTTPS. This would be fairly easy to do.

The drone pilot starts up a DJI app when he (or she) has an Internet connection. The app would communicate with a server managed by or for the FAA. The pilot's ID gets assigned a public/private key pair and it's stored with a session ID. If you are not familiar with public key encryption, the way it works is that I give you my public key. You encrypt some information with that key. I have the private key and I can decrypt that information.

The pilot has the session id and the FAA's public key. The DJI sends the session id and the public key to the aircraft.

The aircraft starts up. After it launches, once a second it composes a RID message. The message packet will have the session id in plain text. All of the other fields are encrypted using the FAA's public key.

If a first responder sees a drone overhead, they can use an app that picks up the RID packet. The app caches the FAA's private key and it can decrypt the information instantly and without a connection to the Internet.

 

[brett8883]

It is a risk. The FAA goes into detail in the Final Rule document, section VIILA.2.ii (pages 110-115) for why the information should be available and unencrypted.

The FAA wrote that encryption would be "complex, costly, and impractical". I don't believe that to be the case. Public key encryption is easy to manage, you are seeing it right here with this web site using HTTPS. This would be fairly easy to do.

The drone pilot starts up a DJI app when he (or she) has an Internet connection. The app would communicate with a server managed by or for the FAA. The pilot's ID gets assigned a public/private key pair and it's stored with a session ID. If you are not familiar with public key encryption, the way it works is that I give you my public key. You encrypt some information with that key. I have the private key and I can decrypt that information.

The pilot has the session id and the FAA's public key. The DJI sends the session id and the public key to the aircraft.

The aircraft starts up. After it launches, once a second it composes a RID message. The message packet will have the session id in plain text. All of the other fields are encrypted using the FAA's public key.

If a first responder sees a drone overhead, they can use an app that picks up the RID packet. The app caches the FAA's private key and it can decrypt the information instantly and without a connection to the Internet.

That would only require an internet connection that one time is that right?

What I want to know with the current system is what stops somebody from sending out tons of false RID signals along with the correct ones from the drone and thereby masking the real location? The FAA doesn’t regulate radio and it’s all unlicensed bands anyway. Is there anything that says you couldn’t do that?

 

[Vic Moss]

Missing my point. I think jumping into a lawsuit for something that isn't going to happen as written for 3 more years is premature and reckless. Do you WANT Them to implement harsher conditions like network RID? I think a better approach is one of discussion rather than bringing out a hammer and putting the very people who can make our lives much more miserable on the offensive. Been 3 days. Take a chill pill, wait for things to settle then open a dialog with the FAA (as I'm sure MANY will do...you are not the only one concerned with the broadcast of PIC location).

Some of use are already "dialoging" with the FAA. In my case, the day the sent me a preview. They know that the location of the pilot is a huge issue. And it may create real issues. We need to stay on them to make sure this isn't an issue for us.

 

[Maviac]

Changes in technology make usable technology obsolete all the time. How many people are still using 2G and 3G phones?


But you do have to register and inspect a car. When you drive on a highway, your toll transponder and/or license plate is being scanned. If your car could fly over a house, it would be required to have a transponder too.


You already have that with your cell phone. Every time your phone pings a cell tower, that event is recorded. It requires a search warrant to access that data, but you are being tracked.

As to your first point, technological or market-based obsolescence is a completely different issue from legal obsolescence, due to a regulation, for perfectly usable property. Should a Mavic 2 purchased today become automatically unusable in 30 months? My Air is about that age and certainly could go another 30 easily.

 

[DanMan32]

Heck I still like to bring out my P3A once in a while. I'd hate to see that end up as trash. My 3 batteries are still decent, getting 18 minutes with them. The only one in my fleet that can voluntarily go ATTI without modification and sacrifice of another flight mode.

 

[dronerdave]

Has it even been proven that the standard citizen can find out your name and address from this new ID proposal?

With LE, I have no problem them being able to get my name and location flying but not the public. I don't care about my FA number being transmitted but the general public shouldn't be able to cross reference from some public data base to easily grab my name and address.

 

[Maviac]

Has it even been proven that the standard citizen can find out your name and address from this new ID proposal?

Well, I, for one, plan to find every drone pilot out there near me and track them down. And after they land, come talk with them and offer to take them for a drink and see if they want to go flying together sometime. Maybe introduce them to my wife and kids if they seem normal. Always nice to meet new people.

I’m being a little facetious but years ago we had a nice group of private pilots here in Atlanta. We used to meet regularly and have dinner at the Downwind at PDK once a week or two. We all eventually got jobs and married, and had kids, and lost touch. But it all started with a meetup plan from an Internet forum similar to this one.

 

[brett8883]

Has it even been proven that the standard citizen can find out your name and address from this new ID proposal?

With LE, I have no problem them being able to get my name and location flying but not the public. I don't care about my FA number being transmitted but the general public shouldn't be able to cross reference from some public data base to easily grab my name and address.

Just to be clear this is the final rule not a proposal.

They wouldn’t get your name but they would get your address if you are flying at home. They’d get your FAA number so they could potentially cross reference your name if that data was very leaked which seems reasonably possible with events as of last. But no the plan isn’t for them to be able to get your name.

 

[dronerdave]

they would get your address if you are flying at home. They’d get your FAA number so they could potentially cross reference your name

Not an issue for me. With all the strobes on my quad, people close enough know where I take off and land over my property. I quit flying over populated areas in 2018 and stick to rural areas. If it's as difficult to find a persons address/name by cross referencing my vehicles plates, I'm not worried.

 

[Vic Moss]

Has it even been proven that the standard citizen can find out your name and address from this new ID proposal?

With LE, I have no problem them being able to get my name and location flying but not the public. I don't care about my FA number being transmitted but the general public shouldn't be able to cross reference from some public data base to easily grab my name and address.

Only if there is ever a hack to the FAA database. And even then, how would Joe Citizen then get access to that information. It's not like people would post it on Google.

As with all corporate databases, the possibility exists. But it is remote at best. Even LEO would have to show cause in order to access the list.