Should drone owners be able to fly their drones wherever and however they want to? This is the question increasingly asked by the consumer drone community as drone giant DJI tightens flying restrictions on its customers.
This was the first paragraph in an article I found here: https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/article/drone-pilots-are-buying-russian-software-to-hack-their-way-past-djis-no-fly-zones
A spokesman of Coptersafe, the company that sells these modifications, explains to Motherboard that is understandable that DJI takes safety measures, but those measures do not always comply with local laws. The idea for software modifications was created because the founder of Coptersafe was unable to film with his DJI in certain areas, although he had been authorized by the local authorities.
An interesting discussion I think
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The picture in this post in misleading. Originally it was used to demonstrate that a smartphone's GPS in the center of Moscow shows coordinates of either Vnukovo (VKO) or Domodedovo (DME) airpoirts (but class). Original is here http://varlamov.ru/1830535.html or https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=ru&tl=en&js=y&...
The post has nothing to do with drones or DJI
@Nikola - It's not that hard to get an unlock code from DJI. Different procedures in different countries but in Australia it involves submitting the documentation you mentioned and then they send you a code for your controller. I haven't used it in quite a while and things change quickly so it could be different now. I think in the US it's easier but not sure.
So what happens if you have proper certifications and waivers along with permission of the controlling agency? What if you are law-enforcement? Does anyone have DJI's NFZ's documented anywhere?
People are worried about DJI software doing odd things and now they are happy to load unknown software to work around it? What could possibly go wrong?
This issue is little bit more complex then just removing NFZ restrictions. Lately DJI have been enforcing the use of GEO restrictions on top of the normal NFZ restrictions. The problem with this is that while NFZ's are mandatory as they should be, GEO restrictions cover much more ground and are advisory only. But for some reason DJI are forging ahead using what is effectively forced firmware updates (you need them for other critical fixes) to make GEO restrictions mandatory also.
original software most likely developed to block nafarious use and we should support that for mass market use.