Drone Hacking ?

[Still17]

Hi all. I do not have a drone but have the hobby of writing.

I’d like to know from any knowledge that can be shared if the following scene is plausible:

an Autel Robotics Evo II drone is tracking a vehicle at night. Even though an ‘anti-jammer’ is connected to the Autel a man in the vehicle uses a more powerful jamming device to make the drone lose signal, descend and crash into the ground. Afterwards, the man hacks into the drone main board or chip set to determine either: who the owner is from the drone’s connection to the controller/iPhone OR by seeing GPS coordinates, thus leading to the owner’s house.

Any thoughts or feedback is very appreciated.

 

[Skydreamer]

1.
Evo two 640T has thermal camera,(this model is not cheap),it would help with flying at night.
2.
Tracking a car with a drone at night would be possible if a person controlling drone is located on high spot like top of the building.You cant have anything between controller and drone or you will loose signal and that will trigger RTH(Return To Home-safety feature that automatically brings drone back to take off position if signal is lost).
Signal range is up to 9 miles(15 kilometers)if there is no obstacles between drone and controller or no signal interference like flying in large city.
3.
Flight time of Evo 640T is 38minutes,you can follow a car for 17-18 minutes,after that you have to bring Evo back or you will loose it…You could push the limit and follow the car,once battery level is low(5 % i think,not sure)Evo will automatically land on its own.
4.
“Anti-jammer “makes no sense to me,”more poverfull jamming device” is usually the size of bazooka,they confuse drone and make them land,that stuff is sold to law enforcement,prisons,etc,its not something you can get at walmart….Jammers (small,compact,made in china)are not legal to sell in usa,they also have no range to do anything to drones.
5.
So,you are in the car,how do you know you are followed by drone…..evo 2 has lights in front legs and rear legs but to see them you would have to get out of car and search for them,maybe open window and look at the stars( )or if you are paranoid you could have phone apps like “Air Sentinel “ or “Dronetag”,with these apps you can see location of all drones flying in your area and location of the controllers(people controlling drones).Now you know you are being followed by drone,only way to crash land drone is to get pilot to follow you till drone battery is exhausted and drone lands on its own.Now you have option of going after drone pilot(Air Sentinel app) or you can go to drone landing position (AirSentinel app)and pull SD card out of drone and either steal th card or quickly place it in your android phone(iphone sucks!) download all files and place the sd card back in dronel.
Most drones have SD card slot,there is no need to hack anything,all video files,data,gps coordinates of all flights,time,dates,all of that is stored in SD card….. when we find lost drones,by looking at files and data we can easily find home address of drone pilot.
Here is few pictures of sd card slot in my dji mini 3 pro and fimi x8 pro drones

 

[LoudThunder]

My, you have a vivid imagination, you do realize that the top speed is about 45MPH in calm air, a head wind subtracts that speed, and it has a limited flight time of less than 30-minutes at speed, and any visual postictal (trees, branches, structures, etc…) that comes between the drone and the vehicle would break the tracking… If the drone is using its auto tracking, a jammer probably would not effect as it is not accepting commands from the controller, however, it might effect the tracking if it loses GPS, but that is not a definite…

As for the thermal tracking, if there is no heat source, the image is black. If you are flying near any unheated obstructions, the drone is not going to see them and it will crash into it…

Well, writing is not my hobby, why don't you just write about a homebuilt drone; with enough imagination, the drone can have "x-ray" vision too… L L . . .

 

[Noital]

The FAA requires any drone capable of performing as in your scenario to broadcast a Remote ID signal. This signal is the equivalent of a digital license plate. Anyone with an app such as Drone Scanner, and within the broadcast range, will have access to such information as the drone's GPS position, it's speed and direction, the GPS position of the controller/operator, and the FAA registration number of the drone. Thanks to the FAA, it is no longer required to shoot down a drone to extract the information you are seeking.

 

[BigManDan]

Since you're writing a work of fiction, seems like you could be as creative as you want and a high percentage of the population will believe every word of it.

 

[Brutalwarpig]

1.
Evo two 640T has thermal camera,(this model is not cheap),it would help with flying at night.
2.
Tracking a car with a drone at night would be possible if a person controlling drone is located on high spot like top of the building.You cant have anything between controller and drone or you will loose signal and that will trigger RTH(Return To Home-safety feature that automatically brings drone back to take off position if signal is lost).
Signal range is up to 9 miles(15 kilometers)if there is no obstacles between drone and controller or no signal interference like flying in large city.
3.
Flight time of Evo 640T is 38minutes,you can follow a car for 17-18 minutes,after that you have to bring Evo back or you will loose it…You could push the limit and follow the car,once battery level is low(5 % i think,not sure)Evo will automatically land on its own.
4.
“Anti-jammer “makes no sense to me,”more poverfull jamming device” is usually the size of bazooka,they confuse drone and make them land,that stuff is sold to law enforcement,prisons,etc,its not something you can get at walmart….Jammers (small,compact,made in china)are not legal to sell in usa,they also have no range to do anything to drones.
5.
So,you are in the car,how do you know you are followed by drone…..evo 2 has lights in front legs and rear legs but to see them you would have to get out of car and search for them,maybe open window and look at the stars( )or if you are paranoid you could have phone apps like “Air Sentinel “ or “Dronetag”,with these apps you can see location of all drones flying in your area and location of the controllers(people controlling drones).Now you know you are being followed by drone,only way to crash land drone is to get pilot to follow you till drone battery is exhausted and drone lands on its own.Now you have option of going after drone pilot(Air Sentinel app) or you can go to drone landing position (AirSentinel app)and pull SD card out of drone and either steal th card or quickly place it in your android phone(iphone sucks!) download all files and place the sd card back in dronel.
Most drones have SD card slot,there is no need to hack anything,all video files,data,gps coordinates of all flights,time,dates,all of that is stored in SD card….. when we find lost drones,by looking at files and data we can easily find home address of drone pilot.
Here is few pictures of sd card slot in my dji mini 3 pro and fimi x8 pro drones

I have the exact same drones! Are you having any firmware issues with the X8 Pro?

 

[Skydreamer]

I have the exact same drones! Are you having any firmware issues with the X8 Pro?

no issues,i am using standard controller,ipad mini 4 wifi connected to my samsung 22 phone hotspot for gps location(ipad mini 4 doesnt have gps)….i have few anafis,bebop2s,dji,few fpv racers but fimi x8pro is at this point my favorite drone,love flying it in rain and snow ….i had loss of display but that was due oem usb cable being damaged,fixed after getting new cables….

 

[Brutalwarpig]

I can not get the controller to recognize the USB connection to the drone so I can't update my x8. Also when I record video the image looks good but every 2 seconds the image freezes. This happens on the live stream to the rc and on the micro sd card recording as well. I have the TX10A controller. I received my drone at the beginning of the Chinese New Year so the technical support department has been closed. I believe today is the last day of their holiday. So hopefully I'll be hearing back from them soon.

 

[Skydreamer]

I can not get the controller to recognize the USB connection to the drone so I can't update my x8. Also when I record video the image looks good but every 2 seconds the image freezes. This happens on the live stream to the rc and on the micro sd card recording as well. I have the TX10A controller. I received my drone at the beginning of the Chinese New Year so the technical support department has been closed. I believe today is the last day of their holiday. So hopefully I'll be hearing back from them soon.

lets continue this conversation in your x8pro thread