To be fair, from what I understand the no fly zone restrictions thing actually does require geolocation lookup and I think those no fly zones can change, so pinging a server and checking in makes sense.
From just a pure telemetry perspective, knowing where people are flying the drones at is useful for product development and marketing.
(In response, DJI did release a privacy mode that doesn't need internet.)
A sizable % of websites visited want geo-location data, which, at times, gets sold on the open market!
Then there are background phone apps that grab location data. Even when rate limited, once every half an hour is plenty enough to figure out where Military Secret is at.
> To be fair, from what I understand the no fly zone restrictions thing actually does require geolocation lookup and I think those no fly zones can change, so pinging a server and checking in makes sense.
Not exactly. Issue a map file with the no-fly zones as shapes (as easy as possible to save on space) and embed it with a creation timestamp. Force an update every 30 days - have the app download the file and upload it to the drone. Manipulating the drone time won't work as it gets its time directly from GPS.
Also these patch files should not clock in too much - the entirety of Europe's streets can be squeezed into ~3 GB (download size of full Navigon EU map set)... I'd assume a 512MB flash chip would be sufficient to store all the world's no fly zones.
