On YouTube, Facebook, drone forums, and Slack groups around the internet, hackers have published instructions for altering the firmware on DJI's drones, leading to a rising number of drone pilots who have circumvented flight restrictions imposed by DJI on its products. In recent days the company has updated its software to render these hacks moot, and has started removing vulnerable versions of its firmware from its servers in an attempt to regain control of its drones.

The tension between drone pilots who want complete control over their aircraft that they bought and DJI, the world's biggest consumer grade drone maker, has come to a head. An arms race between hackers and the company is earnestly underway.

Though DJI says its no-fly zones are voluntary guidelines that can be circumvented with approval from the company, pilots see them as an infringement of their ownership rights. The company removed versions of its firmware that are vulnerable to hacking from its servers, and if DJI drones that already had vulnerable firmware installed connected to the internet, the drones would auto-update to a less vulnerable version of the software.

In June, I reported about a Russian company called Coptersafe that's dedicated to helping pilots alter their drone firmware to evade DJI's no-fly zone, altitude, and speed limits, restrictions that the company says inform pilots who want to fly according to regulations. Coptersafe was selling its hacks for more than $200 per device, but in recent weeks, DIY hackers have reverse-engineered the Coptersafe software and have released it for free, leading to its proliferation around the internet.

"This is the beginning of the fight for DJI to retain control of these aircraft," consumer drone expert Kevin Finisterre, who this week developed and released his own DJI exploit, told me in an email. "End users are more invigorated than ever with the desire to emancipate their drone."

"Unauthorized modification of a DJI drone is not recommended, as it can cause unstable flight behavior that could make operating the drone unsafe," Victor Wang, DJI's technology security director, told me in a statement. "DJI is not responsible for the performance of a modified drone and we strongly condemn any user who attempts to modify their drone for illegal or unsafe use."

DJI told me on Friday it will continue to investigate cases of unauthorized modification and that it will "issue software updates to address them without further announcement."

"A recent firmware update issued for all DJI drones fixes reported issues and ensures DJI's products continue to provide information and features supporting safe flight," the company told me in a statement. "DJI will continue to investigate additional reports of unauthorized modifications and issue software updates to address them without further announcement."

The steps DJI took to prevent the hacking of its drones sparked further criticism from a vocal portion of the consumer drone community determined to win full control of how and where they fly their drones. Hackers, meanwhile, have started all-out assault on DJI's flight software. Online modification communities have taken to private Facebook groups and Slack channels dedicated to "unlocking" DJI's products.

On Github, Finisterre publicly released his own DJI exploit. With this exploit, Finisterre is documenting the details behind one of the first mentions of a DJI jailbreak back in 2016 by a user known as P0V. P0V never completely revealed how to modify DJI's firmware, but an update to their rcgroups.com post congratulated Finisterre on "figuring out" what P0V was trying to hide in their clues. A few days after Finisterre posted his exploit, he told me that it was "more powerful" than he had first thought, and that it can now be extended to DJI's entire product line.

"Right-to-repair-style chop shops for drones will be a thing moving forward. John Deere isn't alone, they are now in good company with DJI," Finisterre said. "Even though they don't want to be there, the digital arms race is thick!"

I spoke to a creator of one Facebook group dedicated to modding DJI's products, who says he used a USB sniffer to capture the data when downloading a Coptersafe mod to analyse how exactly to implement the hack on DJI's software, then released it for free himself.