Trustworthy Device Identifiers For Unmanned Aircraft and Other Mobile Things

The US FAA regulations and regulations from other global Civil Aviation Authorities impose significant limitations on secure Broadcast Remote ID strategies for Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS). One of the most challenging constraints is configuring messaging within Bluetooth 4 broadcast frames, seemingly limiting the capacity for a reliable Remote ID and trust in UAS communications. However, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) Drone Remote ID Protocol (DRIP) workgroup has adeptly navigated these constraints. They have developed a provably secure Remote ID that authenticates all its messages and can be independently validated without needing an external, internet-based verification service. Remarkably, they achieve this within the stringent message length confines set by Broadcast Remote ID regulations and American Society for Testing and Materials (ASTM) standards. This novel solution, the DRIP Entity Tag (DET), doubles as a legitimate yet non-routable IPv6 address. Beyond its primary application, the DET has promising potential for adoption in broader mobile device ecosystems, fostering inter-device trust. In this paper, we explain the DRIP initiative and its implementation in real-world scenarios and examine its potential use on various mobile devices.