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GPS Jamming for $50
Anonymous writes "One of the newest hacker tools out there is a homemade GPS jammer. According to this article in Computerworld, such jammers can be built with $50 worth of electrical parts. Phrack has published a how-to aimed at inexpensive GPS-based navigation and "hidden tracking devices.""
In all seriousness, how much you want to bet the military thought about this long ago and has ways around it (different frequencies, etc.)
I suppose this device would be useful when hiring out from any US Car rental company, I don't know exactly which ones use the tracking though. Let's see how the "speeding" charges will be applied ;-)
Although I wonder how big the unit would have to be to be effective enough.. i.e. if it is as big as those old mobile phones (before the brick sized ones, more like a briefcase) then I doubt the average traveller would be bothered, but I suppose anyone who has come across any GPS tracking fines then they might like this quite a bit.
Just my $0.02
Are you local? There's nothing for you here!
Jammers can be defeated or made substantially less useful using beamforming. I would be stunned to find out that military users are not doing so.
If a beamforming receiver gets its position and orientation (yaw, pitch, roll), at any point in time, it can steer the sensitivity vectors of its antenna pattern to minimize the effect of jammers from then on. More sophisticated systems will probably also steer nulls right at the jammers.
I really don't understand what the fuss is all about. The military has surely had this technology for ages, along with every thinkable agency and "enemy". It's just a normal radio frequency jammer, one in the long line of other technical warfare devices, like radio jammers and EMP guns to wipe out magnetical data or stop a car. It doesn't take an electrical engineer to invent one (well, actually, it does :).
All organizations have this technology, but it's only when it falls in the hand of the "stupid" (uncontrolled/uncontrollable) individual that these organizations start making noise.
So, I can use this to jam a modern GPS receiver, or I can use an old Magellan 300, which manages to not function on its own quite well.
I actually do like the idea of this though, since it's one tool that is available to make it more difficult for one to be monitored. It certainly won't stop them in their tracks, but confusion has its places.
IBM had PL/1, with syntax worse than JOSS,
And everywhere the language went, it was a total loss...
Devices like this are sure to be major headaches for the GPS dependent US Military in the future...I wonder how they would get around them?
Based on what I've heard, the military has ways of getting around that problem. I don't think it's a major threat to their ability to operate. What it does do is make it difficult for rental car companies to keep track of where you are and how fast you've gone. I will also block most commercial use of GPS technology for invasive purposes.
To address your suggestion of banning jamming technology, it would be much more effective to ban the abuse of GPS information on the part of those who wish to violate our privacy. Then people would feel no need to build devices that could throw airplanes off course.
I know soldiers that use GPS out in the field, but they strictly use it to augment their usual mapping skills.
Land-Nav is still taught in the military, mostly because of the ubiquitous nature of Murphy's law (my GPS is broken! I'm lost!). Maps also don't get dead batteries... many older soldiers are purists, and like to rely on what works... sort of a "ain't broke, don't fix it" philosophy.
This shouldn't be a problem for GPS-guided bombs either. Somehow, I suspect we anticipated this problem...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
A much preferable solution at least for cell phones, would be a system whereby a theatre, school, courtroom, etc. could install a device that would broadcast a low-power signal to the phones telling them to switch to a non-audible mode.
Rather than disabling them by jamming, it would mandate that the phone must only use vibrate or "flashing" signalling methods until it's removed from the range of the transmitter.
Thoughts?
"Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence." - Charles de Gaulle
"Actually that was a story... (I think...) however cell jammers that are sold are currently illegal however for private citizens to use depending on a variety of factors"
You need a license to transmit most forms of radio signal, and you need a license to receive others. Most people don't have a license to transmit GPS frequencies, nor to receive [interpret, not just absorb] speed-radar frequencies.
With mobile phones, I believe that your license to transmit depends on you using a class of transmitter which has been tested and approved by radio licensing. A nokia phone will have passed such approvals; your phone jammer will not. (on the grounds that it causes interference to other devices, which consumer products should not do under EMI legislation)
The jammer here claims it needs to be quite close to the receiver to work well, with a good line-of sight. Well assuming you know enough about the GPS aerial's location that you can jam it effectively, would it not be more useful to pad the aerial with lead, or even to unplug it?
Most larger units (in my experience) have comm capability that can serve as a back up to their FUBARed GPSs, if ever the situation arose.
The smaller units, particularly these days, are often teams of special operators. They try to minimize extraneous radio communications and instead rely on what they are carrying, particularly if doing recon. These guys are also head-and-shoulders above the average soldier in ALL their skills, including Land-Nav.
Most recon-marines, SEALs, and other SF types I've met pride themselves on these skills... I'm not worried about their Land-Nav ability (one marine recon guy I knew simply refused to use his GPS unit for Land Nav, relying instead on his pace-count and compass skills. After comparing his abilities to the GPS a few times, he came to the conclusion that the GPS was no improvment, and thereafter stopped using it. I think he only kept it in his pack because they made him).
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
It's a lovely idea until someone develops a modification that gets all cell phones within range to phone a premium rate number without the owners consent.
As phones get more and more "programmable", phone viruses, trojans and the like are going to become more common. How long before Norton release Anti-Virus Mobile Edition?
Goblin
It's all fun and games until a 200' robot dinosaur shows up and trashes Neo-Tokyo... Again
Yes the problem is not the phones, it's that (no trolling here, I'm quite serious), it's the idiots who don't put them into silent when appropriate.
Particularly in the US, it seems phones are a major problem in cinemas, whereas, believe it or not US slashdotters, they are only a minor problem in some other places.
This takes me back to an earlier comment I posted about the possibility of jamming RFID (RFID: The New Big Brother?) signals from clothing and what not, is it possible to do this? Would such a device be a great business for someone?
Maybe a GPS/RFID jammer combo for those of us that rent cars and shop at the GAP on a regular basis.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
If the idiots in Salem mandate a GPS in every car so they can charge a mileage tax.
http://www.odot.state.or.us/ruftf/
Who cares about the military? Worry about the effects on beneficial stuff eg. the GPS trackers for those with Alzheimers and children. In our paranoia about the government, military, and our privacy we overlook the benefits we receive, or can receive, from our technology.
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.