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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.""
How about a cell phone jammer?
It is right here
Love them phrack DNS'.
suddenly I feel very tired
The Military GPS signal use other signals which i think arent blocked by this kind of jamming.. ?
(phrack)
Great, now I can build this and protect my house from a cruise missle attack...oh wait, they have backup systems to work on laser or video. I SCREWED!
from the article:
"The U.S. Department of Defense, which faces the possibility of having its GPS-guided weapons come up against Russian-made GPS jammers in Iraq, has antijamming technology at its disposal."
radio signals can be jammed?
Who'da thunk it?
Damn, next thing you'll tell me light can be blocked by opaque objects!
In all seriousness, how much you want to bet the military thought about this long ago and has ways around it (different frequencies, etc.)
it disrupts GPS dependent transportation? Sure, it would be a good laugh if your buddy misses the airfield by a mile but not so when he misses the airfield and smacks into the nearby forest. And I'm thinking it won't be long till a $50 device for spoofing, not just jamming, fake GPS signals. How responsible are we for the things we create?
I drink, therefore, I am.
-- W. C. Fields
No, you should have the right to decode them, just as you should have the right to unscramble and view any "scrambled" television radio signals that are passing through your body. What you do not have a right to do is interfere with the radio communications between one entity and another.
I wish that Phrack had spent their time on jamming something that truly needs to be jammed, such as automobile driver's cell phone conversations while they are driving, instead of on this. I am not often annoyed by someone receiving GPS signals.
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!
Ahh, here it is, in Newsday from January 11th.
Not to worry. I think Saddam may be recruiting a new posse as it is.
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
You will be branded a terroist faster than CowboyKneal on a Hotdog.
Why would someone really want to build one of these things? GPS's are great. They've come way down in price and now can be used for Geocaching ...which is a fun activity and get's the geeks out of the house and into the real outside.
Are we really that paranoid that we need GPS jammers? For jamming civilian GPS systems?
Come on...
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...
I shouldn't respond to trolls... but cosmic rays pass through your body too... along with commercial radio, tv, radar, and a host of other EM rays.
""Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them broken....There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with." -- Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, Ch. III, "White Blackmail"
It is explicitely illegal for pilots to rely on GPS for navigation. Of the several types of navigation you learn when you earn your pilots license, GPS is not one of them. Even if a (assumed general aviation) pilot was breaking the rules and relying solely on GPS for navigation, its not like the GPS begin jammed would suddenly screw him. He can always go back to the more reliable methods, including the tried and true "looking out the window".
:P
To be effective, GPS jamming would have to have a range of at least 20 miles, which would be a signal that would be quite easy to track down and stop.
Who else uses jamming? The military can use it, but again, its not like jamming is going to do much because missles can be targeted at the jammers.
Hikers could be screwed I suppose, but few hikers rely on GPS for their lives.
GPS Lo-Jacks could be disabled, but activating a GPS jammer would be like turning on a huge beacon pointing straight to the thief anyway.
Street-map GPSs could be disabled, but given their accuracy, most people wouldnt even notice
I think a GPS jammer is a *bad* idea. OK, so the car company doesn't see you were speeding, they see "garbage" reports. So they charge you for using a jammer. Geocachers can't have fun, causing them to stay inside eating Cheese Poofs and reading /. all day. They have a heart attack and die. Planes crash when some yahoo on the plane turns it on. The ignorant public hears about the crashed planes, and thinks GPS itself is to blame. Riots form around everyone who has a GPS, so the few cachers left are killed. Regular hardware geeks are killed. With them gone, the IT profession dies out, causing the death of /.. With no more IT business, civilization slowly grinds to a halt. Don't let those GPS jammers get away with killing us all!
.. looking at the stars and the sun to figure out where you are? I think we are getting too dependant on electronics telling us everything. *cough* slashdot *cough* =)
in girum imus nocte et consumimur igni
From the Phrack text: "This device will have no effect on the precise positioning service (PPS) which is transmitted on the GPS L2 frequency of 1227.6 MHz and little effect on the P-code which is also carried on the L1 frequency. There may be a problem if your particular GPS receiver needs to acquire the P(Y)-code through the C/A-code before proper operation. This device will also not work against the new upcoming GPS L5 frequency of 1176.45 MHz or the Russian GLONASS or European Galileo systems. It can be adapted to jam the new civilian C/A-code signal which is going to also be transmitted on the GPS L2 frequency."
Also, there are other ways to deliver munitions. And there are other ways to jam munitions.
Man Gets 70mpg in Homemade Car-Made from a Mainframe Computer
What, are they going to do? Run around with mirrors and keychain laser pointers?
You're right. The US Military is scary...in a good way. They adapt to a fluid battlefield fairly quickly. There isn't an Iraqi General in their right mind that thinks they can beat the USA.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
This could be construed as "reverse engineering" something to "thwart copyright" - somehow, I assume, like everything else new or old has been accused of that recently...
Not to mention that with the military weighing in on it, I suspect Phrack will be accused of terrorism shortly... So much for Phrack...
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Unacompanied baggage comes to mind as being the thing to do unless the dude is a candidate for a Darwin Award...
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.
It works.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
Maybe he will be thinking differently the next time the WAAS dependent plane he is in misses the runway because some berk, following his how-to has started GPS jamming near the airport. I have heard of the thick before, but ... wow!
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
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.
Well, so much for the tinfoil beanie.
I'm going for the full body-suit.
I was in a theater with a friend who's wife was due to have a baby very soon - we left my cell phone on but I had it on vibrate, and we sat at the edge. No-one would have been bothered but it would have been annoying to have that jammed if she did call.
However - wouldn't it be nice to be able to have a jammer built into your car to jam people within a few hundred feet of you? Then the person traveling exactly the same speed as the person in the lane next to them might notice what was going on when the talking came to an end.
Jamming people in cars around you seems like a good idea to me (though it probably presents an extra distraction to make them even more dangerous for a few seconds...).
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
From the FAA's web site:
GPS is not yet approved as a sole means of IFR navigation. It can, however, be used as a supplemental system for en route navigation and nonprecision approaches.
Yes, FAA does certify GPS navagation systems, but it is ILLEGAL for a PILOT to use GPS as PRIMARY navigation. All the certification means is that it is legal to install the device into the aircraft.
If you were using a jammer, or if the receiver was just flaking out? No way for them to know, and you could pretty easily get them to drop any extra charges they might think about. However, it might mean a small rate increase for you if you showed a habit of picking up cars with mysteriously defective GPS systems...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
How about (like an AC mentioned above) some HARMs? (High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missiles for you non-military-buffs). Nifty little missiles, designed to take out SAM sites, and enemy radar installations.
This is always a problem with active weapons systems, and active countermeasures... you broadcast your location to anybody who cares to listen. It's just like a HAM Radio foxhunt (that's an event where somebody plants a transmitter somewhere in a city, and a bunch of directional-antenna wielding HAMs try to find it). The military version just has slightly more lethal consequences for the "fox."
Jammers are great, until the high-explosive warheads start homing in on your signal.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
We saw this one three weeks ago.. keep up the good work, editors!
"Information in the article that appears in the current issue of the online hacker magazine Phrack potentially puts at risk GPS devices used for commercial navigation and military operations."
WRONG !!!
The fact that the GPS devices are jammable for 50 bucks is what puts them at risk, not the fact that the general public is now aware of it.
The transmitter that jams a GPS signal is not going to be difficult to detect. Lest you thought the "anti-jamming technology" was some super secret signal processing, rest assured that its probably just a big missile that homes in on the signal source and blows it to bits. KaPow!!!! No more signal jamming.
any radio signal can be jammed. GPS signals are especially easy to jam because the satelites are 10 thousand miles away and have low power transmitters to begin with since electricity in space is precious.
:)
How big does the device need to be? Not very big. No bigger than a typical GPS receiver. What's FAR more important is the size of your antenna. A nice parabolic dish (say, an old DSS dish) with 24db gain could probably be used to jam a GPS receiver from a mile away while running very low power. A lower gain antenna could be just as effective if the power were higher, though, and would be less directional to boot. They pack 100 watt transmitters into a case the size of a car stereo these days, so the device definately doesn't NEED to be very big.
Of course that's assuming you want to block from a good distance, if you are within about 10 feet of the GPS receiver, you can probably jam it with a few miliwatts of power and a wet piece of string for an antenna. You could make a GPS jamming PC card, or SD card even. Oh wait SD is a stupid closed standard. But a low power unit could be easily be made small enough to, say, jam up your ass.
This isn't new, or revolutionary, or even news worthy. Electronic warfare has been around as long as electronics and the bad guys are always trying to jam the good guys comms and vice versa. Ever since that bozo went on the news and talked about this everyone's had their panties in a bunch. Iraq could probably shit out a couple of ghetto GPS jammers but I doubt if they have the resources to produce the 10,000 units they'd need to really make a measureable difference in the outcome of the war. Oh and by the way we can play the same game by using directional antennas on our receivers to reject jamming signals.
And one final note, anything that emits an RF signal is easily locateable. See radio direction finding, ham radio fox hunts, etc. Shit, our forces could just home in on the jamming signal
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
... writes "One of the newest hacker tools out there is a homemade GPS jammer ...
Okay then. What are some of the 'other' newest hacker 'tools' out there?
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
This article has many merits, yet its slander of my hacker ethics is one that I protest. By the mis-placed truth in this article, I respectably submit the evident truths, by my own testimony, that the proper noun that addresses the intent of this article is "CRACKER". Please do not confuse a hacker with a cracker. Crackers break things, hackers build things. For example, a hacker cuts down a tree to build beautiful Amish furniture to sell on the internet; versus a cracker cuts down a telephone line to disrupt services that have been contracted.
I respectibly submit this evident as truth that hackers and crackers are created equal and due process of the law has slandered "HACKERS" and their most holy past-time of "HACKING."
ESR has prophetized unto me these truths.
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
You can justify a blue box because it lets you talk to people you otherwise couldn't without increasing the fixed cost to the phone company. Same for Kazaa and music you wouldn't otherwise buy, warez/abandonware sites and so on. But a GPS jammer used in US would disturb mostly non-evil people without any intelectual benefit to the user.
How is this a hacker tool?
Apart from the learning experience of working with Microwave RF devices, the biggest use for this would be in a rental car.
Just make one of these devices, and the next time you're on a business trip, and rent a car, throw this in the backseat, powered on.
Aside from that, you are correct in the limited application for using one of these devices.
Karma? Karma? I don't need no stinkin' karma.
You have a point for rental car, I had forgotten about that one. Or if you're a thief and want to defeit the built-in alarm and tracking system. But I mean, I take public transportation almost every day and sometimes I dream of a cellphone jammer which would shut-up that asshole down the car yelling his concerns or describing the food he ate last night to his best mate :)
my thought is, you create something, people will always figure a way around it, more or less as a challenge really.
SimonTek
It all comes down to the radius of usage. If it jam everything within Mile this is obviously illegal and dangerous. Within a few meter it would be still illegal (jammer in all form are mostly illegal because you actively sabotage a device usage) but not dangerous.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Even before GPS, US units would get lost regularly on exercises in Germany due to poor map reading skills.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
Argh, you will fill your body with even more electromagnetic radiation. The obvious solution to this is to market jammers that only will create harmonious karma-raising signals to cancel out the evil titan-creating noise of digital radio.
"A real problem causer would then put it on schoolbusses filled with children. Or maybe in hospitals"
Under the LOAC, those civilian deaths are on the head of the military that planted the devices. The laws of armed combat prohibit the usage of humanitarian/hospital resources for any combat purpose... doing so makes those assets legitimate military targets. For instance, US combat troops are often made to check their rifles when they enter a hospital facility (even if it's a tent in the middle of the desert), to prevent a LOAC violation, and subsequent classification of the hospital/clinic as a military target.
When the israelis were taken to task recently for blowing up some terrorist leader in the west bank (which also killed the civilians he was hiding with), you had a perfect example of this. Those civilian deaths were the responsibility of the TERRORIST, since he chose to hide his legitimate-military-target self amongst innocents... the TERRORIST bears the responsibility for those lost lives. You will note, however, that you didn't hear the mainstream press blaming the palestinians.
If Iraq uses these jammers, there will certainly be civilian deaths. The world press, being totally ignorant of the realities and legalities of combat, will undoubtedly have a fit (in fact, Saddam is probably counting on it).
Of course, you can leave the jammer in place, and let an entire longstick of bombs fall aimlessly all over the city, killing thousands... or you can fire a single missile and take care of the problem. How many people do you think will magically "forget" to plug in their Saddam-issued jammers once this starts to happen?
If this turns your stomach, welcome to the club; I don't like the thought of innocents dying any more than anybody else. Hence, I think it's best to minimize that kind of thing by being as smart about it as possible. War is an ugly business... best to end it quickly.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
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.
I arrived in casualty once in St. Andrews on a Suturday afternoon with a split face (hockey ball). The nurse on duty had to page the doctor back from the golf course to come and stitch me up.
ah the joys of rural life
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
There's no real need to adapt Hellfire - you could simply use Semi-Active Laser Hellfire rather than RF Hellfire. In any case providing that the initial start position signal wasn't jammed (i.e. up to 8km from the target) as (correct me if I am wrong) RF Hellfire uses GPS to give its start position from its launch platform then uses Inertial Navigation to its target. As Hellfire is predominantly anti-armour, the likelihood of anyone jamming GPS from each tank is slim - firstly the power required is fairly high as Hellfire has an 8km range; secondly it would be tactically unsound as it involves active jamming, hence giving away your position and as the poster states would be a target for RF seeking weapons.
"If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you tried"
My point -- even if the GAO's conservative estimate of only 20% hitting their target is correct, it is FAR better than the alternative of dumb bombs. So to say they're produced just for industry profits is stupid. At worst, it is your typical manufacturer's propaganda, somewhat like Microsoft saying Windows is secure.
But I think your idea is good, let all theaters have a device that allows phones to inform their users that an incoming call exists, but doesn't let them answer until they move outside.
I don't know if this device works but I'm pretty sure that your government won't be happy about a website publishing links to a device that could poptentially harm their military.
Block all signals to and from wireless devices:
Personal Cloaking device
Yet.
GPS has quite a bit in the way of privacy implications coming down the pike. Hopefully, this will give them pause.
"While JDAMS are "GPS-aided," [USAF Maj. Gen.]Leaf said, they also have backup inertial navigation systems that "will still be precise enough for almost any target that we face."
t ml .
http://www.rense.com/general33/ussmart.htm
Yes, JDAM's use GPS. But there are many other types in the inventory. LGB, IR, TV guided, and the old standbys, CCIP (Continuously Computed Impact Point) and CCRP (Continuously Computed Release Point).
Further, the military might even do the jamming itself.
"The military will jam GPS in any future conflict to avoid its hostile use. Several initiatives have been launched by the Dept of Defense (DoD) to allow its forces to use the GPS signal in a jamming environment, including a new code broadcast by more powerful satellites and protected with enhanced cryptography."
http://industry.esa.int/CGForum/get/indust02/21.h
Many companies are working on, or have fielded, anti-jam GPS equipment.
In the possible coming conflict in Iraq, this is not a dealbreaker. Even if ol' Saddam decides to deploy these things en masse.
(What a straight-line.)
An article in Popular Science just 3(?) months back discussed this very issue. The result? They understand the fact that their GPS signals can be jammed. The military planned to put higher concentrated GPS signals [strong enough to make it extremely difficult to jam] where needed...such as areas of active wartime operation. I cant find the article on popsci.com, sorry.
I see the real threat of GPS jammers when GPS is incorportated into cell phones. 911 calls are supposed to send your "exact" position to call for help. It would be the tool of choice for car jackers. Simply jam the signal, people think that help is on the way, but it does not arrive. The next step is to jam the signal in a way that allows your GPS receiver to think you are somewhere else. Now, before a million dollar silicon hauling truck from San Jose is hijacked, the jackers simply make the GPS believe it is 20 miles away. The 911 call from the truck driver actually helps the criminals since it sends the police to the wrong location.
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."
Thieves who 'jack rentals & commercial vehicles, drug dealers who want 'deniability' or to lose (areal, night time or covered) pursuit.
I've got a cel phone. Whoever wants to know where I am can just call me, give me a destination and ask for an ETA. At worst if I'm busy and didn't want to be interrupted so I turned the phone off, they can leave a message.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Doooooonnnnn't even start in on adBusters. If more us of read them, more of us would realize how much we suck! We consume 1/3 of the earth's resources, we have the 10th of the population, seem fine to pollute the rest of the planet because of big business and throw away our weight in garbage every 2 weeks! It's the kind of mentality that thinks it's ok to drive your BigAssSUV that sucks up as much gas as we do; so that we rely on foreign oil; that has our state dept. fucking around in countries in which they seem fit to barter and trade with depending on what purpose we need them for; then decide to switch sides in order to serve our own ends regardless of what we've done to them in the past and what we'll do to them in the future. This is the kind of mentality that drives other fucking idiots into flying planes into our buildings! So go ahead... Drive your fucking SUV. Just don't mind when I give you the fucking finger because you want to meet some mis-guided status quo.
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/
Look, I *hate* it when cell phones go off in theatres, just as much, actually probably more, as anyone. But that's the same problem as people talking in theatres, some assholes are just plain rude.
The way to handle it is not to block the use of technology, just deal with the offenders appropriately. In a theatre, you stand up and say, "hey asshole, turn that damn thing off", and you will be rewarded by the other patrons with a round of applause. Yes, I do this, other people do this, and yes, it works. It's just the same as when someone is talking to another person in the theatre and bothering everyone. They're simply rude people, the technology is not to blame.
Carrying around a cell jammer is just as arrogant and self-centered as the assholes who talk on cells in theatres.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Can anyone tells me how to convert the uuencoded ascii data into real file ?
Can I do a "cut and paste" thing, and then use some sort of conversion utility and it'd output the file ?
Where to get such neat utilities ?
Thanks in advance !
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Raspberry. There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry: Lone Starr!
Veramocor
but what I really want to see is a pocket cellphone jammer....
Not with a huge range or anything.. but something that will kock out all cellular communications within, say, 10m or so... powered by a 9v battery.
Jamming radio is cheap. IT's no surprise that gps can be overwhelmed.
Oh, and most "personal tracking devices", say that spies/feds would use, do NOT use gps at all.. they simply emit a signal, and the user finds where you are by triangulation.
So, this device will be a "must-buy" for any serious car-jacker who needs to defeat car alarm systems with GPS that know how to call home when they're stolen.
I'm glad this device with such obvious legitimate value is going to become easily available to the eager consumer market.
*sigh*
Education is the silver bullet.
Get it right, people! The previous post is not troll, it's offtopic! This one isn't troll either! It's flamebait! Stupid mother fuckers! Here's a short guide:
troll: I think Slashdot moderation is perfectly reasonable. The troll mod should be used to indicate social outcastness, with no regard to the actual defnintion and nature of trolls. Anyone who gets mod points should be able to shape Slashdot in any arbitrary way they choose, even if that moderation fosters the mindless groupthink in which people like karma whores thrive.
offtopic: So, I saw Pierre today. He still has that hamburger from last year. hehe. Where's the scooter?
flamebait: Stupid mother fuckers! Goddamn knuckle dragging dumbasses! Lumbering jackasses! Turd burgulars! If you stupid moderators had half a brain between you, you'd know better than to piss around on this bullshit web site and mod trolls down. Fucknuts.
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.
It's a bit late, but here's my 2 c.
Tracking stolen (expensive) vehicles in Europe relies on hidden GPS-receivers.
Wouldn't a homebuilt, handheld GPS-jammer be just the thing for a car thief?
pyz
Wouldn't a giant electro-magnetic pulse work? Why waste our precious homing missiles on Iraqi GPS jammers when we could take out all of their electric military measures?
Is my idea even possible?
Don't you see that there is a need for a global dependable source of navigation information? Because of its encryption, this information on the GPS signal is able to be used as this dependable, authentic source. Anyone who thinks that you 'should' have the right to decode this signal is either incredibly stupid, or incredibly naive.
Believe it or not, there are government systems out there which are solely concerned to providing good information to the public. Giving the general public the capability to decode GPS signals would result in the easy production of GPS spoofers, GPS meacons, and coherent Jamming. Unless you don't like your civil infrastructure.....think again.
What if Iraq also purchases anti-antijammers? We'll be screwed!
--sdem
If GPS from a satellite in geo-whatchamacallit orbit can be jammed, then presumably the same jammer can be tuned to jam satellite tv signals too.
Poisson d'avril
J'ai du bon tabac
I respectfully reply to you, without pre-judice. A cracker is by intent. A hacker is by talent.
ESR is a hacker because; he declared, if I remember correctly, 1977 is the last day he acted as cracker and hacker. ESR now proclaims he is only hacker and follows his self-published "Hacker Ethics" and proclaims the evils of cracking.
I protest this article because I believe Michael did not imply a distinction that properly justifies the Hacker and the Cracker. I think Michael emplored a respectable effort to build this article, I simply protest on this small mis-enumeration of the qualities and a hacker. The use of this software would be justified as by crackers. Not all crackers have the skills of hackers; this is observed by "script kiddies" using works that have been "hacked" (as in hacked-together) by other authors and are simply serving as an element of the delivery agent for the respective intent of the "software."
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
I'm not sure I follow here - how would you activate a jamming device like a landmine, an RF missile is passive, i.e. not emitting anything (other than a radar signature admittedly) to trigger a device and even if there were a way of doing it the missile is unlikely (incase of hellfire not possible) to attack co-ordinates that were in some way spoofed as the grid reference is only a guide to the rough area of the target RF identification is used to find the target itself.
In any case an RF jammer has to be with what you are defending as all it is doing is emitting noise on the frequency in question making the dissemination of intelligence impossible which requires high power output to cover this remotely would use huge amounts of power.
In the case of missiles then the launch platform knows whether the GPS signal is reliable if if not would gain its coords from inertial nav.
This jammer working on CA (course aquisition) GPS signal and not the encrypted P(Y) channel anyway.
Bear in mind that spoofing the CA code is a defence mechanism that can be activated onboard the satelites in the first place!
"If at first you don't succeed, remove all evidence you tried"
The irony is killing me...
First, the fed allows a corporation to take on the power of the state and enforce the law of the land by levying massive fines based on information returned by GPS units placed in rental vehicles.
Then, we read about advertisers and marketers who are practically salivating over the thought of GPS, cell phone triangulation, and RFID tags which allow them to track consumers through a store, send real time promotions, etc.
How can anyone wonder why some people don't want to find themselves at the mercy of some corporate whore with no way to resist? Didn't they see this coming? The irony is that the fed allows infringing uses of technology (on our privacy and on the power of the state to enforce the law), encourages it, and then has the audacity to be shocked that someone has built a device to prevent it.
Simply amazing.
Slashdot is my Mercer Box.
If a car theif can build one of these devices, does it mean he can take it with him when he "goes to work"? Will cars that have Lo-Jack installed in them fail to report their location?
People have mentioned that defeating the jammer isn't too difficult, but what does that mean financially for the people who make Lo-Jack? They need to make more expensive units, or perhaps anti-jamming addons for their preexisting units?
"In the beginning, there was nothing; Then it blew up."
Here's an article in a trade publication about how an entire harbor was jammed. Culprit turned out to be TV antenna pre-amplifiers.
...in certain situations. Such as hidden gps connected transmitters. The rental car companies using GPS to remotely assess fines for speeding and out of area.
The knowledge of where I am belongs, and must belong, solely to me. Any attempts to ascertain my location without my consent must be fought.
Most of the people in the article tries to discredit
the thech in the Phrack doc as "offensive" when the
doc is about using the tech for "defensive"
purposes.
Yes, a cracker is also salty.
An egg is crackable: it is able to be broken. Hence a "cracker" can break either an egg OR other devices including but not limited to Computers and its related technologies.
The application of Hacker and Cracker has now been resolved from verbs unto nouns. In this application, I protest the improper usage of Hacker as the act of breaking things. Hacker is the proper usage, applicable to the act of developing the software. It is the usage of such software that defines classifies the user as a "cracker."
So forth, in my most kind and thankfulness for you to allow me to correct you on these regard, greatful of your consideration and concerns, peacfully, I continue my protest of this article.
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
Thats the way any development cycle works. If they had _TESTED_ it correctly and built in contingencies then there would be no doubt that the system would work. If you build a product, get it thoroughly tested. If it breaks down. You failed. Fix it, test it twice as much as the first time and replace all faulty products.
This rock in my hand keeps tigers away. I'll sell it to you for $5.
Yes, JDAM's use GPS. But there are many other types in the inventory.
Couldn't they be made to block out signals coming from below and put more faith in signals coming from above?
Sorry everyone, but jamming is illegal. Everyone here too young to remember when they tried jamming police radar guns? They found out that for once the law was ahead of them - there are heavy fines for jamming.
Don't mind me, I have more fun this way!
Only a moron drives around with the jammer on all the time. No, the way it is supposed to work is that you can just turn it on when you need it - like when you see a driver ahead causing peril to others through cell-phone based inattentivness. I think if an amulance is nearby with a patient the flashing lights and siren might just clue me in not to activate the device.
Sadly, there is no way to jam other forms of inattentivness such as small children crying or people too deep in conversation/arguing/making out (I once was stopped at a light and watched helplessly as the couple in the car in front of me started to kiss, and while kissing rolled into the car ahead of them...).
In summary, it can be concluded that jamming is good in moderation.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
This was one of the original selling points of bluetooth: libraries, theatres, and other places you don't want to hear that bloody nokia tune disturbing you would have a bluetooth transmitter installed. It would broadcast the standard "shut up and go to vibrate mode" signal to all phones nearby...
how about a missile that locks on the jamming source when it detects its GPS is being jammed?