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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
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
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"
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...
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
.. 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
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.
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.
More to the point, the Joint Program Office in charge of the GPS has known about cheap, readily available jammers since at least 1995. There's been an ongoing program since then called NAVWAR (NAVigation WARfare) researching ways to harden military GPS receivers against jamming
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.
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.
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. --
"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.
I think if the Iraqis think they can jam GPS signals they're going to be sadly mistaken.
People forget that commercial GPS receivers found on handhelds and automobiles rely on a single antenna, which is relatively easy to "spoof." Military GPS receivers found on JDAM and JSOW precision-guided munition systems use multiple antennas to receive GPS signals, so they are far less suspectible to "spoofing" by jamming devices. Besides, turning on the jammer is going to make it real susceptible being attacked by a HARM missile.
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.
"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.)
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.