Cracking the GPS Galileo Satellite

Glyn writes "Newswise is reporting the the encryption in the Galileo GPS signal has been broken. The pseudo random number generator used to obscure the information stored in the Galileo GPS signal has been broken. From the article: 'Members of Cornell's Global Positioning System (GPS) Laboratory have cracked the so-called pseudo random number (PRN) codes of Europe's first global navigation satellite, despite efforts to keep the codes secret. That means free access for consumers who use navigation devices -- including handheld receivers and systems installed in vehicles -- that need PRNs to listen to satellites.'"

Comments

Re:uncrackable encryption

[Gorath99]

I fact, that is pretty much the only attack that will work against a correct implementation of OTP, an encryption scheme that actually is unbreakable (though rather unpractical for most applications).

Algorithm is being replaced

[joshua42]

Acoording to a friend working on the Galileo project they came up with a new encryption algorithm specification a week ago. Quite annoying with such changes this late in the project, they thought. I guess this news kind of explains it.