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China to Deploy Secure GPS by 2010
hackingbear writes "Unsatisfied by the reliance on American GPS navigation systems and not feeling much security joining the European Galileo system, China will expand its 4-satellite Beidou navigation system to a full-fledged, competitive, and encrypted system by 2010."
and will Tibet be in the correct location?
One of the big concerns about the Chinese system is interference with the US and European GPS systems, and up until now there haven't been any set specs to start a meaningful discussion over.
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Too bad most of the satellites will be knocked out of orbit by all the debris their last little stunt in orbit left behind.
China joined the project, but was using it for design and IP capabilities. If you look carefully, you will find that they had little desire to be part of that group, but wanted to know how to design the entire system and how to defeat the opposition. IOW, EU has shown China how to shut down their system, or how to just control it. But hey, EU did gain a few bucks from China. Smart on China's part, and really stupid on EU's part.
And will this mean that my take-away will be delivered on time and, importantly, to the correct address? I hope so!
Great, now they can spread peace and harmony more precisely, +/- 1m.
Have you learned NOTHING about security on this site? There is NOTHING up there that you can not control once you know how they operate. I always have to laugh when people say that Windows is more secure than OSS. Once the application is seen, it can be easily put into any format and studied. The same is true of Galileo. The reason is that China was included on the core of this. And yet, China did not push to build any of the items. They sat quietly on the sideline and in the committees. They studied Galileo. And now, they are moving to copy major aspects of it. Like I said, this was a great deal for them. I only hope that EU decides to make major changes, but I doubt it.
I have the feeling the expansion of this system has an ulterior motive. I'm sure they're right, from their point of view, about the other GPS networks. I don't doubt them. I do doubt their good intentions though. A new "feature" of their expanded GPS network will probably be to tell the police exactly where the user is. It might even end up mandatory. I know I probably sound a little extreme, and for all I know, I could be wrong. I'm just not very trusting of any government. The UK is becoming an Orwellian surveillance state, America is getting "Real ID" or something. I don't know much about it. Here in Australia, various government factions keep pushing for a national ID card, disguising it under various names to try and fool the sheep, or "voters", as we prefer to be known. I just wouldn't put it past a country that is known to heavily censor the internet and spy on citizens' internet use, to basically microchip everyone to know exactly where they are. Why stake out the house of a dissident, when they can track his movements and arrest everyone involved with them, without lifting a finger and exposing their domestic spies?
Admit it. You post strawman arguments as AC so you get modded Insightful for refuting them, rather than Troll
Quite obviously this is because in times of war, the Chinese could find themselves locked out of either the US or EU systems. If they are going to tightly integrate GPS capabilites into military units - a no brainer - they want to have a closed system that noone can pull the plug on come WW3.
As my philsophical opponents say so often "This is'nt rocket science".
The reality is that they want to control the technology because they want to track each and everyone of the GPS device. As most mobil phones in the near future will come with a GPS embedded, this means that China will be able to track the movement of its citizens.
China doesn't care about the privacy of its citizens and it will surly leverage this technology to maintain 'social harmony'.
Who says it should be global? As information given in the wikipage, the satellites are on the geostationary orbit. can't we have networks of different positioning system? such as global cell phone networks, satellite Tvs, phones, internet that we have today? if geostationary satellites can provide better and more focused service in that region why not use more of them to improve precision? and why don't we have GPS towers like cell phone towers that we have? why not integrate GPS capability into those cell towers? perhaps radio towers? and electric grids? In crowded cities, it might worth a lot. haven't we all cruise through lakes and across buildings? and get lost on that same block over and over? and wouldn't it be far from now to actually get to use new GPS technologies? it is always military who gets it first until much better one comes out?
No way around it, too much military equipment needs this these days. No one in China doubts that the USA would shut them out of the GPS at the slightest confrontation and the EU is a weakling and would crawl under American pressure. Unfortunatly that will mean that soon India will need it's own system as well since they also don't trust the USA very much. (USA has been funding pakistan through all the wars they had)
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I can see why they won't trust the American system, but why not the nicer European system? Is there something in Galileo that won't fit their communist dictatorship agenda?
This is yet another lame move from the Chinese government. Instead of trying to reduce their huge inequality, or at least improving the quality of life for the billion living in poverty, they waste their relatively modest budget duplicating efforts just because they want to play big, as if they were some sort of Europe or USA. The problem is, people aren't dying of hunger in Europe or the USA. This is the same crap the USSR (and today's Russia, to a lesser extent) did.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
It wasn't clear from the bluargh, but encryption apparently means that there is a mode where the satellites encrypt the signals they send to the ground so that only those invited can use it. A bad thing, in other words.
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Wonder what else they will add to the birds? Since they're using a Geosynchronous orbit, that does limit what they can add on with good effect. Now I'll be even less likely to use a cell phone in China (provided I go back).
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First, China is a very proud nation and as such will not allow itself to be dependent on any other nation for services it can provide itself. They also are trying to express themselves on the world stage as a world power and mostly do this by repeating the same technological achievements other countries of similar stature already have done. Its kind of like a rite of passage.
As for the population, China really is two distinct countries when it comes to its people. Now I know you can divide up the population into various ethnic groups but it comes down to you are either part of the Communist system or your not. So you have a couple hundred million in the one camp, with all the benefits of modern life, and then the rest who are still essentially not much more progressed since the the beginning of the last century.
The problem is, China really could not give a rats ass what you, I, or the world thinks. Any attempt to tell them and they take it as an insult. The big concerns going forward are not what happens to China's people but what China attempts with its neighbors. This makes the GPS development interesting in that it increases their threat capability. Considering the fact that its nearly a monthly exercise their threats against Taiwan take on even more seriousness with this expanded capability. This allows them to accurately deliver weapons to targets far beyond their borders. This means they can simply ignore the pleas of the world should they decide to finally address Taiwan in a military manner. It provides a good threat projection versus the US as well.
We can hope they will use the technology to better the lives of their people but unless you part of the first group in China I doubt they can or want to. Simply put the numbers are too large and the territorial issues are extreme in many cases. Combine this with the fact many would just preferred to be left alone and its hard to imagine why the government would bother unless national interest were at stake.
China doesn't want to play big, they already are. They simply want the respect they feel they are not getting. The Olympics were a gesture by some feel good misdirected people on the world stage made to China. Unfortunately China didn't care about all the supposed conditions these people attached, they saw it only as a means to elevate their status in the world and redirect some attention from the unsavory side of their activities. Unfortunately too many in the world are willing to go along. Unfortunately too many people like to vilify the US for things that in China get a pass. Perhaps its because at least with the US there is a chance of changing the behavior.
My friend came back from China teaching English there for a few years, even with a native as a wife. Go figure, anyway what China has a problem with is that many of these highly educated young people don't want to stay. His view was that all this modern conveniences and such were like a bribe to keep the people the nation's leaders need to keep the country going. Basically buy the people off with shiny stuff.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
When people were complaining the EU was duplicating USA efforts for no good reason, well, we now know why they/we do it. It's no coincidence the EU, Russia and now also China are making their own GPS, just like they have their own nukes. Mark this: a consequence will be that India seeks more alliance with Gallileo (read: unofficial permission to build military grade systems on it), or starts to roll out it's own system.
This was inevitable. I remember, about a year back, in India, over a beer, discussing the defense scenario with a colleague who was an engineer/researcher with the Indian Navy for about 20 years. His words -- "What we need is a secure GPS system soon. We all know the American version is civilian and of course they can shut it down whenever they want. It is a major desirable in your defense program." I think the Chinese too think the same way. They just came up with it. I would not be surprised if India announced the same within half a decade.
It is what it is. A desirable in the military program. Period.
Strange that this kind of stupid scaremongering gets modded up - oh, what am I talking about, this is slashdot.
/. every time this is brought up, but you might as well get used to it, because it will come back to haunt us for years to come.
So China choose to rely on their own stuff, just like the Europeans, because in their view America doesn't seem like a very reliable partner; and who can blame them, after nearly 8 years of Bush and the neocons? I realize that it pisses a lot of people off on
And what is that nonsense about "it showed them how to build their own"? As if they aren't fully capable of thinking on their own. As far as I can see they entered into that partnership in good faith, and left when they had reason to feel that their good faith has been betrayed. There are many good reasons why China would want a closer partnership with Europe - one of them of being that they can see their advantage in having the US marginalised a bit, of course. And as things look at the moment, that can't be all bad either; the world needs a better balance of power, and the US could do with a bit of humble pie.
ok, sorry, i did not realize that this was meant as a response to the allocation of money and i agree (i was not the one posting the original argument however).
Only thing one *could* still bring forward is that once people have a certain minimum level of living standard, even if obscenely lower than the rich ones, as is the case in many western countries, it is a bit less evil to spend the country's resources on prestige projects.
However I personally see this point slightly differently anyways: an investment in high-tech will probably have a positive net-effect on the Chinese economy and hence, on the economical conditions of its citizens.
Macro-economics is not a zero-sum game anyways like e.g. the economics of a private household.
One point about the citation about poverty: I have trouble understanding how poverty is defined and even compared across countries. There are probably hundreds of definitions, some based on the median or mean income a certain subset of the population, some based on absolute income in some currency, some based on the value of a loaf of bread or similar. So while the "turbo-capitalsim of the communist dictatorship" model of doing things in China has certainly improved the situation of many, it is hard to judge from such numbers how exactly and for many people exactly things changed.
And of course: 8% of a billion is still a quite large number.
Simple. Just one command. Can you shut it down?
Gee, thanks a lot Nixon.
Large amounts of military spending certainly makes any country potentially more dangerous, but honestly the most dangerous prospect is nuclear war. It's unlikely that any nation will attack another nation with nuclear weapons because of mutually assured destruction. If the US did go to war with China, everybody on Earth would be dead and humans would be responsible for their own extinction. Likewise if China just whimsically says, "Hey I'm going to invade Russia" - well, that would end humanity too. The only wars between nations that won't end human existence are wars where the aggressor has nukes and the defender doesn't, or if both nations don't have nukes. If we didn't have international treaties and an understanding of mutually assured destruction, it's clear that homo sapiens would have died out before a lot of us were even born.
It's good to keep an eye on military spending, but I'm getting sick of the baseless hype about a potential "China/whatever nuclear power conflict", because if there was, we'd all be dead.
>Europeans forced them to not do this and so the Chinese decided to make their own fork.
Wouldn't that be, like, re-inventing the chop-stick?
And despite only having 4 satellites, receivers will be very cheap.
This is because they only have to display "You are in China"
or "Where you are will be China".
Excellent post! Informed, pragmatic rationalism based on facts - uncommon in /. discussions about international affairs.
See also a very informative article from the Atlantic Monthly: How We Would Fight China by Robert Kaplan, an experienced journalist covering U.S. foreign affairs and the military. Detailed description of China's current military, with short- and long-term views of their military growth.
A tiny exceprt: (please keep in mind that Kaplan isn't advocating for confrontation, but doing a thorough analysis of what might happen if foolish politicians get us into such a mess).
" At the moment the challenges posed by a rising China may seem slight, even nonexistent. The U.S. Navy's warships have a collective "full-load displacement" of 2.86 million tons; the rest of the world's warships combined add up to only 3.04 million tons. The Chinese navy's warships have a full-load displacement of only 263,064 tons. The United States deploys twenty-four of the world's thirty-four aircraft carriers; the Chinese deploy none (a principal reason why they couldn't mount a rescue effort after the tsunami)."
"China has committed itself to significant military spending, but its navy and air force will not be able to match ours for some decades. The Chinese are therefore not going to do us the favor of engaging in conventional air and naval battles, like those fought in the Pacific during World War II...Instead the Chinese will approach us asymmetrically...But the Chinese are poised to show us the high end of the art. That is the threat."
"There are many ways in which the Chinese could use their less advanced military to achieve a sort of political-strategic parity with us. According to one former submarine commander and naval strategist I talked to, the Chinese have been poring over every detail of our recent wars in the Balkans and the Persian Gulf, and they fully understand just how much our military power depends on naval projection--that is, on the ability of a carrier battle group to get within proximity of, say, Iraq, and fire a missile at a target deep inside the country. To adapt, the Chinese are putting their fiber-optic systems underground and moving defense capabilities deep into western China, out of naval missile range--all the while developing an offensive strategy based on missiles designed to be capable of striking that supreme icon of American wealth and power, the aircraft carrier. The effect of a single Chinese cruise missile's hitting a U.S. carrier, even if it did not sink the ship, would be politically and psychologically catastrophic, akin to al-Qaeda's attacks on the Twin Towers. China is focusing on missiles and submarines as a way to humiliate us in specific encounters. Their long-range-missile program should deeply concern U.S. policymakers."
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Also from the Atlantic Monthly:
Superiority Complex - Why America's growing nuclear supremacy may make war with China more likely Again, detailed anaylsis of possible flashpoints and the resulting warfare. Section title: "Strategic Implications of the Nuclear Imbalance"
The Beidou system returns time after after a query from a terminal. They can only handle so many requests a minute. On the other hand US and Euro system continually broadcast time and location information.
I wonder why the Chinese just don't take over the Russian GLONASS system.
Does the world really need *four* parallel GPS systems? Three should be more than enough.
The Russians and Chinese are close enough, that you'd think the Russians would welcome the help to complete their GLONASS system.
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As a European I am asking this simple question : Are the US going to piss off the chinese about this as much as they pissed off the europeans about Galileo ? And why not ?
Someone with some points, mod the parent up!! The link to the article in Foreign Affairs is brilliant.
There will not be a war, it's all nuanced.
Let's not forget that China's overwhelming concern for centuries has been how to keep things in order. Esp. now, if 10^9 peasants decide to act, there aren't enough bullets in the world to "restore order." So all external moves must have an internal component that the US is unfamiliar with. Without the opiate of mass media and "popular culture" China has a serious challenge to keep the homeboys happy.
But seriously: mod piemcfly's comment UP.