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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."
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".
I know how PGP works down to the algorithmic level, yet I can't break into somebody else's PGP-secured data.
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
Lack of ability on your part does not mean lack of ability for others.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
Like the US system. And the EU system. Both of which have provision for encrypted signals that only those with the key (i.e. the military) can decrypt, while providing less accurate data "unencrypted". Except that the US turned their encryption off a few years back, but neither the EU or the US have said that they wouldn't turn encryption on "in troubled times". The EU initially considered doing without this but it ended up getting included too in a roundabout way.
Not so much "bad" as a waste of time. The unencrypted accuracy is still very useful for most purposes, and there are historical records of the US system being scuppered so that over certain parts of the globe at certain times, even the unencrypted signal was deliberately highly inaccurate but the military knew how to "compensate" for the bad data using a key. However, if China are doing this to stop the effects of a US/EU turnoff from affecting them, this is pretty much vital, I would say. The rest of the world's GPS has exactly the same features, so I don't see how China are doing anything "bad" by this. That's not to say that their overall motives are good, but no worse than the EU/US.
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.