Intentional GPS Jamming On the Increase

benst writes "Here's yet another way to measure the success of GPS: by the efforts to negate it. While unintentional jamming continues to rise, intentional jamming by both foreign military forces and at-home miscreants of various stripes has shown increased vigor in the past six months. Related here are recent instances of intentional jamming on each side of the border, and (briefly outlined) one initiative mounted by the National Geospatial Intelligence Agency (NGA) to counteract it. Also, here are some ways to detect and prevent jamming."

Comments

This must be an urban legend

[Anonymous Coward]

Because GPS frequencies are a secret, and RSA encoded.

Re:This must be an urban legend

[jessica_alba]

How could they be jamming us if they don't know... that we're coming... Break off the attack, the shield is still up.

Re:This must be an urban legend

[oodaloop]

Raspberry...only one man would dare to give me the raspberry...LONESTAR!

Re:This must be an urban legend

[EdIII]

Totally offtopic, but Jesus Christ... well played sir, well played.

Re:This must be an urban legend

[buchner.johannes]

I didn't get this at first, so here. Its from space balls

Re:This must be an urban legend

[erKURITA]

Spy sappin' mah GPS!

Re:This must be an urban legend

[autocracy]

Not familiar? Oh, your /. account has SO been revoked. n00b. :)

Re:This must be an urban legend

[databyss]

How could that be off topic for a discussion about jamming?

Re:This must be an urban legend

[databyss]

Dude... javascript and doubleclick ads in your sig?

you should just give up man...

Re:This must be an urban legend

[databyss]

NVM... i'm a moran.

it looked like the slashdot ad was in your sig.

Re:This must be an urban legend

[axedog]

If this gets used as a strategic attack by religious extremists, they would be "jammin' in the name of the Lord".

Re:This must be an urban legend

[Dinsdale Pirahna]

How could they be jamming us if they don't know... that we're coming... Break off the attack, the shield is still up.

It's a Trap!!!!!!!!

Re:This must be an urban legend

[nabsltd]

I knew the reference even though I've never even seen the movie.

Yeah, I know that's probably just as bad, but...I was sick the day we were going to go see it...yeah, that's it.

Re:This must be an urban legend

[ScottCooperDotNet]

NVM... i'm a moran.

How's your sister Erin doing?

Ways to prevent jamming.

[Thanshin]

The best way of jamming the signals will soon be to down the satellite.

How hard is to hit a satellite right now?

What's the best method? Microwaves? Laser? Missile? Or my preferred method, Killer satellite robot.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[oodaloop]

Shooting down a U.S. military satellite doesn't sound like a particularly well-thought out plan to me.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[crapdot]

"What's the best method? Microwaves? Laser? Missile?"
Jam!

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[JasterBobaMereel]

Don't try and down the satellite... too much effort

Just put loads of debris in the same orbit at a greatly different speed ... that should disable any satellite .... ... China did that by blowing up one of their own satellites ....

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sharks with frickin lasers.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[mbone]

Anyone with the capacity to down multiple satellites (losing one wouldn't do much) 20,200 kilometers above the surface of the Earth is not going to be posting about it on slashdot.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[Thanshin]

So many lawyers, so few mad scientists...

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[kocsonya]

> Just put loads of debris in the same orbit at a greatly different speed

Unfortunately, the same orbit means the same speed - different speeds, different orbits.
You need to create an orbit that crosses the satellite's orbit at some point and wait until your debris and the satellite meet at the crossing (since their orbiting times are different, they will, if you wait long enough).

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[v1]

well if they don't want to claim ownership/possession of it in the first place, that makes it harder for it it complain when it goes missing.

"I'm sorry, you should have told us that was your satellite, we DID ask. We just assumed since nobody claimed it, it was just some random space junk."

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[Lumpy]

Simple, Switch mega-maid from suck...... to BLOW!

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[databyss]

Obviously, the best way would be space traveling sharks with laser beams mounted to their heads.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[Anonymous Coward]

The grandparent is a very rare example of misuse of "speed" when "velocity" was the appropriate term (the overwhelming preponderance of these errors are vice versa).

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[dotancohen]

> Just put loads of debris in the same orbit at a greatly different speed

Unfortunately, the same orbit means the same speed - different speeds, different orbits.
You need to create an orbit that crosses the satellite's orbit at some point and wait until your debris and the satellite meet at the crossing (since their orbiting times are different, they will, if you wait long enough).

Not if their orbital speeds are linearly dependent, which I think they will be if they are at the same altitude.

Think of how much area the earth has at it's surface. Now think of how much area a sphere with the sat's altitude+Re as it's radius. Not very good odds for the debris to hit, you see.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[Anonymous Coward]

Same speed opposite vector then would that work?

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, no. The same orbit allows for two very different speeds and a fancy explosion when the two objects meet each other.

Of course you could just blow a lot of gas into the vincinity of the GPS orbits. That'll slow down the satellites until they leave a red hot strain in the upper atmosphere.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[Anonymous Coward]

There are a few of us that read slashdot, now where did I leave my most recent doomsday device.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[Sheafification]

Except that it is ridiculously more work to go in the opposite direction. You have to overcome the rotation of the earth first.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[halcyon1234]

I'd think that it'd be easier to try to hack the satellite. Find out the frequency it runs on, the command prefixes, and send a "start -> shutdown -> ok" to it. You may have to kidnap several key engineers or storm a control center, but it'd still be a hell of a lot easier than trying to chuck a rock at a target that high up. Multiple times.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[angst_ridden_hipster]

The best way of jamming the signals will soon be to down the satellite.

No it won't.

Unless you think the best way to interfere with someone's radio is to blow up the transmission tower.

Jamming radio signals is trivially easy.

Blowing up satellites is not.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're worried enough about some diplomatic legal tangle from actually destroying a satellite, why bother? If you have the technology to effectively hit a satellite in orbit, surely you have the technology to put a jammer into orbit such that it closely tails the GPS satellite. That would make "fixing" the jamming with a HARM missile quite a bit harder, since taking care of the offending jammer might ruin the GPS sat. Also if you can put up jammer-sats, may as well piggy-back your own version of GPS on the jammer-sats so you have an excuse for having it up there and can counterclaim that the U.S. can't turn off your GPS capability. There's probably even a market for that feature in countries we in the west doesn't like right now.

I wouldn't be terribly suprised if China is working on it right now.

Re:Ways to prevent jamming.

[nwks]

Why use a sledge hammer when a tack hammer will do the job?

Good.

[EdIII]

Thank God. I think they should be jamming GPS in some places. Or more specifically, start jamming some people's GPS.

It might start people actually thinking on their own. I know one bridge that has been hit 12 times in the last 3 years by trucks that were too tall. In the last 10 years before that, I was told only 2 people hit the bridge.

Wanna take a guess how many of these new truckers are just listening to their GPS units blindly?

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people still think that GPS can select devices and that it sends the coordinates to the devices. But it's more like observing stars (or quasars): You calculate the position out of a timestamp from the satellites. And the only thing encrypted is the more accurate timestamp, reserved for military/people paying. The satellite doesn't really care if there are devices at all, it just sends everywhere.

Re:Good.

[Barsteward]

Yep, trucks are getting jammed in some narrow village streets here in the UK. I've yet to see a Satnav produce the best, shortest journey. http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/04/2148215

Re:Good.

[Dan541]

I don't understand why people bother with GPS I had one but their is very little point in them for road use.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they should be jamming GPS in some places. Or more specifically, start jamming some people's GPS. [...] I know one bridge that has been hit 12 times in the last 3 years by trucks that were too tall.

You don't need a GPS jammer.

If your bridge is 8 feet high, you simply need a metal arch 9 feet high, and a 'low bridge' sign suspended from it by two one-foot pieces of chain.

Hence, any driver approaching the bridge who should fail to notice the 'low bridge' sign will have their attention drawn to it when it collides with their vehicle, causing a loud noise but less danger than a vehicle-bridge collision.

Re:Good.

[ledow]

The GPS is not the problem here, it merely exposes an already-present problem. Stupid drivers who don't know the height/width of their vehicle (despite having driving qualifications that require them to do so). Stupid drivers who can't read signs. Stupid drivers who LOOK AT THEIR GPS while they are driving - every single GPS has a warning on it about this, some of them even announce it every time you turn them on. EYES ON THE ROAD. Then, using a GPS is no more dangerous than taking a driving test - you are following oral instructions from something within the car but your FULL attention is on the road. If your driving examiner tells you to mow the old lady down or speed up to 80 in a 30 area, you wouldn't do it, so don't follow what the GPS tells you blindly.

It's like saying that speed cameras are at fault because people brake heavily before them. They are not, they are exposing the problem that stupid drivers have always existed and yet nothing is done about them. You should ALREADY be at the speed limit (in fact, significantly less than, in almost all circumstances). If you have to brake heavily, the problem is YOU. YOU have created the hazard yourself. In the same way, you can't "blame" a plastic bag flying in front of your car for the accident that meant you hit someone in front, who was not a safe distance away. YOU were too close. YOU shouldn't be. YOU did not have a safe braking distance between you and the car in front. The plastic bag didn't press the throttle for you or cut your brake lines.

The solution to these problems is not to jam GPS or get rid of speed cameras, but to START TAKING PEOPLE'S LICENSES AWAY. If you do either of the above, you are NOT fit to drive. You would not pass the legally-required driving standard that you HAD to pass to get a license in the first place. We know you're CAPABLE of doing it because you have done it at some point in the past. So you have NO excuse. If a pilot crashed his plane because he was going too low, he'd not only have his license revoked, he'd be before a serious court very, very quickly. What makes you think a ton of solid metal on four wheels should be any different? Or worse, in the case of lorries, up to 18 tons in the hands of someone who can't tell they won't fit under a bridge! Do you want drivers like that on the road, who can't judge to within a foot or so whether they'll make contact?

Don't blame the GPS, blame the idiot who didn't read the signs.

Re:Good.

[EdIII]

LOL!

That is such a great, simple, and elegant solution. You fail to mention that the sign would be placed a couple hundred feet away from the entrance to the bridge/tunnel, but I assume you meant to say that.

However, this is probably too intelligent to be implemented anywhere. You're too smart to work for government buddy. Sorry :)

Re:Good.

[irtza]

These already exist in shopping malls - like to the entrance of a top deck parking lot secondary to weight constraints. Implementing them on the roads would likely be as easy.

Re:Good.

[Kreigaffe]

I was with you until the significantly-less-than-the=speedlimit part.

That's just ridiculous. Speed limits are almost as a rule too *low*, not too *high* -- and on a highway, traffic moving significantly slower than the majority of other vehicles presents a hazard. A car going 5mph under the speed limit is more of a hazard than a car going 5mph over -- why? Because the slow car causes ALL the traffic moving at the speed limit to pass it, while the fast car causes ONLY ITSELF to pass traffic moving at the speed limit.

Re:Good.

[rfuilrez]

You should ALREADY be at the speed limit (in fact, significantly less than, in almost all circumstances).

Mind elaborating on this? What do you consider significantly less? Driving 30 in a 40mph zone? I don't see a reason for driving under the speed limit in "almost all circumstances." The only reasons for driving slower than the limit would be if there is Snow, Ice, Heavy Fog, rain, etc. If there is nothing impairing your vision, the vehicles contact with the road, or people in the area around the street, where is the need to drive that slow?

Re:Good.

[Savage-Rabbit]

It's like saying that speed cameras are at fault because people brake heavily before them. They are not, they are exposing the problem that stupid drivers have always existed and yet nothing is done about them. You should ALREADY be at the speed limit (in fact, significantly less than, in almost all circumstances). If you have to brake heavily, the problem is YOU. YOU have created the hazard yourself. In the same way, you can't "blame" a plastic bag flying in front of your car for the accident that meant you hit someone in front, who was not a safe distance away. YOU were too close. YOU shouldn't be. YOU did not have a safe braking distance between you and the car in front. The plastic bag didn't press the throttle for you or cut your brake lines.

It is amazing how many people fail to understand that. However, maintaining a safe braking distance between yourself and the car in front can be almost as dangerous as going to close. People will abruptly change lanes, usually without using the indicator light to warn other drivers of their intention or only switching on the light after they have begun changing lanes, and then proceed to cut you off. The result is all to often that you have to slam down on the brakes to avoid slamming into the car that cut you off. And that is exactly what you were trying to avoid in the first place by maintaining a safe braking distance.

Re:Good.

[aproposofwhat]

There is a sign like this, IIRC, protecting the railway bridge at Creswell in Derbyshire.

Actually, it's more a series of gantries with hanging chains than a full width arch, but it does the trick.

I seem to remember seeing one somewhere in Wiltshire as well, but can't remember the exact location.

So yes - they do exist :o)

Re:Good.

[EdIII]

Thanks for making my point. Shopping malls are on private property. That is at least ONE order of intelligence higher than federal, state, and local governments.

Re:Good.

[dreamchaser]

Ah yes, let's continue to cater our lives to the lowest common denominator. After all, taking GPS away from people who use it responsibly is far better than other solutions that might be evident...like say increasing fines for asshats who are not paying attention and hit bridges.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

25 deaths in an bus accident in France, the polish driver preferred to follow his GPS rather than the clear signs (picture here:
http://www.lefigaro.fr/france/20070723.WWW000000450_accident_de_car_questions_autour_d_un_drame.html )

Re:Good.

[Kentaree]

Clearly you've never tried to navigate Irish roads using the road signs

Re:Good.

[EdIII]

Good point. A state trooper once told me that the absolute safest speed to travel was the AVERAGE speed of the cars around you. Don't go slower than the rest of the cars, and don't go any faster either.

I won't call the parent of your post arrogant exactly, but his type reminds of the people who think it's okay to drive 61 mph in a 65 mph zone in the FAST LANE.

Yeah, sure they are technically correct but intentionally and more than a bit arrogantly lack any pragmatic approach to driving on the road.

It does not matter if the law says 65. If everybody is doing 74, and some people in the fast lane insist on doing 85, then getting in the fast lane and stubbornly insisting on doing 61 creates an unsafe environment for the rest of the drivers.

I have relatives that drive on the Autobahns tell me that if somebody got into the fast lane on the Autobahn and did not get up to speed that the police would pull them over immediately and cite them. If somebody stayed too long in the fast lane, they would be cited too. The leftmost lane is ONLY used for passing. Can you even imagine if that was enforced in the US?

Re:Good.

[Thanshin]

If your driving examiner tells you to mow the old lady down or speed up to 80 in a 30 area, you wouldn't do it

Clearly you didn't get your license in Spain, where some people spend up to 3500e ($5514.95). Where each fail after the first four can cost you 1500e. Where some people offer money, sexual favors, etc to the examiners.

If the examiner tells you to mow down a lady, you ask "HOW HIGH!".

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

True Story - Some years back at the Telco Supplier that I worked for we had one of those Corporate awayday things at a Hotel in Bristol - We were all instructed to use the Multi-storey car park nearby. When I drove the 4x4 I had at the time into the car park I noticed one of those hanging signs notifying low headroom and drove slowly under it, relieved not to hear any scrapes..

Later, during the presentations from the PHB's, one of them confessed that he and another PHB had arrived in his new BMW X5 and when they saw the same sign he asked his passenger to get out and make sure they could pass beneath it safely.. He started edging forward as the passenger called out 'Ok, Ok, keep it coming etc.' And then they were through but he was quite disconcerted at how close the ceiling seemed to be as they drove up through the car park and he commented on this to the passenger and asked how much clearance there had been between the car roof and the hanging sign. The reply was something like "Oh none, so I just held the sign up a couple of inches.."

I think he was the Technical Services Manager...

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need a GPS jammer.

If your bridge is 8 feet high, you simply need a metal arch 9 feet high, and a 'low bridge' sign suspended from it by two one-foot pieces of chain.

like this:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/barelyfitz/17874114/in/photostream/

Re:Good.

[ijakings]

Or welsh ones, even if you speak the language the place names will take you so long to read youll already be through the village before you work out what it means.

Re:Good.

[witherstaff]

It's sad that a McDonalds' drive thru is more advanced than a highway. Every drive thru has a height bar to stop the roof being ripped off by a too-tall of a truck.

Re:Good.

[rathaven]

Blame the system that didn't take idiocy into account during the design... If people are going to abuse a system - you plan for a level of eventualities where it might happen. If you don't disasters definitely happen.

Re:Good.

[ChrisMP1]

Even better: My father thinks that the GPS receiver actually makes a transmission to the satellite, and that the 'guvmint' is monitoring these transmissions. (His paranoia would probably make him a good /.er, actually...)

Re:Good.

[Fred_A]

Stupid drivers who LOOK AT THEIR GPS while they are driving - every single GPS has a warning on it about this, some of them even announce it every time you turn them on.

The problem is that people remove the sticker covering the screen that says so. I'm pretty sure you're supposed to leave it on.

Re:Good.

[FelixGordon]

Yeah, but honestly, a driver paying attention and maintaining a preference for a truly safe braking distance isn't jumping on the brakes the moment a car slips into the lane in front of them.

Slamming down on the brakes like you describe obviously increases your odds of getting rear ended in certain situations, especially if you're driving below the speed limit. But the reality is, you're a cautious driver, you see the person indicate to pull in front of you, often taking advantage of the fact that you're going under the limit - themselves wanting to drive on the limit or above it. You aren't going to hit them, so just maintain your speed. If you know you've got someone up _your_ arse, tap the brakes so the person behind you wakes up and realises you're behaving less predictably than earlier.

Most likely, the person in front is going to get further away as they ride the limit and stick right on the tail of the person in front, while you stay safe. Less likely, you have to ease your speed down to a distance you're comfortable with. Even _less_ likely is the car infront of you has to suddenly slam their brakes on - in the moments after switching lanes - to avoid killing someone, and you smash into them. But since you're so careful, I assume you had your eye on the road ahead anyway.

tl;dr, grandpa? drive defensively, drive smart, don't act unpredictably unless it serves your interests to draw attention to yourself on the road.

Re:Good.

[databyss]

It kinda makes sense.

McD's is a mega-corp who makes more money by being convenient. It's convenient for a trucker to know whether or not they're going to damage their ride, and it's convenient for McD to not have to kill their profits by constantly repairing smashed buildings.

Bridges OTOH are lowest-bidder type contracting (I'm assuming). The contractor gets no benefit if they're never called back for repairs and overhauls.

Re:Good.

[databyss]

Interesting..... sexual favors you say?

Is it a requirement to speak Spanish to be an examiner in Spain? Would pig-latin pass?

I think this is a job I could do.

Re:Good.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

The Bankhead tunnel in Mobile, AL has a concrete facade, a flashing light, and multiple signs saying no trucks... Yet occasionally a truck still makes an attempt to enter it and fail miserably.

Re:Good.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

So basically you like driving fast, and you came up with the weakest bullshit to support your driving habits.

Re:Good.

[badfish99]

Lots of things are advertised as "GPS tracking devices", so it's easy to see how the technically naive would come to the conclusion that the GPS system somehow keeps track of these "tracking devices".

Re:Good.

[dotancohen]

I think they should be jamming GPS in some places. Or more specifically, start jamming some people's GPS. [...] I know one bridge that has been hit 12 times in the last 3 years by trucks that were too tall.

You don't need a GPS jammer.

If your bridge is 8 feet high, you simply need a metal arch 9 feet high, and a 'low bridge' sign suspended from it by two one-foot pieces of chain.

Hence, any driver approaching the bridge who should fail to notice the 'low bridge' sign will have their attention drawn to it when it collides with their vehicle, causing a loud noise but less danger than a vehicle-bridge collision.

We have this near my house by an underpass. Unfortunately there's no sign of former collision on the signs (one at each end). That'd be really cool to see.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

You and the trooper are correct. I used to live in Connecticut and the speed limit there didn't matter as much as cars that were driving too fast or too slow. In fact there were always troopers running radar when the flow of traffic was easily humming along at 75mph (speed limit of 65). My buddy got pulled over for going too slow once and he was doing 60mph.

Re:Good.

[badfish99]

But when the government introduces "road pricing" based on tracking your car all the time, you'll be very glad of your GPS jammer.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Bridges OTOH are lowest-bidder type contracting (I'm assuming). The contractor gets no benefit if they're never called back for repairs and overhauls.

Except payment for the current contract and the opportunity to win further lucrative government contracts...

And these things ARE implemented by government, at least in Australia. And come on, we're Australia!

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

My dad likes to tell the story (over and over again, as all old men do) of the time he saw a fire chief's suburban pull into a parking garage. The roof and lights were low enough, but the big whip antennas weren't. When he passed under a low beam, the antennas were pushed back, and then, when he cleared the beam, they whipped around in a circular fashion and broke every single light on the roof. I wish I could have seen it.

Re:Good.

[Cytotoxic]

Holy crap, I gotta agree with that. I had a great vacation in Ireland (doing a B&B tour) but I would have been dead in the water without GPS. Most places there have no signs, and the signs that do exist require you to stop and carefully read. But what a great place - I highly recommend a getaway to Ireland. Just make sure you rent a good handling compact with a GPS - the roads are tiny, bumpy, closely bordered by stone walls and driven at breakneck speeds. (Ok, breakneck on these roads is ~100km/hr, maybe even only 60Km/hr).

Many of the best landmarks would be extremely difficult to find with a map. I visited some of the ancient dolmen in the Burren and the GPS took me right there. Even with GPS they were tough to spot - a pile of rocks in a field that is nothing but a bunch of rocks. With a map - wow, that would be tough.

Re:Good.

[camperdave]

The reply was something like "Oh none, so I just held the sign up a couple of inches.."

I think he was the Technical Services Manager...

I'm hoping that "was" is the key word here.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

It is often implemented in Europe, actually.

--
Not the same anonymous coward as in the previous message

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

But the reality is, you're a cautious driver, you see the person indicate to pull in front of you, often taking advantage of the fact that you're going under the limit - themselves wanting to drive on the limit or above it.

That's just the point, a frighteningly large proportion of the drivers that pull in front of me either don't indicate their intention to do so, or they begin indicating only after they have begun the process of changing lanes by which time it is to late.

Re:Good.

[gnasher719]

Don't know where you live, but in the UK you can get complete sets of locations of bridges, nicely sorted into collections like "9 ft 6 inch", "9 ft 7 inch" etc. etc. Just take the right collection for your truck, copy it on your Tom Tom, and it will warn you ahead of every low bridge.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm hoping that "was" is the key word here.

Put it this way - Does anyone remember Newbridge Networks.. Blimey - It must have been 10 years ago this happened.. I'm getting old...

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

It does not matter if the law says 65. If everybody is doing 74, and some people in the fast lane insist on doing 85, then getting in the fast lane and stubbornly insisting on doing 61 creates an unsafe environment for the rest of the drivers.

how about everyone goes by the law and drives at 65 instead? wouldn't that be the safest?

Re:Good.

[Hoi Polloi]

Why not? We already alter every other law to cater to the "But what about the children!?" crowd at the expense of the freedom of adults or other kids. One kid gets hurt hurt in a playground and before you know it they are only allowed to play with bubble wrap.

Re:Good.

[Hoi Polloi]

They already do this for the bridges on Storrow Drive that runs along the Charles River in Boston (they would get jammed under the bridge). Problem was that truckers hit it so much they were regularly destroying the sign. You also need to place it in a spot where the truckers can take an exit instead of trying to reverse up a busy road.

Re:Good.

[Hoi Polloi]

Can I add people texting on thier phones to that list? Like the woman I passed on the way home who was drifting out of her lane and jerking it back in suddenly? I didn't see her look up once.

Re:Good.

[dddno]

The situation on the german motorway is technically as you describe it, though I'd say the danger of actually being pulled over by the police for either misbehaviour is not grave. You are far more likely to be "punished" for staying in the fast lane by some asshole approaching from behind at 125 Mph, then being forced to slow down to your speed, say, 85, sitting at your back almost touching your bumper, flashing and gesturing until you finally move over.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't just point fingers at the slowpokes. You also have the jerk who is hotrodding or thinks their schedule is more important that your life who will blow through traffic at 20+ mph faster than everyone else. If they bother to signal while they miss you by a foot then consider yourself lucky. Even if the speed limit was 85mph there'd be some twit who'd want to go 100mph. They must be late for a nap.

Then there are the people who ignore the exit signs until the last minute then whip across a few lanes to get it, the person who sits in the right lane at 20 mph UNDER the speed limit, people who sit in the right lane in a 2 lane road and block people from getting on safely, etc. One of my favorites are the people who miss their exit and instead of taking the next one and turing around they stop and try to backup onto it no matter how much traffic there is. Where is Darwin or the police when you need them?

Re:Good.

[Neil Jansen]

GPS certainly has its uses.

I've been using mine for GPS-assisted hypermiling (i.e. take your foot off the gas when the display says you're 0.4 miles away from the next stop sign or intersection. I can eek out another 5-7 mpg doing this compared to my normal driving habits... and it's easier on my brakes as well). Also its built in features, namely the compass and altimeter, saved me a few hundred bucks on my ultralight airplane. They're also great for running/jogging, boating, hiking, etc. The GPS receiver is truly a multitasker.

Re:Good.

[Pig Hogger]

If your bridge is 8 feet high, you simply need a metal arch 9 feet high, and a 'low bridge' sign suspended from it by two one-foot pieces of chain.

(It's called a "tell-tale").

I've seen better. In Toronto, underpasses have a photocell (and light source) setup 200 feet from it, and a flashing light "too high truck" is fitted on the underpass. The flasher kicks-in whenever the light beam is interrupted.

And, yes, kids *DO* take a plank and cut the light beam whenever a truck goes by...

Re:Good.

[jdschulteis]

his type reminds of the people who think it's okay to drive 61 mph in a 65 mph zone in the FAST LANE.

Yeah, sure they are technically correct but intentionally and more than a bit arrogantly lack any pragmatic approach to driving on the road.

In Wisconsin at least, left lane squatters are not "technically correct". The statute requires vehicles traveling "at less than the normal speed of traffic at the time and place and under the conditions" to be driven in the right-hand lane. It doesn't matter what the speed limit is. Since this behavior tends to provoke unsafe driving by others if not outright road rage, I think citing more people for it would definitely make the roads safer.

Re:Good.

[dunkelfalke]

there is a so called "rechtsfahrgebot" in germany. it is a rule of the german road traffic regulations that (more or less) states that on the roads out of a town you always have to drive at the rightmost lane possible.

Re:Good.

[orielbean]

And the college kids driving the Uhaul to move in for a semester have no idea what's happening as they drive a tall truck for the first time ever... They manage to mangle few underpasses every new semester.

Re:Good.

[D Ninja]

Can you even imagine if that was enforced in the US?

I wish! Biggest pet peeve - people who insist on enforcing speed by sitting in the left hand lane. And, then, of course, when you have the nerve (and oh, what nerve I have) to pass them in the right hand lane, they flick you off or make some other rude gesture.

Happened to me the other day. I didn't tailgate or cut him off or anything. (I did flick my lights after about 6 miles of him sitting in the left lane right next to the car in the right.)

Re:Good.

[dreamchaser]

That's exactly the point. The idiocy needs to stop.

Re:Good.

[areusche]

Maybe if truckers actually read those height markers posted on the bridge things like that wouldn't happen. :(

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Er, this is fairly standard in most western europe countries (i don't know about eastern europe).

Most low bridges or tunnels have "bars" in front of them to "inform" the stupid drivers by banging against their trucks that they forgot to check the signs. There may be a few exceptions, but usually after the first major repair even the dumbest community adopts this simple and cheap method.

But in the U.S. the truck drivers would probably just sue the community for millions of $ in damages for their own stupidity...

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

The leftmost lane is ONLY used for passing. Can you even imagine if that was enforced in the US?

It is. Ruthlessly so on the New Jersey Turnpike, to name just one well-known stretch of road.

Re:Good.

[suggsjc]

And then when the gov't does try it they put the sign about 100 yards in front of the bridge that says "If you hit this sign, duck!"

Re:Good.

[anup_at_mac]

I've been using mine for GPS-assisted hypermiling (i.e. take your foot off the gas when the display says you're 0.4 miles away from the next stop sign or intersection. I can eek out another 5-7 mpg doing this ....

Thank you asshole for slowing everyone else down! Now get out of my way before I run you over with my Hummer.

Re:Good.

[Amisinthe]

A state trooper once told me that the absolute safest speed to travel was the AVERAGE speed of the cars around you.

That's because cars are less likely to hit one another if their relative distance from each other remains constant.

The leftmost lane is ONLY used for passing.

Um, maybe, maybe not. Where I live, the main highways are so congested, the left lane is used for regular traffic just like every other lane. Passing on the left happens at like 7 AM on Sunday morning, but when the road is that clear, you can pass on either side freely and safely. But during rush hour, there's very little you can do to pass or let others pass. It's just very very congested.

But I agree about pulling over to let someone pass even you think your speed is appropriate for the lane you're in. The worst thing you can do is piss off a mini-convoy of impatient motorists. It's not good for you, them, or anyone else on the road.

Re:Good.

[mapkinase]

"I have relatives that drive on the Autobahns tell me that if somebody got into the fast lane on the Autobahn and did not get up to speed that the police would pull them over immediately and cite them."

This sounds like something written by CS Lewis.

Re:Good.

[tlhIngan]

I think they should be jamming GPS in some places. Or more specifically, start jamming some people's GPS. [...] I know one bridge that has been hit 12 times in the last 3 years by trucks that were too tall.

You don't need a GPS jammer.

If your bridge is 8 feet high, you simply need a metal arch 9 feet high, and a 'low bridge' sign suspended from it by two one-foot pieces of chain.

Hence, any driver approaching the bridge who should fail to notice the 'low bridge' sign will have their attention drawn to it when it collides with their vehicle, causing a loud noise but less danger than a vehicle-bridge collision.

Firstly, there are commercial vehicle GPS units that are programmed with heights of bridges and stuff, and routing algorithms that will not only avoid these, but prefer truck routes as well. Just that well, they're more expensive than the $100 TomTom you find on sale. The cost comes from the fact that NavTeq doesn't provide height information, so that has to be gotten from another provider.

As for the "low bridge" thing, turns out drivers ignore them too. Raymond Chen details oen such bridge which had the signs, the low bar, even laser sensors that trigger flashing lights. And people still get stuck.

Another thing that gets insteresting are vehicles that are short enough, but because there's an upslope somewhere in the middle, they get stuck because the clearance decreases due to the upslope (front wheels on slope, while back wheels are on the downslope or level part).

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing wrong with jamming. After all, Bob Marley said it best:

We're jamming
I wanna jam it with you,
We're jamming, jamming
And I hope you like jamming too

Ain't no rules, ain't no vow, we can do it anyhow
I and I will see you through,
'Cos every day we pay the price with a little sacrifice
Jamming till the jam is through.

We're jamming
To think that jamming was a thing of the past,
We're jamming, jamming
And I hope this jam is gonna last

No bullet can stop us now, we neither beg nor will we bow
Neither can be bought nor sold.
We all defend the right, JAH JAH children must unite
Your life is worth much more than gold.

We're jamming, jamming
We're jamming in the name of the Lord
We're jamming, jamming
We're jamming right straight from JAH

Holy mount Zion
Holy mount Zion
JAH sitteth in Mount Zion
And rules all Creation

Yeah, we're jamming, jamming
I wanna jam it with you
We're jamming, jamming
I'm jammed, I hope you're jamming too

Jam's about my pride and truth I cannot hide
Too Keep you satisfied.
True love that now exist is the love I can't resist
So jam by my side.

On a more serious note, wouldn't it be simpler to put up a sign several hundred yards in front of the bridge saying: Hey, fuckface, you might not wanna trying driving your 12' tall truck over our 10' high bridge?

Re:Good.

[zippthorne]

I live in a "reasonable and prudent" state. Despite our arbitrarily low statewide speed limits, you're expected to travel at "reasonable and prudent" speed, regardless of the actual limit.

So, if the roads are slick and visibility is low, you can be under the limit and still get a ticket, but if conditions are good and you're only going just over the limit, but you're slower than the traffic, you can still get a ticket.

Interestingly, you can still get a ticket for exceeding the limit in the latter case, so you're pretty well screwed either way. Supposedly, you can also use "reasonable and prudent" as a defense for exceeding the limit in those cases, but I've never seen it work.

Re:Good.

[zippthorne]

Ok, but if you see somebody in the left lane going "too slow" and they've put their turn signal on, For the love of all that's good, don't immediately change lanes to pass them on the right, they're trying to get out of your damn way and a line of people from behind all slinking by on the right does nothing to make that a safe maneuver.

Re:Good.

[zippthorne]

He means that you should never drive faster than you can run, since obviously, as a species, we have not evolved to the point that we can react at speeds faster than that.

Or maybe you should not drive with more KE than you have when running, to reduce the size of the damage when you hit something to the same as if you bumped into it while running.

There will always be fatal highway accidents as long as the speed limit is greater than 0. "if it saves one life" is total bunk.

Re:Good.

[Vellmont]

Bridges OTOH are lowest-bidder type contracting (I'm assuming).

Not in Minnesota at least.

After the bridge collapse there were several bids to replace the 35W bridge by different contractors. The DOT eventually picked one of the more expensive, and slightly slower proposals because they preferred the construction techniques. The low price bidder even threatened to sue because they thought it was all based on price. So no, price isn't always the only factor in bridge construction.

Re:Good.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

Yay! Stating the obvious is Flamebait.

Re:Good.

[Savage-Rabbit]

Ha! Where are you from? I've had people try to merge into my right side and flick me the finger when I can't move to the left anymore due to a bloody wall...

It is quite amazing how people will look in your direction and apparently see only empty space. It's especially scary when the other guy is riding in a Toyota Landcruiser, Nissan Pathfinder, Ford Explorer or some other such monstrosity. SUV drivers seem to think the size of their cars entitles them to play a game of 'squish the little cars'. I drive a VW Golf and watching the front corner of a SUV heading for your driver's side door is pretty unnerving.

Re:Good.

[FireFury03]

It's like saying that speed cameras are at fault because people brake heavily before them. They are not, they are exposing the problem that stupid drivers have always existed and yet nothing is done about them. You should ALREADY be at the speed limit (in fact, significantly less than, in almost all circumstances). If you have to brake heavily, the problem is YOU. YOU have created the hazard yourself. In the same way, you can't "blame" a plastic bag flying in front of your car for the accident that meant you hit someone in front, who was not a safe distance away. YOU were too close. YOU shouldn't be. YOU did not have a safe braking distance between you and the car in front. The plastic bag didn't press the throttle for you or cut your brake lines.

But the authority who is installing the speed cameras should be asking themselves why they are installing them. The possibilities that spring to mind are:

1. To make the road safer.
2. To blindly enforce the law for no reason other than it is the law.
3. To make money.

In the case of (1), if installing a speed camera increases the number of accidents then the authority has completely failed to accomplish their objective, no matter who's fault it is that the accidents are happening. There is no point in just blaming people after the accident has happened and saying it wasn't the camera's fault.

As for (2), why are we blindly enforcing laws? If people are safely exceeding the speed limit then that is surely an indication that the speed limit is set wrong, and punishing these drivers is accomplishes nothing.

And of course, no one admits to (3).

Re:Good.

[autophile]

I know! We need a hanging sign that is stronger than the trucks that hit it, so the sign won't be damaged. Maybe we can build the sign and support structure out of concrete and steel...

Oh, wait. :(

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice sign, but what's with all the spaghetti in the air?

Re:Good.

[ColdWetDog]

Even with GPS they were tough to spot - a pile of rocks in a field that is nothing but a bunch of rocks. With a map - wow, that would be tough.

Would it be a reasonable question to ask why you think it entertaining to wander around a foreign countryside looking in rocky fields for rocks?

Re:Good.

[ledow]

It's 2 & 3. Speed camera's only make the road safer indirectly - by slowing penalising bad drivers. If you wanted to improve road safety, it's simple - make everyone re-take their test every X years and heavily punish people who drive unlicensed. You'd solve congestion, road safety and pollution in a second. And why shouldn't they make you re-take it regularly to ensure driver's are still fit to drive? Most similar professions demand this.

Of course speed cameras are a cash cow, because plonkers who speed MAKE them one. If you don't break the law, you won't get fined. It's incredibly easy.

And, I'm sorry, but your justification for 2 is possibly the most ludicrous thing I've ever heard. "Enforcing the law just because it's the law". And it's not blindly - it catches anyone who breaks the law, proven by simple physics. If you don't like the law, GET IT CHANGED, but you can't just break it because you disagree with it. Nobody ever tries this. Nobody ever sends round a petition asking for higher speed limits. Nobody ever lobbies with a scientific study of how faster speeds could improve road safety etc. and you even have compelling scientific evidence already present in developed countries which have roads without limits. Not one person that I've heard disagree with the use of speed cameras lobbies to change the speed limits (probably because they KNOW they are reasonable - 30mph is a built-up area is too fast when a kid runs out in front of you, etc.), but they would make themselves heard in a second if they thought the police would remove speed cameras.

And people are NOT safely exceeding the speed limit, by definition. The speed limit is the SAFE limit (do you want that "80% of people struck over 30mph die, 80% struck under 30mph live" statistic repeated?). If you disagree, present evidence and get the law changed, but in the mean time STICK by that law.

I think speeding offences seriously embarass certain countries - we have a strict, accurate, reasonable measure of a scientifically-accurate value which is prominently displayed on all roads and in all cars and yet when people DELIBERATELY and DEFINITELY break that (with a far-too-reasonable margin of error), we give them a slap on the wrist so many times and allow them to continue to do the same almost indefinitely (if you don't believe me, go to a UK court that deals with speeding offences and listen out for the phrase "I need to drive to earn a living" - very, very, very rarely do licenses get taken away, no matter the number of previous offences/points/fines).

And don't get me started on the "you're now banned from driving for six months" when it's said to someone who didn't have a valid license in the first place.

What other activity do you do that requires you to control a piece of explosive machinery (that contains more legally-mandated safety features than a Formula One car), that carries passengers, moves at incredible speeds within inches of other such machinery/people/property on public property, that requires you to be insured in order to legally do so, that requires an extensive proficiency test that you MUST pass but which, when you deliberately and beyond doubt break the laws surrounding it, gets you a small fine and a "don't do it again"?

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Where each fail after the first four can cost you 1500e.

The insurance rates in Spain must be astronomically high if you considered it noteworthy that the fifth attempt to pass the practical examination costs extra. Do they just put the students in cars and if they pass a lesson without too much damage, it counts as the practical examination?

Re:Good.

[Machtyn]

It's like saying that speed cameras are at fault because people brake heavily before them. They are not, they are exposing the problem that stupid drivers have always existed and yet nothing is done about them. You should ALREADY be at the speed limit...

You've obviously have never been behind someone driving 10 mph lower than the speed limit, see the cop car/speed camera, and stomp on their brake.

//it's a joke, laugh... except when it happens to you :(

Re:Good.

[ceoyoyo]

I think the problem is the truckers who go 130 (km/h) on the flat but can only manage 80 going up hill. So you have to dawdle behind them while a line of cars passes, then, when you finally manage to get past the highway levels out and you've got a MACK insignia bearing down on you.

Re:Good.

[snowraver1]

"Road Pricing" = Gas Tax. They don't need to track you to get money from you.

Re:Good.

[clone53421]

Isn't bubble wrap a suffocation hazard? Think of the children!

Re:Good.

[clone53421]

Hey, fuckface, you might not wanna trying driving your 12' tall truck over our 10' high bridge?

Under, you meant. But we understood.

Re:Good.

[clone53421]

Hush, you. People's choice of entertainment should be free from interference by wet blankets and wet dogs, says I!

Re:Good.

[PachmanP]

Many of the best landmarks would be extremely difficult to find with a map. I visited some of the ancient dolmen in the Burren and the GPS took me right there. Even with GPS they were tough to spot - a pile of rocks in a field that is nothing but a bunch of rocks. With a map - wow, that would be tough.

Well actually you seemed to have only found a pile of rocks in a field. The dolmen in Burren is really really impressive. There are some rock piles just down the road though. Seems like GPS kinda failed you.

Re:Good.

[wolf12886]

Not necessarily, but stating the obvious and posting flamebait aren't mutually exclusive.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I've seen this in the uk but there is no sign hanging above the road just a lot of chains hanging down. not so damaging as a sign but as effective (there are warning signs too but we know how well they work).

Re:Good.

[blueZ3]

You and your VW...

Try riding a motorcycle. This video (http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=2831730
) is funny and sad at the same time. :-)

Re:Good.

[IndustrialComplex]

I absolutely hate that. I am religious about moving over to the right after I pass someone. I'm a slower driver (slower = 70 in a 65), and I'll always move over, and I always use my turn signal.

But what pisses me off is when I am passing a larger vehicle like a truck, and I will give them enough room (since they will accelerate down hills and such) and someone cuts in between me as I'm giving the truck enough distance to get through.

I'd love to see a law about no passing on the right, and strictly enforced left hand lane restrictions. The highways in Germany were wonderful.

Re:Good.

[Bill_the_Engineer]

So true. But someone had to rib him a little... it's Friday.

Re:Good.

[EvilBudMan]

--Bridges OTOH are lowest-bidder type contracting (I'm assuming). The contractor gets no benefit if they're never called back for repairs and overhauls.--

That ain't how it works. A (lowest bidder) contractor builds it, gets paid and that's it. The state maintains or is supposed to maintain it. Sometimes these bids aren't entirely fixed either. There might be an allowance for extra barrels for instance. The contractor might get his real money that way, but there ain't know way he comes back to fix it if at all possible. The state hires 10 guys to fix it. 3 work while the other 7 talk. Your tax dollars at work.

Re:Good.

[shogun]

Sounds like its time to make the most of the GPS feature in new phones; if the phone is moving faster than say 5mph, disallow the reading and entering of text messages.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Please to be doing that in the right lane, kthxbye.

Re:Good.

[EdIII]

Absolutely that would be the safest. People could also drive in the right most lane except for passing as well. Nobody would drive right next to each other in the lanes either. Everybody spread out finding their position on the road all doing 65 mph.

Only if all the cars were driven by robots.

Please also note that I agreed that ALL people doing the same speed would be the safest. It is not the 65 mph that creates the safe environment, but all the cars going nearly the same speed.

That is why I said some people lacked a pragmatic approach to driving. Sometimes the real conditions in life are not ideal and you have to be practical and adapt accordingly. Drivers that absolutely insist on doing 65 mph on the highway in the fast lane cannot accept the reality around them. That is just being stubborn. These people have an attitude that they are correct and the rest of the world has to adapt to them.

They may be correct when it comes to the law, but the reality is that they will have other people slammed up their butts all day long. These other people will get frustrated, honk their horns, get aggressive. Eventually, these people will then pass them on the right, which is not the safest thing to do.

Re:Good.

[EdIII]

I was thinking the same thing. The US is rapidly becoming worse then Soviet era Russia when it comes to rights, so going someplace with "sexual favors"?

Also note, he said OFFERED. That is so much better then REQUESTED.

If I am not attracted to the person offering me nookie, I could always play the wounded professional and act upset.

Let's also remember, Catherine Zeta Jones was SPANISH! :)

Spanish for Dummies: http://www.amazon.com/Spanish-Dummies-Susana-Wald/dp/0764551949/ref=pd_bbs_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1214599230&sr=8-4

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Mrs. Jones-Douglas is Welsh. Think Penelope Cruz. Not a bad switch. :)

Re:Good.

[afidel]

A saying I heard recently and thought was *brilliant* was, if I have to pass you on the right you're in the wrong =)

Re:Good.

[pjt33]

From my observations (as a pedestrian and cyclist) of the way they drive in Valencia, I could certainly believe that.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a feeling that people don't like to go on road trips with you.

Re:Good.

[dfghjk]

Many states have laws requiring slower traffic to keep right. In those states it is against the law to drive slower than traffic in the fast lane regardless of the speed limit. Some people feel morally superior by enforcing speed limits through deliberate road blocking but in doing so they are violating traffic laws in a way more troublesome to traffic than the "speeders" they intend to annoy.

Re:Good.

[nwks]

"Wanna take a guess how many of these new truckers are just listening to their GPS units blindly?" Most likely every new AND old driver that needs their job. More and more computers are being used to map out routes for fuel efficiency. Yea you would think the drivers would notice the problem in time to avoid it, but the last I knew they where fallible humans too. I can imagine it now in unfamiliar terratory and the map I'm forced to use says turn right here, SHIT who put that low bridge there?

Re:Good.

[Ignis Flatus]

this completely misses the point, tho. you can build a GPS receiver that only provides a readout, or (and this is why employers might like them), you can build a device that logs coordinates and transmits them back to the owner. so if your employer has a GPS receiver on a vehicle you drive for them, or even in a cellphone you thought was pretty sweet, they could be monitoring your every move, even away from work.

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

City managers is various cities, including Lubbock, Texas, have admitted to setting the Yellow too short to safely stop your car before a redlight, in order to generate ticket revenue. Without cameras, this just meant that a couple of cars would fly through the beginning of each red-light. It was hard to avoid and the town adapted. With the cameras, all of the sudden rear ending accidents skyrocketed, since it was difficult to get through a yellow without a ticket unless you clammed on your brakes.

They wer moron drivers, though. Morons for electing dumbasses (like you) who blame everything on the individual and don't admit that often a universal problem is more descriptive of a broken system, and not 'idiot drivers'.

Re:Good.

[zippthorne]

I'm a slower driver (slower = 70 in a 65), and I'll always move over, and I always use my turn signal.

Me, too, though I'll admit occasionally in high-traffic areas I'll forget to change back for a while. Usually after passing a line of people or entering from one of those crappy left-onramp dealys.

But when I put my turn signal on, it means I'm going over. It categorically does not mean, "you should go over and get in my blind spot" Which half the time, no matter what lane I'm in, people will interpret it to mean.

Re:Good.

[Raenex]

I have lost sympathy for motorcyclists. Too many assholes making a ton of noise with illegal after market tailpipes.

Re:Good.

[FireFury03]

And why shouldn't they make you re-take it regularly to ensure driver's are still fit to drive? Most similar professions demand this.

For most people, driving isn't a profession.

If you don't break the law, you won't get fined. It's incredibly easy.

I have a number of problems with speed cameras:

1. They are seen as a replacement for patrols. This means that you only catch the people who are speeding instead of the people who are being far more dangerous (for example, tailgating, driving with no lights on, etc.)
2. There is no flexibility. There are some roads which change speed limit very frequently and it is very easy to miss a sign. If you were stopped by a patrol in a similar situation, it is likely that you would just get a warning for a completely innocent mistake rather than wilfully exceeding the limit.
3. They are often placed in areas where they *decrease* safety. I know of a number of roads where the only places where it is safe to overtake have had their speed limit reduced and cameras installed - this means that people end up overtaking in unsafe places. Yes, you could argue that the drivers who do this are stupid, but that doesn't get away from the fact that the safety of the road has been decreased as a direct result of the installation of cameras.
4. There is a significant amount of time between being caught by a speed camera and receiving the notice. This can end up in a situation where someone with a miscalibrated speedo ends up losing their licence instead of finding out that there is a problem (and getting it fixed) the first time they are pulled over. That is both unfair, and also dangerous since the driver is (unintentionally) speeding the whole time they are waiting for the first notice to drop through the door.

we have a strict, accurate, reasonable measure of a scientifically-accurate value which is prominently displayed on all roads,

It really isn't that scientifically accurate - the speed limit placed on a specific road is based on a case by case judgement. To achieve a scientifically accurate speed limit you would need to drive a large number of vehicles along each road at various speeds and record how many accidents happened at each speed for each individual road and then set that road's speed limit according to the results.

What other activity do you do that requires you to control a piece of explosive machinery

Explosive? WTF sort of car are you driving?!

Re:Good.

[Anonymous Coward]

If I was a truck driver, I'd prefer at least 100 yards advance warning so, I don't have to slam on my brakes and jackknife my truck just as I am about to go over it.

(but that's just me.)

North Korea rings China up on the phone

[Kamineko]

"Were jamming, jamming, and I hope you like jamming too"

Domestic jammers

[Macka]

From TFA:

Hacker sites also publish instructions for a "do-it-yourself GPS jammer that can have a range of up to several hundred feet. Keep in mind this is not an easy hack; a bachelor's in electrical engineering seems like a prerequisite." The parts can be obtained at shopping-mall electronics retailers.

Why would anyone want to do that on such a large scale? That's just being nasty. I seriously hope that anyone who gets caught using such a device gets a mandatory prison sentence. After all, if you're belting out that kind of power, you're gonna be easy to track and locate.

Re:Domestic jammers

[jrmcferren]

Fines from the FCC range from $7,000 to $10,000 dollars per offense for such illegal operations. There may be other laws on this due to the fact that people rely on these things heavily.

Re:Domestic jammers

[johanw]

Just to be sure it works on the receiver your boss or the police put on your car? In some European countries the government wants to use GPS modules to tax car traffic: an excellent reason to jam them.

Re:Domestic jammers

[FurtiveGlancer]

You can blame AF Space Command. This was accomplished years ago as a challenge project by a team of young AF officers under a "fresh ideas" program. Teams are formed from selected applicants and given a small budget and few weeks to develop and execute a proposed space related project using off-the-shelf, commercially available items. One of these teams was concerned about GPS jamming and built a jammer. Range was limited, of course, but the threat was proven to be real.

As others have pointed out, brute force jamming is easily discovered when one knows what to look for. Fortunately, that was the second part of the project, development of methods for detection and location of a GPS jammer.

Sadly, it seems they weren't the only ones with the idea.

Re:Domestic jammers

[Detritus]

It's much simpler and cheaper to cover the antenna with a piece of aluminum foil.

Re:Domestic jammers

[Quizme2000]

In my city we have the robo meter maids ($60,000) with cameras that take a picture of every License plate and then roll around again and pings the driver whenever a overdue car is found that matches the picture at the GPS coordinate. Your city probably uses chalk ($0.29) to mark the wheels. A domestic jammer would be useful for my truck when it is parked

GPS satellites are hard to hit

[EmbeddedJanitor]

It's one thing hitting a LEO sat. It's quite another trying to hit a GPS satellite which is 26000 km up.

Re:GPS satellites are hard to hit

[dotancohen]

It's one thing hitting a LEO sat. It's quite another trying to hit a GPS satellite which is 26000 km up.

So the terrorists will target ISS before GPS? Thanks, that makes me feel better.

Re:GPS satellites are hard to hit

[zippthorne]

GPS satellites are between LEO and GEO. Communications satellites are in GEO.

Since you need your GPS constellation to have birds over higher latitudes than "0, all the time" there's no advantage to GEO, and a very important benefit to reception and payload mass in using lower orbits.

Re:GPS satellites are hard to hit

[brendank310]

You just attach a GPS unit to the projectile. Duh

Re:GPS satellites are hard to hit

[ralewi1]

So the terrorists will target ISS before GPS? Thanks, that makes me feel better.

Are you suggesting the terrorists should blow up the ISS?

Would you miss it? [Looks around the table] Would you miss it?

Re:GPS satellites are hard to hit

[dotancohen]

Would you miss it?

With my unsteady rifle hand? Most likely.

Re:GPS satellites are hard to hit

[Strider-]

GPS satellites aren't 26000km up, that would be geo-synchronous (roughly). GPS satellites make two orbits per day, putting them roughly 20000km up.

Admitedly, the difference between 26000 and 20200km isn't all that great, but I felt like being pedantic this morning. :)

secret signals

[Quadraginta]

I would say the obvious solution to jamming is to have secret signals from the satellites. If you use spread-spectrum techniques your signals become more resistant to jamming. It's possible you might even make your signal nearly undetectable, so that your enemies don't even know it exists.

This being a well-known technique in military radio communications, I would be a little surprised if (1) there weren't already "black" SS signals available to the military, or (2) there will be soon enough.

They may not be especially worried about this. It's not like it's hard to detect someone jamming you, and if you're in a war situation a HARM missile can take care of them for you. Generally a big radio signal is a bit of a liability in a war zone. Makes you stand out, more or less like an electromagnetic bull's-eye painted on your chest.

Re:secret signals

[greyblack]

Joke?

Check Wikipedia on GPS.

GPS signals are currently using direct sequence spread spectrum signals to enable every sattelite to transmit on the same frequency. There are two signals, the "free-to-everyone" C/A code, and the military-only P-code (transmitted on two frequencies). The C/A code has a relatively short ss-word and the P-code has a very long ss-word, making it hard to jam...

I would guess most of the jamming mentioned in TFA is aimed at commercial GPS receivers. Now if the Chinese make something that can jam the military GPS receivers, that is something worth writing about, but TFA doesn't mention it.

Re:secret signals

[Anonymous Coward]

Your assumptions are so bad, that you are way beyond wrong...

First the US Government funds the GPS constellation, and second....

Re:secret signals

[Detritus]

GPS already uses direct-sequence spread spectrum. The military-only signal uses a cryptographically secure spreading code. Even that will not protect you from a wideband jammer with enough power. Any signal can be jammed with a sufficiently large/near transmitter. The military usually solves that problem with high explosives.

Re:secret signals

[Chris Mattern]

I think the problem is that GPS is a commercially funded operation.

Um, no, it isn't. It's owned, lock, stock and barrel, by the US military. Civilian devices are allowed to access it, but the satellites are not commercially owned.

If the military wanted its own "secret" GPS system, it would have to launch a boatload of satellites up there to match the current configuration.

Or they could just ring up the CO of the US Air Force's 50th Space Wing, since that's who owns and maintains the current "boatload of satellites".

Re:secret signals

[clodney]

The article discusses the Chinese jammer efforts as being worrisome to US military, specifically the 7th fleet.

I assume that military kit like the JDAM bomb packages all use military receivers, so I think TFA does at least strongly imply that military receivers are being jammed.

Re:secret signals

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPS satellites already use spread-spectrum signals. Each satellite is given a unique Pseudo-random Noise (PRN) code (along with a Space Vehicle number). The PRN code allows each satellite to generate a unique code for the spread-spectrum signals. This both puts the signal below the noise floor and increases jamming difficulty. The civil code generation procedure is well known, and will allow you to build a single-frequency receiver. The military P/Y code generation is classified or restricted information (only a few receiver manufacturers can make true dual-frequency receivers).

The "black" signal available to the military is the P/Y code on L2. This is theoretically unknown to non-military users, but it can still be tracked with by some very fancy receivers.

There are a couple new signals (BOC encoded this time) that Block 2RMs and Block 3 satellites will be transmitting, including improved military and civil codes, and a code expressly for safety-of-life purposes (i.e. aircraft landing). These new signals have a spectral shape (because of the BOC encoding, which gives 2 large peaks side by side, rather than 1 large peak and sidelobes). This will improve anti-jam properties as well.

The nice thing about spread-spectrum signals and jamming is that the jammer has to put out a HUGE amount of power across several MHz of spectrum to wipe out just one of the GPS signals, and either or both can used for > 5 m positioning in civil applications. It would certainly degrade the targeting solution for a missile to the point where it might hit the right building, but certainly not the window. (High rate kinematic solutions of this type would need a dual-frequency measurement, IMHO.)

See "Global Positions System Signals Measurements and Performance" by Misra and Enge for more information. It is an excellent text for an introduction to the GPS system.

Re:secret signals

[Anonymous Coward]

That's funny Chris -- you're spot on of course.

It's funny that people just sort of dismiss the luxuries the military provides people, and just class all military operations as inherently evil.

BTW, I used to carry the codecs for using the encrypted GPS signals in the event we ever went to war. It was part of my job as an 82nd Airborne infantry grunt. I found it sort of funny that those gigantic clunky GPS receivers would suddenly become the best tool of the trade, aside from my rifle and night vision, if all hell broke loose. All those civilian GPS receivers would just be dead in the water.

Re:secret signals

[digitalchinky]

Spread spectrum is actually a pretty rare modulation method in the satellite world, at least it is for anything other than telemetry and a few other odds and ends. You don't come across it very often though you can definitely see all of them with any half decent spec/an. Contrary to what a lot of people say, they are far from undetectable, they do stand out in their own way, usually a decent number of dB above the noise floor.

Some of the RADAR specific stuff I used back in the day went from DC right up to a whole lot of GHz. Even transmissions of very (very) short duration were easily spotted. You get to know the radio environment pretty quickly, so anything odd stands out.

Re:secret signals

[thegameiam]

High explosives can be pretty convincing.

This basically shows that all security, at some point, boils down to heavily armed people.

Re:secret signals

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the receiver has to know where to look for a signal. And if you are just tossing signals out on across the spectrum then so can your opponent with false signals.

Re:secret signals

[Anonymous Coward]

Flamebait for a misinformed post? Perhaps that word doesn't mean what I think it means. Overrated, perhaps, but not flamebait or troll.

Re:secret signals

[wsanders]

> Any signal can be jammed with a sufficiently large/near transmitter.

There used to be a power pole near my house throwing out so much RF that my GPS would not work within 20 or 30 feet of it. That's an impressive amount of noise to show up at GPS frequencies. Although I have not been back to check on it, if it's still broken I'm confident the power pole will eventually catch on fire so PG&E will know to come out and fix it.

Re:secret signals

[afidel]

Hmm, I thought the inertial guidance was better on JDAM, but wiki says it's only accurate to ~30m with inertial guidance vs ~10m with GPS. That's the difference between hitting the room you want vs not hitting the building at all.

Re:secret signals

[Discoflamingo13]

The article is concerned mostly with military GPS, which is only slightly less susceptible to jamming than civilian GPS. The main weakness of GPS wrt jamming is that it's a very low power signal, usually clocking in at -160dBw. There's a good survey of the state of GPS antijam circa 2002 here.

Re:secret signals

[angst_ridden_hipster]

Yes, but large clusters of small, inexpensive radio jammers are hard to take out without a whole lotta HARMs.

Jamming is really, really easy. You can build a decent jammer for small radii with only about $20 of Radio Shack parts.

Re:secret signals

[pjt33]

Did the US Army finally manage to source enough military GPS receivers to equip all of its units?

Re:secret signals

[sponga]

You got a link to that high explosives?

Re:secret signals

[Keen Anthony]

Just don't make the fatal mistake of inserting a countdown timer in your signal. A cable repair man might discover it and blow up your spaceship.

GPS not critical to JDAM delivery

[EmagGeek]

GPS is only necessary to obtain current location of the JDAM once along the flight path. Once the position is known to a reasonable degree of accuracy, the on-board AHRS can take over and still deliver the payload to within about 1mm/km of distance traveled.

Re:GPS not critical to JDAM delivery

[Yeff]

Remember the news of Saddam buying jammers to protect important sites. The Air Force destroyed them... with JDAM's.

Re:GPS not critical to JDAM delivery

[Atlantis-Rising]

I have heard from friends who should know this sort of thing that it's closer to 1 nautical mile/hour of flight time divergence for USN/USAF munitions INS.

(Although it may be different for JDAMs, which are necessarily much shorter ranged than cruise missiles).

Re:GPS not critical to JDAM delivery

[X0563511]

By the time the missile is within jamming range (keep in mind this thing flies low, so it will be 'under' the signal for a good range too) you have a remaining flight time of seconds, if not minutes.

I have one at home.

[Anonymous Coward]

My location is so secret, not even i'm allowed to know where i live!

Good, where can I buy a 50cm rad jammer.

[plasmacutter]

Given the continued insistence my government has on collaborating with my mobile carrier, I want to buy a jammer I can hook into the power source on my phone to jam it off their radar. 40-50cm range should do it.

Re:Good, where can I buy a 50cm rad jammer.

[Anonymous Coward]

I believe the power button is within your 40-50cm jamming requirement

Re:Good, where can I buy a 50cm rad jammer.

[Anonymous Coward]

The power button does not shut off the GPS or cellular radio on some phones, allowing them to continue being tracked.

Re:Good, where can I buy a 50cm rad jammer.

[plasmacutter]

The power button does not shut off the GPS or cellular radio on some phones, allowing them to continue being tracked.

bingo!

Hey, it may not be theirs

[Anonymous Coward]

After all, they deny lots of junk up there.

Just shoot one of them down and see who complains and THEN you'll know whose it was.

Left lane passing ONLY

[Anonymous Coward]

So how does motorway widening help congestion on motorways, if the left lane is for overtaking ONLY?

Re:Left lane passing ONLY

[takev]

To overtake people who are overtaking.
Also widening the lanes themselves would allow for saver high speed driving.

Besides on the autobahn going 75 mph feels like you are in a traffic jam. 125 mph is pretty normal on the autobahn and 185 mph is not unheard of, of course you should not go those speed when the roads are busy.

Re:Left lane passing ONLY

[gnasher719]

Besides on the autobahn going 75 mph feels like you are in a traffic jam. 125 mph is pretty normal on the autobahn and 185 mph is not unheard of, of course you should not go those speed when the roads are busy.

Just a reminder: If you are involved in an accident going at 80mph (130 km/h) or more, it is deemed to be your fault unless you can prove that the accident was unavoidable even at lower speed. So if you go at 125 mph, passing other cars, and you crash into someone who pulls out without realizing you were coming, it is _your_ fault. Most likely it will be considered "gross negligence" instead of just negligence, which means your insurance doesn't pay. So you'll pay for the damage to your car out of your own pocket, and the insurance will do whatever they can to recover the damage to the other car from you.

Re:Left lane passing ONLY

[IndustrialComplex]

I don't know about 125 MPH being normal on the Autobahn. I typically cruise along at 85-90 MPH and I often felt like I was the faster of many vehicles on the road.

120 MPH was about the upper limit for what I considered even minimally safe if there was any sort of traffic about that wasn't all going a similar speed. And I KNOW the trucks weren't doing anything near 125MPH.

Re:Left lane passing ONLY

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this correct in Germany? Land of the autobahn? I'm seriously curious.

Re:Left lane passing ONLY

[dunkelfalke]

more or less.
you may drive faster than the reference speed of 130 kph but then the danger of operating the vehicle increases so you might be liable in case of an accident so if you chose to drive faster it is at your own peril.

Galileo

[chrb]

Don't forget the huge disagreement between the US and Europe over the Galileo satellite system. The EU intended to use the GPS military band carrier frequencies for Galileo, so that the US couldn't jam it without also jamming the signal used by their own armed forces. Eventually the EU backed down and agreed to use separate frequencies.

Re:Galileo

[mmell]

Of course we understand why Galileo is being developed as an alternative in Europe - so that we can jam your GPS without having to jam ours.

Works for me! :^D

a very un-slashdot-like article

[v1]

That second link is seven pages. Normally anything posted to /. that's more than say, three pages, consists of 400k size pages of advertisements, banners, and otherwise obnoxious noise with maybe three paragraphs (4k or so) of actual content in the middle of the page, that you have to continuously click (NEXT PAGE) to read the next few sentences on.

Not that one. Actual, real content. Multiple pages of real information. What has the world come to? Someone's posting content for the purpose of actually informing us, rather than burying us in cheap banner hits.

The first link is possibly even better than that though. The same information density, in only ONE page. Normally they'd have spread that among at least five banner-whoring pages? Kudos to gpsworld.com for serving their readers. It's pages like that which make me wish I could leave my banner-blockers turned off all the time.

Re:a very un-slashdot-like article

[RobBebop]

Even crazier is that fact that your post was modded "Insightful", and is the reason that I am going to actual RTFA.

Thank you, kind article reading, sir. Hopefully your good will and optimism rubs off on the /. editors and they will start to actively filter AD PAGE LINKS from being published to the main page.

One can only hope...

You'd think so, wouldn't you?

[supercrisp]

I used to work in a an office in the English-Philosophy Building at the University of Iowa. The street in front of our window, Iowa Avenue, had a low bridge accompanied by a warning side about a 100 feet away with chains that dangled down to hit the roof or window of vehicles too tall to make it under the bridge. I'd say about twice a summer, when all the students were moving, moving trucks would ignore the horrible crash of the chains to next produce the extremely loud boom of a truck smashing off the first three to ten feet of the cargo box. Sometimes commercial trucks hit it too, but moving time was the real season to see this. I think I saw one truck in my whole eight years or so there that actually backed up and went around. Of course, I probably missed quite a few doing that, as what really made you take notice was the collision with the bridge.

Re:You'd think so, wouldn't you?

[phayes]

A few years back I helped a friend mode his girlfriends stuff from her place to his as they were starting to live together.

As we were approching a bridge in moderate traffic I pull the rental truck's owner's manual out of the glovebox to find out whether or not we could use the underpass or have to go around. Some versions of the truck were small enough to pass but one or two weren't & the model information was not shown in the cab so I asked him which model he had rented. He gave me a model that fit with an inch or so to spare so we drove through with some caution. As we got out I noticed the model on a plaque next to the front bumper.

Either the bridge was mislabeled or, more likely, she had enough stuff to compress the shocks down the two inches needed to let us pass under the bridge because normally we should have been abruptly brought aware of our mistake.

That was the one time I helped move a friend where we broke out the beer before finishing...

Re:You'd think so, wouldn't you?

[Pig Hogger]

Railroad rules call for a bridge to be inspected whenever it is hit by a vehicle.

While a friend of mine was the stationmaster at $MAJOR_COMMUTER_RAIL_TERMINAL, I was near one such (amply signalled) bridge when I heard a loud noise. When I arrived at the bridge, there was this big van with the roof dangling in the back, neatly folded like an accordion.

Of course, as always, 911 was totally useless (they don't know the railroad emergency numbers), so I went to $MAJOR_COMMUTER_RAIL_TERMINAL to warn my friend, the stationmaster. It was just at the beginning of the rush hour, the concourse was swarming with commuters and several trains were already lined-up, waiting to board their passengers.

I get in the stationmaster's office, which was full of train crews getting ready to go. My friend sees me, and his stare meant "don't you see it's not time to come for a chat?".

-- No need to rush, your trains ain't going nowhere...

-- What do you mean?

-- Well, a truck just hit the $NEARBY_STREET bridge...

The rush hour was delayed for two hours...

Right or passing, no other choice.

[lenski]

I appreciate the Germans' acceptance of order in the autobahn, for that reason: You are in the right lane or passing those who are. Not complicated.

I used to live in an outlying town, commuting an hour on an interstate highway each way. In general, the other drivers were competent and just wanted to get to their destinations with minimal fuss.

Between Thanksgiving and Christmas we had Grandmas and Grandpas on the freeway for the first time in a year, on shopping for Christmas. Between mid-June and late August, we had vacation drivers.

Those months were a basic pain in the ass. People just did not get it...

DO NOT FUCKING DRIVE EXACTLY THE SAME SPEED AS THE GUY IN THE OTHER LANE!!!!

Get Jamming

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.space.com/news/gps_iraq_030325.html

IIRC, the USA used GPS-guided bombs to destroy the GPS-jamming equipment in the 2003 Iraq war (supplied by Russian manufacturers).

Tomahawk Jamming / LGB

[s31523]

It is worth noting that the Tomahawk missile is equipped with a precision INS and Terrain Contour Matching systems. By the time a Tomahawk nears its target GPS is not really being used. The GPS is used heavily right after launch to correct errors in the INS, once within 30 minutes TOT the weapon doesn't need GPS to hit its target with precision. Jamming of GPS usually is going to occur within a limited range of targets, so jamming is basically useless at that point

Also, don't forget that SEALs usually are the first on the scene to paint targets with a laser so LGBs can be deployed from high altitude aircraft to take things like jamming equipment out.

There is a definite threat, but rest assured, our ability to blow stuff up is not greatly hindered by GPS jamming.

It is the same in PA

[dreamchaser]

Pennsylvania passed the law last year. You can and will get ticketed on the Interstate for cruising in the fast lane if not for passing.

Minor military inconvenience

[yogi]

Jammers don't usually cause a problem for the more sophisticated military. In essence, jamming is just broadcasting a very loud signal on the same frequency as the one you want to jam, so that you drown out the real signal.

The problem with broadcasting loud signals is that they are very good for locking bombs/missiles onto. The Americans have anti radar missiles that home in on radar signals. The Russians (used to?) have an air squadron that just flew around the battlefields dropping bombs on the largest transmitter they could find.

The more sophisticated Jammers only activate when a transmission coming in from the "real" source, but that won't work for GPS, as GPS broadcasts constantly.

So now you have two cruise missiles coming atcha. One targets the jammer, the other hits the target.

Very worrisome

[anorlunda]

We already depend on GPS for ship navigation, especially for close-in navigation around harbors. We would like to use GPS as a substitute for radar in airplane airport approaches. Eventually, we need to make cars with autonomous navigation, which would likely use GPS at least partially.

The prospect of GPS jamming is a major impediment to all these dependencies. Many civilian applications really can't go forward without sufficient security.

Do slashdotters know of non-GPS jamming-immune, ways to do marine, aviation and automobile navigation?
Can we re-invent and improve inertial nav?
Could we add an inertial nav backup mode to GPS receivers in case of jamming?

Re:Very worrisome

[GigG]

Google WAAS

Re:Very worrisome

[anorlunda]

IMHO, neither WAAS nor DGPS are solutions to the jamming problem.

WAAS signals are uploaded to the GPS satellites and broadcast as part of the GPS signals. Thus, when GPS is jammed, WAAS is jammed too.

DGPS ground based transmitters send signals that are potentially strong enough to overcome jamming. However, DGPS transmits the difference between local and GPS estimates. If neither the DGPS, nor your local GPS can receive the GPS signals due to jamming, then DGPS is no help.

Re:Very worrisome

[the_rajah]

It already exists in the form of LORAN . It was recently announced that the LORAN system was going to be continued and modernized .

More discussion here . "GPS has become the navigation and location electronics of choice today, but that old standby Loran is making a comeback, for "just in case" emergencies. GPS can be easily jammed, at least at the local level, wheras Loran takes a a lot of sophisticated and powerful gear."

Re:Very worrisome

[ceoyoyo]

If the GPS gets jammed then the plane/boat/car stops using it and reverts to manual control.

Pilots/skippers/drivers should NOT be in charge of a vehicle that they aren't capable of controlling.

Re:Very worrisome

[GigG]

But a WAAS enabled receiver will let you know when something is screwed up. Be it from jamming or just generally screwed up.

Re:Very worrisome

[Discoflamingo13]

For terrestrial application, inertial navigation (mostly as a backup) is still used heavily. GPS is never the sole source for navigation data for safety-critical applications - because it was never intended to be a sole source for navigation, and it's easy to jam (it's an entirely passive signal with very low signal strength). Most modern navigation systems already use hybrid navigation, a combination of sensor sources in order to detect and minimize the errors present in the other sources. These also provide fail-safes so that the system can "coast" when one or more of its sensor sources is unavailable (this already occurs with GPS, since not all satellites are not equally visible to a receiver, especially near mountains or in canyons). While coasting, sensor errors will build up again, but they can be later corrected when the sensor signals are available again. Hybrid navigation is not limited to INS/GPS - we can add LORAN (or other radio navigation sources to the mix, as well as GALILEO when it comes on-line.

Re:Very worrisome

[10Brett-T]

WAAS signals are uploaded to the GPS satellites and broadcast as part of the GPS signals. Thus, when GPS is jammed, WAAS is jammed too.

Not quite... They're broadcast on the same frequencies, but from other, geo-stationary, satellites instead.

Rebroadcast

[Thelasko]

If I remember correctly, GPS simply measures an extremely accurate and precise time signal from several satellites and measures the discrepancy between them. So, could one rebroadcast the time signal advanced or retarded a few nanoseconds to confuse the GPS. Is this how the jammers work, or do they just jam the signal with garbage?

The Langley article was too technical for me.

Re:Rebroadcast

[russotto]

So, could one rebroadcast the time signal advanced or retarded a few nanoseconds to confuse the GPS. Is this how the jammers work, or do they just jam the signal with garbage?

Sending a stronger, fake GPS signal is called spoofing, and is one of the reasons the precise GPS signal is encrypted (it's even called A/S for anti-spoof). Jamming just means making the real signal unreceivable.

Re:Rebroadcast

[digitalchinky]

This is how many modern target specific jammers work in the military, particularly in relation to RADAR. To answer your question, yes, you could do this to create a bigger error in nearby receivers, though it makes more sense to spoof all the visible satellites rather than just one at any given point in space and time.

How current GPS jamming works is as you describe. Noise.

Ultimately swamping the GPS transmissions with noise is far more effective than spoofing. For military situations you could almost be certain some little elint weenie is circling above at FL300 with itchy trigger fingers, so spoofing or swamping are going to get you dead real fast anyway.

For all other situations it depends on what you aim is.

Re:Rebroadcast

[Thelasko]

precise GPS signal is encrypted (it's even called A/S for anti-spoof).

Why couldn't one record a GPS signal in a buffer and rebroadcast it nanoseconds latter?

Re:Rebroadcast

[russotto]

Why couldn't one record a GPS signal in a buffer and rebroadcast it nanoseconds latter?

Because you can't even receive the high precision GPS signal without the encryption key. It's not the data which is encrypted, it's the spreading code.

Re:Rebroadcast

[Proteus]

Why couldn't one record a GPS signal in a buffer and rebroadcast it nanoseconds latter?

Because any decent cryptographic system of this type is resilient to replay attacks. This one included.

Re:Fixed

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude... no ad blocker in your browser?

you should just give up man...

Galileo

[Anonymous Coward]

intentional jamming by both foreign military forces

Maybe now you US-Americans will finally understand why Galileo's being developed as an alternative in Europe.

This has implications for CDMA service

[KeithH]

CDMA relies on GPS for its timing. Every cell tower has a GPS receiver so that it can synchronize its time with other cells (and the RNC at the centre of the cell network). Timing accuracy is a fundamental part of CDMA's hand-off design.

This problem was encountered in China caused by their military. They literally had a truck driving around jamming the GPS signal making for intermittent problems - always the most difficult to investigate.

Re:This has implications for CDMA service

[aaarrrgggh]

All telephone signals require GPS for timing-- it's the T in TDMA. Every central office, every POP, every HUB site all have GPS.

Hormones

[suggsjc]

I honestly don't think that it has anything to do with GPS. I mean, have you seen the size of trucks these days? Its probably a side effect of the hormone filled meats they ate when they were just little personal transports. Also, is it just me or are the new rigs getting crazier and crazier with their axles. Back in my day, 4 was enough for anything...now you're seeing all of these high fangled 6'ers and 8'ers.

Get off my roadway!

Good luck with that

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know where you drive but on my commute it is physically impossible to maintain a safe space between the car in front of you and yourself. Any space bigger than a 1 car length will immediately be filled by a lane jockey. You will be constantly braking to open the space again only to have another asshat do the same thing.

Large Scale Civillian GPS Jamming a Bit Overrated

[systemeng]

Q: "Why is Bob building that 1000ft high radio tower a few miles from LAX?"

A: "He plans on jamming the GPS for all of LA Approach control when he gets it finished in 2017."

Q: "Did he get a building permit for that?"

A: "He was hoping nobody was going to notice either the antenna or the row of 50KW generators on his porch."

FCC Guy (accompanied by FBI, CIA, NSA, an Air Force Special Forces Unit, FAA, US Marshals, and an LA County Building Inspector) in 2017 1 day after Bob turns the jammer on: "Bob, you're under arrest for interfering with air traffic operations, military operations and illegal intelligence gathering."

Bob: "How did you find me?"

FCC Guy, "The fillings in my teeth form diodes that demodulate the signal you're broadcasting. When my fillings got so hot I couldn't bear them, I started wondering what was going on. We would have organized a search but with binoculars from our office window we saw your tower and we found out you didn't have a building permit. It cinched it when NORAD called reporting military radar disruptions all over the west coast."

FAA guy: "We also saw your tower as a blip on our radar scope and identified it as an air navigation hazard, dumbass."

CIA and NSA Guys: "Gitmo and 'No Soup For You'"

Airforce special forces unit then blows up the tower and each man takes a 50KW generator home in case of blackouts.

Finis

Good

[Taibhsear]

Can I get one installed in my car? Maybe some of these asshats will actually, oh I don't know, look at a map BEFORE leaving for their destination and maybe pay the fuck attention to the road and not to the little screen on their dashboard. I'm sure the other people on the road and the pedestrians will be thankful. Seriously, how fucking hard is it to figure out how to go somewhere before you climb into your gas guzzling monster of an SUV?

Re:Good

[MLease]

Well, I think that kind of depends on where you are, how complex and well-marked the roads are, and how familiar you are with the area. If you're in the Boston area (where I live), it's easy to feel like, "You are in a maze of little twisty passages, all different". The streets are haphazardly laid out and those responsible for putting up street signs frequently seem to be of the opinion that if you don't already know what street you're on, you don't belong here. Maps tend to be of less utility in such a situation than you might think.

Not to mention, many (most?) GPS systems will give you voice directions, not just display the visual layout. You can pay attention to the road and still listen to the directions.

-Mike

If after, then because?

[Vellmont]

I know one bridge that has been hit 12 times in the last 3 years by trucks that were too tall. In the last 10 years before that, I was told only 2 people hit the bridge.

Wanna take a guess how many of these new truckers are just listening to their GPS units blindly?

I don't know, but blaming GPS for truckers hitting low bridges is a bit of a stretch without any supporting evidence.

Maybe there's more trucking? Could there be a closed bridge somewhere that's changed traffic patterns? Perhaps a new weight restriction on another bridge? Or maybe there's more inexperienced truckers? Poor signage? Innacurate bridge guides?

There's a million different explanations that are about as equally valid as blaming GPS navigation. So why are you so convinced this is a GPS navigation problem?

Re:If after, then because?

[You ain't seen me!]

I don't know, but blaming GPS for truckers hitting low bridges is a bit of a stretch without any supporting evidence.

This just reminded me that pre-GPS a short piece of highway just over the border from me in Wales, there's an overhead railway bridge with 12ft 6in height restrictions (I believe 14ft is standard) - what's more it's in a dip. The local council decided to resurface the road and 2 days after re-opening the section with the bridge a 40ft trailer got well and truly jammed, blocking the road for days - and given the dip it took some removing. The reason (duh!) - some dipstick at the local council's transport planning department overlooked that if you resurface a road and add 4inches to the surface height, it is a good idea to reduce the surface height restrictions by 4inches as well.

Re:Good - Appropriate GPS unit for the job

[PCMeister]

I completely agree as many drivers are solely relying on the GPS' for getting to their destination, instead using it as an aide.

With regards to that one bridge being hit at an increasing rate by truck drivers; you can attribute that to those who chose to be cheap bastards and use consumer GPS units (ie. TomTom, etc) instead of those specifically designed for big trucks.

Excerpt of features for CoPilot GPS for Trucks can be found here:

"PC*MILER Routing: Practical, Shortest, 53'/102'' Trailer, HazMat, National Network and Toll Avoidance
13' 6" height, 48' length, 80,000 pound weight and 96" width restrictions"

If one wants to try to reduce such accidents, a DOT provision would have to be put in place that specifically states that any driver caught using consumer GPS units for a big truck would be fined (ie. at least several hundred to get their attention). Don't get me wrong, this country will need truck drivers for years to come, but it also needs to do what it can in the interest of public safety.

Oblig. Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with ALK Technologies or any other GPS-related company for that matter.

Lonestar!

[Anonymous Coward]

"Were jamming, jamming, and I hope you like jamming too"

"It's strawberry sir!"

"Only one person should have the gall to me: Lonestar!"

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Physics doesn't care

[Killeroid]

You don't need a GPS jammer.

If your bridge is 8 feet high, you simply need a metal arch 9 feet high, and a 'low bridge' sign suspended from it by two one-foot pieces of chain.

Hence, any driver approaching the bridge who should fail to notice the 'low bridge' sign will have their attention drawn to it when it collides with their vehicle, causing a loud noise but less danger than a vehicle-bridge collision.

I think there are reasons why they built that bridge with an 8 feet tall arch and not a 9 feet high arch(eg. structural strength, etc..). Physics doesn't and shouldn't make allowances for idiotic drivers blindly following directions.

I do agree, gps jammers need to be located in such areas to disrupt gps signals and force drivers to pay attention to the signs and warnings posted alongside the road.

Re:Physics doesn't care

[clone53421]

I think there are reasons why they built that bridge with an 8 feet tall arch and not a 9 feet high arch(eg. structural strength, etc..). Physics doesn't and shouldn't make allowances for idiotic drivers blindly following directions.

I do not think that post means what you think it means...

Re:Prisoner's Dilemma

[sabt-pestnu]

This seems to me to be the classic Prisoner's Dilemma situation...

- if everyone cooperates (drives "sensibly" for any definition of sensible), traffic behaves smoothly.
- the individual who cooperates (leaving sufficient braking room) gets preyed upon by the individual who shoves his car into the "car and a half" sized gap the reasonable driver used.
- the driving environment becomes much more dangerous as individuals react to opportunistic behavior by reducing braking distance.

Some may prefer to jam their own GPS

[howardd21]

Considering that GPS is often used to monitor fleets or even driving patterns by insurance companies, it may be helpful to jam my own GPS. It would allow me to go to the corner bar and hang out for awhile, and then resume my route. I do not need to jam the whole system, just my little corner of the world, corner bar that is...

Nah

[bussdriver]

I've worked in both sectors and the idiocy is the same in both and each has strong and weak points to their system but its human nature that is at fault.

Government is usually the largest organization in a country and that creates problems just like scaling private organizations. I've seen that the big problem is not the two systems but the human flaws they are trying to work around in the first place.

Bigger the org the more bloat it can carry; and BOTH have plenty bloat.

A lot of the issues holding back government on things are systematic in nature for a GOOD reason: government is dangerously powerful (it even DEFINES the corps and the marketplace; including the black market.)

Re:Prisoner's Dilemma

[Discoflamingo13]

I think it's about half tragedy of the commons and half Prisoner's Dilemma.

classified vs. unclassified weapons data

[SylvesterTheCat]

It is important to understand that any weapon data is going to be classified, probably at the Top Secret level.

Data that is publicly released is going to altered by making less precise, i.e. if a weapon has a accuracy of x meters, the publicly release information will be 5x or 10x or... etc.

US military is currently jammping GPS signal

[Anonymous Coward]

US military is testing something that jams GPS signals near Patuxent air force base. There is a notice to mariners for Solomons, MD area that states that between May and October of 2008 GPS signal may be jammed by their testing in about 35 mile radius from the base.

So, no need to have any miscreants - US army would do just fine.

More spies?!?

[david.peace]

National Geospatial Intelligence Agency? Another spy agency? How many do we HAVE?