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

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.

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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

[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.

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.

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: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.

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.

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...