NATO Exercise Banned From Jamming GPS

judgecorp writes "A major NATO exercise off the coast of Scotland has been ordered to stop using GPS jamming technology after complaints that to do so would endanger the lives of fishermen and disrupt civilian mobile phones. The exercise — called 'Joint Warrior' — planned to disrupt GPS for 20 miles around each warship"

Comments

fake it

[Anonymous Coward]

why not fake it?
just turn off the red teams GPS's when their with in 20mi of a warship, problem solved.

Re:fake it

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

Isn't that sorta like testing a bullet proof vest by using blanks?

Re:fake it

[Ferzerp]

Then actually be informative?

Re:fake it

[wvmarle]

A major military exercise... and they do not close those waters for the week or two these drills last?

Civilian ships should stay the hell out of there. Stay well away from those war ships, they're in exercise, and may perform unpredictable maneuvers. There may be small craft out there. Projectiles flying around.

If a ship comes within GPS jammed range then they're way too close to begin with I'd say. Yes this may cause some inconvenience to some fishermen or other seamen, but the ocean is big. Plenty of other places to sail to.

Re:fake it

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume that the military exercise actually benefit society more than those fishermen.
Thing is that all of that exercise is funded by tax money and those fishermen pay that tax.
I am willing to fund the military to ensure that I will have my freedom. If the own military starts to restrict my freedom then I don't care if it is the military that I pay taxes to that causes this or if it is a foreign military force, the end result is the same.

So yes, unless you live in a military fascist state (This is not hte case here.) then you should expect the military to exersice without disrupting the ordinary civilian life because the only reason they get funding is because civilians don't want their ordinary life to be disrupted, if they can't do that then they are not doing their job.

Yes this may cause some inconvenience to the military, but the ocean is big. Plenty of other places to sail to.

Re:fake it

[Anonymous Coward]

No, _this_ story is about the dangerous Scottish coastal waters.

Any mid-range ship-to-shore radio gear you buy these days hooks up to GPS. When mummy and daddy both go down below to fight the engine room fire and they don't come back, little Katie just presses the big red "somebody come help" button like she was taught. The radio transmits the correct identity for the boat, including its description, and its current co-ordinates, with the distress signal and there's a fair chance somebody will come rescue Katie before the fire that consumed her parents sinks the boat and her with it.

GPS is an important safety net. Disabling it isn't just an inconvenience, it's potentially a matter of life and death.

Re:fake it

[beelsebob]

Civilians, on the other hand have no critical dependency on GPS. Its largely a toy for the day to day user and a convenient (but non critical) aid for the traveler.

Once upon a time this may have been true, but when there's 1) people out in fishing trawlers/recreational vessels 2) people up on top of mountains 3) aircraft trying to fly about the place it's not really so true. Sure, most of these people could default to navigating the old fashioned ways, but you can bet heavily that one or two of them will not have a compass/sextant/etc with them, and that every so often it *will* cost lives. I'd call that a critical dependency.

Re:Weird?

[subreality]

It's not to practice jamming... it's to practice operating when the Bad Guys are doing the jamming.

Re:What?

[Waffle Iron]

I wouldn't depend solely on GPS either, but that doesn't mean that it's a good idea to *intentionally* disable GPS and force people to use less reliable and rarely practiced methods, even if they all know how to use them.

Re:Ungrateful

[Scutter]

The US military developed, launched, and maintains GPS for military purposes. They allow everyone else to use it for FREE. Now those same users are screaming because the people who PAID FOR GPS want to turn it off for a few days in a limited area. "How dare they stop providing us free service! We demand they continue providing us free, uninterrupted service!"

The US military didn't pay for it. I paid for it. I graciously allowed them to use my tax money to purchase it for their use with the strict instruction that it was also to made available for my own use.

I think maybe you forgot who works for whom.