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Russians Seek Answers To Central Moscow GPS Anomaly (yahoo.com)
stevegee58 writes: Russians have been noticing that their GPS doesn't work in Moscow near the Kremlin. Everyone from taxi drivers to Pokemon Go players suddenly notice that they're transported 18 miles away at the airport when they near the Kremlin. While this may be an annoyance to the public it seems like a reasonable countermeasure to potential terrorist threats. Is it only a matter of time before other vulnerable sites such as the White House or the Capitol in Washington start doing the same? "A programmer for Russian internet firm Yandex, Grigory Bakunov, said Thursday his research showed a system for blocking GPS was located inside the Kremlin, the heavily guarded official residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin," reports Yahoo. "The first anomaly was recorded in June, according to Russian media reports, which have also suggested that the GPS interference comes and goes in a pattern. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday he did not know why the malfunction was occurring and admitted experiencing the problem himself when driving recently. Peskov redirected questions to Russia's Federal Guards Service, which is responsible for protecting the Kremlin and senior Russian officials."
In conjunction with the fact that it isn't marked on any paper maps and is completely invisible, you mean?
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Now that it's know that there is an error then any attacker would plan for alternatives.
The only way it really can be effective is when it's not active until really needed.
And there are still maps, alternative beacons, compasses (magnetic and gyro) and dead reckoning that can be used to find such targets for anyone out to perform an attack.
People were able to navigate even before GPS existed.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
In Putin Russia, GPS relocate you!
GPS coverage can't be disabled or modified by the GPS satellites selectively over such a small area as the Kremlin. The satellites are essentially just sending the time and their location continuously and their antennas aren't very directional. Anything they did that affected accuracy at the Kremlin would have to affect a wide surrounding area as well. Any localised effect as described has to be local jamming which almost certainly means official Russian involvement.
It's because Putin's animal magnetism has a 18m radius.
Future headline:
Russian leader Vladimir Putin was killed in a freak accident today while crossing the street next to the Kremlin. A fully autonomous prototype Tesla sedan had veered out of control and was speeding through central Moscow side streets at freeway speeds, and it tragically ran over Putin and several of his bodyguards. A defiant Elon Musk issued the following statement: "Our vehicle had nothing to do with this incident. We've analyzed the black box data, and this car was miles away at the airport at the time of the accident."