GPS Vulnerability Articles

NEXTGOV - What's Brewin'

BOB BREWIN   04/05/10 06:10 pm ET

The folks over at the multiagency National Executive Committee for Space-Based Positioning, Navigation and Timing posted a notice reminding us that the "U.S. government strongly encourages all GPS users to maintain backup capabilities for positioning, navigation and timing" in case of jamming or other outages.

Well, President Obama zeroed out in his fiscal 2010 budget funding for the only 99 percent reliable electronic GPS back-up that I know of -- the e-Loran system. The Coast Guard merrily went along, so it did not have to staff Loran stations in decidedly noncoastal places such as Boise City, Okla.

GPS Jammers Illegal, Dangerous, and Very Easy to Buy

John Brandon  - FOXNews.com

March 17, 2010

An electronic device small enough to fit in a shirt pocket and big enough to conceivably bring down an airplane can be easily purchased over the Internet. All a terrorist needs is a credit card and $49.

With car thieves in the United Kingdom using GPS jammers to aid their getaways, experts say it's only a matter of time until crooks -- and, ominously, terrorists -- in the United States catch on.

Jammers transmit a low-power signal that creates signal noise and fools a GPS receiver into thinking the satellites are not available. They can be used to confuse police and avoid toll charges, and some pranksters use them to nettle unsuspecting iPhone users. 

BBC: By Jason Palmer, Science and technology reporter, BBC News

Tuesday, 23 February 2010

Technology that depends on satellite-navigation signals is increasingly threatened by attack from widely available equipment, experts say.

 While "jamming" sat-nav equipment with noise signals is on the rise, more sophisticated methods allow hackers even to program what receivers display.

At risk are not only sat-nav users, but also critical national infrastructure.

Financial Times: 

Published: February 23 2010 16:58

Critical infrastructure, including air traffic communications, electricity transmission, telecoms networks and emergency services are all under threat from the increasing availability of "GPS jammers", technology experts are warning.

"A portable jammer in a tall building could cover most of London and aircraft approaching its airports," said Professor David Last, a past president of the Royal Institute of Navigation and now a GPS consultant.

Global Positioning System signals, which are extremely delicate, are now relied upon by vital sectors, including transport, just-in-time manufacturing and farming.

Coordinates Magazine: Dr. Bradford Parkinson Chief Architect of Global Positioning System

Excerpt from an interview with Dr. Bradford Parkinson, Jan 2010

Please share your views on the eLoran program, which was seen as a valid 'backup' for GPS, but has been terminated now?

I was the chairman of a study by the Department of Transportation to review the need for enhanced Loran (eLoran). We were initially very sceptical, but we dug into what eLoran could do. It was not the Loran of old: it was quite an improved system and we concluded that in areas where the coverage was available it could do 30 to 50 meters or better. (Aircraft would need to use a barometric altimeter for the third dimension.)

Although eLoran would not be quite as accurate as GPS, if it was done right, one could take the eLoran plus your altimeter, feed them into your instruments and have a smooth transition in the event something happened to the GPS signal- particularly local jamming. The possibility of local jamming is certainly there and occasionally it has happened. So, if people were to want to do that maliciously or deliberately, having eLoran as a backup would deter such action. The point being that if they jammed GPS, it would make little difference for most applications, and they would not see a payoff for such an illegal activity.

I think eLoran is an excellent backup though it does not cover the world, but it covers many of the areas where you have intense dependence on GPS for safety of life applications. The investment is small, the yearly cost of running an eLoran system is somewhere around 30 million dollars and relative to everything else we are doing it is absolute peanuts. Cancelling the eLoran program is a very, very bad decision.

October 4, 2009 - GPSWorld

The most widely used of all GPS devices are in-car navigators. When vehicles carrying navigators are used for criminal purposes, records contained in the devices may be examined. Such investigations rely on newly developed forensic techniques that employ a combination of computer expertise and navigation knowledge, yielding valuable data for crime investigators.

...

The use of GPS jammers, long foreseen in navigation circles, has become a reality as criminals employ them to overcome tracking systems and steal vehicles. These low-powered transmitters (see photo), readily available over the Internet for as little as $150, can block GPS reception in a vehicle's vicinity.