GPS Under Attack as Crooks, Rogue Workers Wage Electronic War

[ZLoth]

From NBC News:

GPS Under Attack as Crooks, Rogue Workers Wage Electronic War

Once the province of hostile nations, electronic warfare has arrived with little fanfare on U.S. highways and byways.

Criminals, rogue employees and even otherwise law-abiding citizens are using illegal "jamming" devices to overpower GPS, cellphone and other electronic signals over localized areas. The devices are small and mobile – a common variety plugs into a vehicle's cigarette lighter – making it difficult for law enforcement to identify the culprits.

And experts say the threat to the Global Positioning System (GPS) – the critical space-based navigational, positional and timing network – is escalating as potentially more destructive "spoofing" devices become readily available.

FULL ARTICLE HERE

Hmmmm.... to me, GPS is a tool and an aid for navigation. In case of GPS failure, break out maps.

[Max Rockatansky]

So basically pretty much everyone on the forum will be at an advantage because I actually know how to read a map much less knowing the difference between, County, State, US Route, and Interstate Highways?  It will be like the old days when you could travel a rural highway in peace and not have to worry about what suburban plague has been wrought by Lord GPS?

[Duke87]

What's actually described in the article is mostly the use of jammers to thwart GPS tracking devices. Criminals use them when transporting stolen cargo so that if there's a tracking device somewhere on board it won't work. Fleet vehicle drivers use them to prevent their supervisors from being able to track their movements on the job. And so on.

Of course, when a vehicle is on auto-pilot using GPS rather than merely feeding info to a human, the stakes are raised considerably. If you're driving and the nav system goes wonky, you shrug and keep driving. If the car is driving itself and the nav system goes wonky, it may crash as a result - at the very least it will result in failure of the auto-pilot.

[Max Rockatansky]

I couldn't even get the article to work.  Every time it loaded the site would bounce me over to Forbes for some reason.  Regardless you are talking is RFID tracking of freight, it was just matter of time before that came under attack on a larger scale for theft. 

In regards to the GPS navigated auto-pilot....yeah I don't think that will ever be for me.  Regardless of how safe the technology becomes it will be under attack to no end by naysayers once the technology is viable on a mass scale then the first hacker attack comes to fruition.  That whole incident with the Tesla on US 27 in Florida already got auto-pilot a lot of bad press.

[jeffandnicole]

That whole incident with the Tesla on US 27 in Florida already got auto-pilot a lot of bad press.

Since then, about 100 people per day have died, simply driving their vehicles.  But that...no one cares about.

[Max Rockatansky]

That whole incident with the Tesla on US 27 in Florida already got auto-pilot a lot of bad press.

Since then, about 100 people per day have died, simply driving their vehicles.  But that...no one cares about.

I think the Joker said it best:

[Jardine]

Just speculating, but I'm aware a certain number of law enforcement vehicles are equipped with radiation detectors (a friend of mine was stopped for setting one off) so would it be that hard to have GPS jammer detectors available, and throw the effin' book at any idjit that gets caught as a result ??

[lordsutch]

People have gotten slapped with huge federal fines for jamming cellular signals on highways (playing anti-cellphone vigilante). Same thing with GPS: this guy paid the price for GPS jamming: a $38k fine and fired from his job as a trucker. Hopefully that discourages others.

[hbelkins]

If you know where the device is, won't a simple no-read bag (like what is issued for E-ZPass transponders) suffice? KYTC fleet vehicles are equipped with GPS units and they're readily visible on most vehicles (wired units, placed on the dash). If someone wanted to, say, drive faster than the posted speed limit, couldn't they put a no-read bag over top of the receiver to thwart it?

(Asking for a friend...  )

[ZLoth]

I couldn't even get the article to work.  Every time it loaded the site would bounce me over to Forbes for some reason.

Sorry about that. Link has been fixed.

[Max Rockatansky]

I couldn't even get the article to work.  Every time it loaded the site would bounce me over to Forbes for some reason.

Sorry about that. Link has been fixed.

I just assumed it was NBC being shady..seems like all the major news sites try to jump you over to some sponsor page. 

[noelbotevera]

So basically pretty much everyone on the forum will be at an advantage because I actually know how to read a map much less knowing the difference between, County, State, US Route, and Interstate Highways?  It will be like the old days when you could travel a rural highway in peace and not have to worry about what suburban plague has been wrought by Lord GPS?

I'll admit generally I hate to use GPS but am forced to use it whenever we make a wrong turn or I'm unclear of the area.

[Max Rockatansky]

So basically pretty much everyone on the forum will be at an advantage because I actually know how to read a map much less knowing the difference between, County, State, US Route, and Interstate Highways?  It will be like the old days when you could travel a rural highway in peace and not have to worry about what suburban plague has been wrought by Lord GPS?

I'll admit generally I hate to use GPS but am forced to use it whenever we make a wrong turn or I'm unclear of the area.

I didn't even have one until 2012 when I got one as a gift.  Getting from city to city was never a problem with maps along with finding alternate routes.  The issue I always had was tracking down local streets to find a business or home.  Usually I would just pull up Google maps before hand and draw a tiny surface map.  I remember how crappy it used to be trying to find someone's house or something of the like when they gave you the "get off here, turn left here, turn right here, 3rd house on the left" type directions.  What I do like about GPS units are the display about elevation, time to destination, along with being able to generally just see an overview of the area if I want to side trip something.

[ZLoth]

I couldn't even get the article to work.  Every time it loaded the site would bounce me over to Forbes for some reason.

Sorry about that. Link has been fixed.

I just assumed it was NBC being shady..seems like all the major news sites try to jump you over to some sponsor page. 

I have my own personal URL shortener. It's great for bookmarking pages for later reference, and it's interesting to look at the analytics. I just copied the WRONG shortened URL.

[ET21]

So essentially, mini-EMPs?

[vdeane]

An EMP would knock out any electronics in range... they're just jamming the signal.

[triplemultiplex]

Jamming you say?