GPS jamming rife, could PARALYSE Blighty, say usual suspects
Technical experts are once again predicting imminent doom caused by interference with Global Positioning System (GPS) sat-nav receivers. A nationwide UK network of detectors has reportedly discovered widespread employment of GPS jammer devices, and calls are being made for a harsh crackdown on users of such devices. "Today's …
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Irresponsible and Dangerous
"GPS jammers can be bought on the internet for those wishing to defeat tracking systems which might be installed in vehicles........ and by people who fear that they may be under covert surveillance or who wish to avoid inadvertently generating records of their location by other means "
Then these means MUST be provided and catered for, else SENTINEL are erroding personal privacy and have NO RIGHT to do so!
ALSO, why are we relying on such a flaky tech for such serious matters? Cop out, thats what it is!
So their best result is 1 hit in 3 days on average and they aren't going to be monitoring some dirt track in the middle of nowhere they are most likely monitoring our busiest motorways.
So 1 jammer travels along the M1 every 3 days and there's no reason to think isn't the same one each time.. Oh yes, this is a huge problem.
I think Mr Cockshott is nothing but a scaremongering media whore.
>>So their best result is 1 hit in 3 days on average and they aren't going to be monitoring some dirt track in the middle of nowhere they are most likely monitoring our busiest motorways.
So 1 jammer travels along the M1 every 3 days and there's no reason to think isn't the same one each time.. Oh yes, this is a huge problem.
>>I think Mr Cockshott is nothing but a scaremongering media whore.
Spot on Sir.
M1, 6, 25, 42 or whatever (A303 eg) - they all see rather a lot of vehicles passing through in three days.
Frankly I'm surprised that the incidence is so low. We are obviously a pretty law abiding country. A good argument to bin some of the more intrusive anti terrorist surveillance stuff.
Cheers
Jon
Traffic stats
The last time I looked, a properly busy stretch of motorway has something in the order of 150,000 vehicles per day; so if there's one GPS jammer 'hit' in 3 days on average, that gives 1 in 450,000 vehicles having a GPS jammer.
Or ~2 in a million.
France
Can I use one of these to allow my car to go to France. The in-built SAT-NAV is capable of displaying speed/safety camera information, and so my car is illegal in France. In fact, as my phone is capable of downloading a SATNAV apllication, does that mean that I cannot take my phone to France either?
Re: France
Not What but Where TF.
I've noticed that whenever I go to St Ishmaels SA62 Pembs., my HTC phone GPS suddenly decides that SW Wales has moved to northern France, but my TomTom is ok. If you do go to France you just use the excuse to the police that you were following SatNav directions from St Ishmaels to Milford Haven - perfectly believable, 'cos no-one ever doubts the GPS voice!
Re: France
the consensus of my French colleagues is that under EU privacy laws, the inside of your car is like your home, even or especially in France. A nice French Motorway cop with a gun might stop you and ask if you mind him having a look inside your car - to which it seems that you can legally say "Non" to him.
The French are doing this in order to stop French motorists speeding, (they've recently removed the previously helpful signs saying "Radar Ahead in 100 metres" ) - in order to bring the high level of road deaths down.
Of course, a few years back it was routine to stop all UK cars entering France and check if you had that week's obligatory safety equipment - 5 x Yellow vests, or get the €60 fine. I hope that UK motorists will have the balls to use EU privacy laws and say 'touche pas ma bagnole" when leaving the ferry/tunnel this summer.(*)
(*) I wouldn't try this in CH land where satnav radar guides are also illegal, as the cops have _no_sense_of_humor_ and can fine you up to 10% of your annual income for simple speeding/motoring issues. Strangely the local adherents to the Touring Club Suisse (=AA/RAC) newsletter get a monthly pull-out guide to where the 'random' radar speed checks will be, so tho' TomTom won't tell johnny foreigner when and where to drive at the 'safety' speed - the burgers of Vierwaldstättersee and other regions drive like how they always have, whilst the state is allegedly enriched by foreign criminals doing their 3 kilometers over the limits.
An alternative solution
In order to lessen our reliance on these GPS signals and help avoid an electronic arms race between jammers and counter-jammers, how's about this for an alternative:
Large metal boards could be erected at intervals alongside major roads, listing place names of locations the road leads to. Numbers placed next to the place names could give an indication of your current distance from that location. At junctions, the boards could employ arrows to indicate alternate destinations along each route leading from the junction. Again numbers printed beside the destination names could indicate the current distance from that location.
On a more localised level, these boards could be replicated at a smaller size at the ends of streets and could, in these cases, give the name of the street in question. In order to avoid the motorist having to memorise each of these smaller street-naming boards, diagrams could be published online, or on paper, showing the arrangement of streets within a locality.
The motorist could also be issued with half a brain-cell and or a piece of paper and a pen, to aid making a note of the location of the desired destination, for future reference, rather than relying, in every facet of their lives, on electronic gadgets to wipe their fucking arses for them.
I propose to call my invention the "Trouser Press".
Re: An alternative solution
No way that would work, metal thieves would have them away in no time.
And students, who could resist owning the "corby" trouser press?
Much the same as an Equality and Diversity Co-ordinator. A civil service non-job.
Challenged e-Livery Manager
Give or take a trypo or two.
No, wtf.
Is it something to do with Extremely Agile Scrums or something like that?
That advertising delivery engine finds several pages with Challenge Delivery Manager on. All are references to Bob.
Worse than a solutions delivery manager
"What did your team achieve this week Mr. Cockshott?"
"On Monday I bet Dave in accounts he couldn't eat three tablespoons of coffee granules without being sick and then on Thursday I had my team nail shut all the fire doors and set fire to the reception desks. Next week I'm going on a FUD splatter rampage about GPS."
"Excellent have a bonus."
I've been watching period drama again, it seems...
...as I've now got a mental image of a "Challenge Delivery Manager" as being a leather glove in the face *snort*
Cockshott's spurting outburst, surely?
Yes, I'm already wearing the damn thing.
So, more dangerious than giant solar storms destroying the power system
Or less?
Just asking.
Spoofing with a simulator you say...
Think they sold any to Iran?
Keep it up guys
This comments forum is the funniest for a long time, been chuckling all the way. (strange looks from SWMBO though)
Tin foil to the ready
But will my anti-GPS systems (tin foil attire) also be banned?
<-- Made of the best aluminium foil money can buy.
Bob Cockshott, who is a...
Challenge Delivery Manager at the government's Technology Strategy Board ICT Knowledge Transfer Network.
And they wonder why our economy went to hell in a handbasket. How does he justify his existence?
What happens when everyone has computer driven cars?
Hopefully this stops before Google starts producing driverless cars. I could see a world full of driverless cars suddenly thrown into chaos by some miscreant with a grudge against his neighbor. This just cannot be allowed to continue.
Most of the Jammers around can't go far, even with the wind blowing the right way
Most of the cheaper jammers are only good for a few yards, if conditions are optimum.
I have a GPS/cell jammer on my motorcycle - the traffic cops use cells as 2-way radios hereabouts - a model with separate antennae for each frequency band, and on perfectly clear, flat terrain it's good for 200 metres tops, enough to envelope the vehicle in an impenetrable cloud and to stop nearby idiots who SMS/Text whilst driving to be put out of service.
In countries that allow licenced low-power transmitters, there are many schematics on the InterNet.
Tom Clancy Plot & Countermeasure
Imagine some evil evildoers (terrists or something) launch 100W jammers on balloons in a certain area (say London). Shortly after that they detonate some bombs to inflict heavy casualties.
GPS-guided ambulances (and probably also some Police) would be out of action, as airborne jamming clearly is very effective to blank out the weak GPS signals over hundreds of square kilometers.
The countermeasure is not that difficult: Have the navigation systems record wheel movements vectors and integrate that. Of course that introduces uncertainty, but that can be corrected at any non-trivial corner or curve, which are easy to detect. Combine it with a cheap inertial nav system and a compass and you don't need GPS at all. The key is that mapping information is already fully stored in consumer navigation devices and the maps themselves allow for obtaining positioning information. With some Google-grade software one could even initialize this system w/o entering the starting point, but just drive for something like 20 kilometers and let the software perform the matching on the complete map.
Much more complex stuff (thing terrain contour matching for cruise missiles) has been done decades ago with good success.
Counter^n-measures
So what's going to stop someone who's jamming GPS from jamming eLORAN too?
Evidently they'll have to propose some taxpayer-funded counter-counter-counter-measures.
Won't somebody think of the children?
spoofing vs jamming
Spoofing is hard
Jamming is simple - at its simplest you can make a wideband radar jammer with a trembler coil, a sparkplug and an old-style round headlight (parabolic mirror). For added fun high power IR leds will blind l most LIDAR units.
Just don't expect to be able to listen to BBC r2 as you drive along with it operating. Don't be terribly surprised if a nice policeman pulls you over and offers to search the vehicle (virtually all radar guns have jammer detectors on them)
Locating GPS jammers shouldn't be too hard given 3-5 detectors in close proximity and a camera setup. Cars can only be in a limited number of places so triangulation is straightforward - but should we bother getting all bent out of shape about moving GPS blackspots that are ~10 metres in diameter?
Mines the one with a portable GSM jammer in it (for use in movie theatres or when Mr Noisy starts shouting on the train.)
60 times in 6 months is hardly a problem. And given the limited range of these things I cant see them interfering with the boeing 747s at 20,000+ft. Granted in certain positions it could be a bit tricky ie near airports but seriously your sat nav goes funny do you a) continue along the same road or b) turn off the road go thru a field and wrap your car around a tree?
Besides this is a technology the US government could disable at any time with no notice for any or no reason whatsoever. Why are people using it to the point of criticality when it could be disabled at anytime?
It's an Olympics issue!
On New Year's Eve the BBC talked to a man in the crowd who had worked on the London fireworks the previous year and he said they used GPS for timing the fireworks. The SENTINEL had better do a sweep before the Olympics!
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