Trust your GPS? Maybe not...Russia mucks with it

Your GPS device might also include GNSS for potentially greater accuracy (Garmin devices do and I know because I have one).
This story provides evidence Russia is fudging the signals on demand.

More importantly (not really), the devices are now about $300 and you can use them to cheat at Pokemon Go LOL.

Next time I go under a low bridge with a box trailer and come out the other end with a flatbed I am sooooo blaming the Russians :slight_smile:


Read a good book about how Soviets used phony radio stations to lure ELINT aircraft across the Russian/Turkish border where they were blown out of the sky/ Forget the name of the book but it was an awesome read.
Shuting down LORAN was stupid, In the 80’s midshipmen complained about having to know how to use a sextant.

From Britain:

How do you get lost on an Island?

Sensationalist sub-title:

"‘All critical national infrastructures rely on GNSS to some extent’ — and the Russians have started hacking it "

Later in article:

“Perhaps more disturbingly, GNSS-spoofing equipment is available to almost anyone for just a few hundred dollars.”

“In the summer of 2013, a research team from The University of Texas at Austin successfully hijacked the GPS navigation systems onboard an $80 million superyacht using a $2,000 device the size of a small briefcase,” C4ADS said. “The experimental attack forced the ship’s navigation systems to relay false positioning information to the vessel’s captain, who subsequently made slight course corrections to keep the ship seemingly on track.”

Reality: Anyone can mess with GPS. Ignorant and deliberately malicious people blame Russia.

For US$300 you can mess with GPS and blame Russia too!

Seriously? Aren’t we beyond the propaganda by now? Russiagate is over.

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The news story directly implicates Russia in this behavior. The fact that you don’t need nation-state level resources to do it doesn’t change that fact.

It is sensationalism. It’s not like blocking a known frequency range is especially difficult.

Please don’t insult other users.

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There is no sensationalism here. It’s an newsworthy story about something many people don’t know about, and I found Russia’s larger-scale coordinated use for security purposes quite interesting.

Agree about insulting.

Politics are against the rules of the forum. Please don’t start that garbage.

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I didn’t start it. I posted a story about Russia interfering with GNSS on a large scale with an additional point on the fact you can fool the smart phone in your hand for $300 to win at Poekemon Go. Somebody else accused me of bring up Russia-Gate"when I had mentioned NO POLITICS AT ALL.

Cool, then be the bigger man and don’t continue breaking the rules?

Önly if YOU be the bigger man and stop the FIRST PERSON who did not the second who defended themselves.

Shrug, I figured appealing to your better nature was worth a shot.

Would be really nice to have a technical discussion without politics for once.

And here I figured you to be an un-biased moderator who would not take sides…
I repent but I’d like you to call them out too. But will you?

I’m not a moderator, just someone who finds politics really tiring.

I was absolutely calling out that person also. Two wrongs != right.

Then perhaps a more accurate (less sensationalist/political) title would be “Trust your GPS? Maybe not… anyone can muck with it”?

Page 2 of the report says “The mention of any … entity in this report does not imply the violation of any law or international agreement, and should not be construed as such.”

So, where’s the news? A) The study only looked at GNSS within Russian territory (and Syria, where they have been invited to protect the country from aggressors), and B) it’s not breaking any law or international agreement.

In essence, the “news” is that Russia is legally doing stuff in its own country.

That’s “news” is it?

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Me too, But more tiring is when someone gets a free pass to start it and then I get called out for responding. I learned along time ago (in the military) that passivity under attack is taken for cowardice or weakness. I believe in fairness and I did not see that in your responses.

That applies to the military, but on forums responding with overwhelming force leads to endless squabbles over bullshit and never talking about anything interesting!

Yes, the story here is GPS disruption, and the implications of that are actually really severe. At a large scale you could mess with shipping lanes, costing untold millions of dollars, and the cost to do so would be relatively low. And on a smaller scale you could cause planes to crash, car accidents, etc. The technology needs to be secured somehow. The very simple setup we have right now is surprisingly fragile. That’s what’s interesting.

Perhaps GPS “pings” could be cryptographically signed somehow?

Well, yeah…given you yourselves on your news videos, which I watch religiously (dare I use that term), report on things China and Russia are doing within their own borders. Or did I miss the exemption for GNNS-related intra-national stories where only extra-national stories matter. Further, do you actually think the disruption is only local and ins’t in the satellites themselves through a backdoor?

The military signals are encrypted (believe they’re also a lot more accurate than the open ones), but you can still jam them by broadcasting on the same frequencies.

@TrashPanda, the way GPS works is by the satellites broadcasting their location in orbit and the precise time, and your device does the trilateration. Any changes to signal would effect all devices using that satellite at that time.

Linked below an article talking about ways to combat spoofing. Cryptographic signing is indeed one of the three methods, the other two are signal-distortion detection and direction-of-arrival sensing. The right “fix” is probably a blend of all three.

Main blocker is GPS is incredibly omnipresent, and these methods would increase costs. But it really does seem like it’s necessary. Perhaps not on smartphones, but in airplanes, boats, etc.

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Or just disrupting that radio band with as powerful a signal as you can muster. But there is also the possibility they can hack the satellites. who here can guarantee some (all?) GNSS satellites do not have backdoors?