GPS is very widely used and vulnerable to spoofing. This article gives introduction to GPS and what could be done against spoofing attempts.
GPS is very widely used and vulnerable to spoofing. This article gives introduction to GPS and what could be done against spoofing attempts.
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Tomi Engdahl says:
Algorithms Help Power Grids Survive GPS Spoofs
https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/the-smarter-grid/gps-spoof
Power grids increasingly rely on GPS to stay in sync, which makes them potentially vulnerable to attacks that broadcast false GPS signals. Now researchers have developed algorithms they say could help defend against such assaults, even if a third of a power grid’s GPS signals were disrupted.
In order to deal with potentially damaging fluctuations, a power grid operator needs to know what the voltages and currents are at specific points in time, and at widely dispersed points along the grid.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Fun fact: GPS uses 10 bits to store the week. That means it runs out… oh heck – April 6, 2019
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/02/12/current_gps_epoch_ends/
Nav gadgets will be Gah, Properly Screwed if you don’t or can’t update firmware
Tomi Engdahl says:
Eric Berger / Ars Technica:
NIST study: a widespread GPS outage would have an estimated $1B/day impact on the US economy; 90% of GPS’ financial impact has come since 2010 — 90 percent of the technology’s financial impact has come since just 2010. — Since becoming fully operational in 1995, Global Positioning System technology …
Study finds that a GPS outage would cost $1 billion per day
90 percent of the technology’s financial impact has come since just 2010.
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/06/study-finds-that-a-gps-outage-would-cost-1-billion-per-day/
Since becoming fully operational in 1995, Global Positioning System technology has become widely adopted in the United States and abroad. The concept of satellite-based navigation has become so essential that other world powers, including China, Russia, the European Union, India, and Japan, have all started building their own regional or global systems.
To assess the effect of an outage, the study looked at several different variables. Among them was “precision timing” that enables a number of wireless services, including the synchronization of traffic between carrier networks, wireless handoff between base stations, and billing management. Moreover, higher levels of precision timing enable higher bandwidth and provide access to more devices. (For example, the implementation of 4G LTE technology would have been impossible without GPS technology).
In the case of an outage, there would be relatively minimal impacts over the first two days, but after that time, the wireless network would begin to degrade significantly. After 30 days, the study estimates that functionality would lie somewhere between 0 percent and 60 percent of normal operating levels. Landline phones would be largely unaffected.
“GPS came along at a time of significant evolution in the telecom sector and played a critical role in the digitization of telecom infrastructure and the advent of wireless technology,” the study states.
Tomi Engdahl says:
New Type Of GPS Spoofing Attack In China Creates “Crop Circles” Of False Location Data
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31092/new-type-of-gps-spoofing-attack-in-china-creates-crop-circles-of-false-location-data
The eerie patterns are unlike anything experts have seen in previous GPS spoofing incidents, which have typically pointed to a single location.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Ghost ships, crop circles, and soft gold: A GPS mystery in Shanghai
A sophisticated new electronic warfare system is being used at the world’s busiest port. But is it sand thieves or the Chinese state behind it?
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/614689/ghost-ships-crop-circles-and-soft-gold-a-gps-mystery-in-shanghai/
Tomi Engdahl says:
China’s Mysterious Spoofed GPS “Crop Circle” Has Something Interesting At Its Center
Something appears to be physically at the center of these anomalies and it isn’t small.
https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/31098/chinas-mysterious-spoofed-gps-data-crop-circle-has-something-interesting-at-its-center
The folks that are studying the strange circumstances surrounding these anomalies say they are stumped as to how this is being done or why the fake location data correlates into a ring around a seemingly random area along the bustling Huangpu River. We don’t have an answer to those questions, but after a bit of research, we may have discovered a major clue that could help in doing so.
A radio antenna structure or high-rise could be essential and may have to do with the odd dispersion of coordinates.
And what do you know? Right in the center of where the ring of data points was located was a huge smokestack—one of two that are part of a sprawling plant operated by Shanghai Gaore Industries. Bloomberg describes the company as a distributor of “coal and other minerals and ores.”
In the available satellite imagery, the smokestack appears to be hundreds of feet high, offering a perfect perch for which to install whatever gear could be involved in this GPS data tampering operation
in all the satellite photos we could find, the smokestack in question hasn’t emitted anything going all the way back to 2011.
Still, just because something exists exactly where you hypothesized it would, that doesn’t mean it is being used for what you think it is. Coincidences happen all too often when it comes to these kinds of situations.
on the road just next to where the smokestack is located, a remarkably tall red radio tower pops up out of literally nowhere in the second half of 2018.
the tower disappeared right around the end of 2018 or the first days into 2019.
Taken as a whole, this evidence points to the possibility that some sort of hardware is present at the center of the mysterious ring. If that is indeed the case, we still don’t know who that hardware may belong to or what that entity’s goals are.
Tomi Engdahl says:
Sand thieves believed to be behind epidemic of Chinese GPS jamming
https://boingboing.net/2019/11/19/gps-spoofers-r-us.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
The spoofing has created a massive local shipping hazard and has led to spectacular shipwrecks.
https://boingboing.net/2019/11/19/gps-spoofers-r-us.html
Tomi Engdahl says:
GPS is worryingly vulnerable to being hacked, and there’s no backup. (via Scientific American)
GPS Is Easy to Hack, and the U.S. Has No Backup
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/gps-is-easy-to-hack-and-the-u-s-has-no-backup/#Echobox=1575312374
At risk are airliners, electric grids, stock markets and other systems that rely on GPS to time their operations
On August 5, 2016, Cathay Pacific Flight 905 from Hong Kong was heading for an on-time arrival at Manila’s Ninoy Aquino International Airport when something unexpected occurred. The pilots radioed air traffic controllers and said they had lost GPS (Global Positioning System) guidance for the final eight nautical miles to “runway right-24.”
Tomi Engdahl says:
There are some alternatives to GPS also
https://linxtechnologies.com/wp/blog-post/beginners-guide-satellite-navigation-systems/
https://spacenews.com/no-gps-no-problem-there-are-increasingly-more-options/
Tomi Engdahl says:
I did this almost a year ago with less than $200 of electronics https://youtu.be/fAaiNOZmM20
Tomi Engdahl says:
SparkFun Launches a Qwiic ZED-F9T GNSS Timing Breakout, Promises 5ns Pulse Accuracy
https://www.hackster.io/news/sparkfun-launches-a-qwiic-zed-f9t-gnss-timing-breakout-promises-5ns-pulse-accuracy-71a438d82818
New Qwiic-connected board offers 5ns timing accuracy with a clear view of the sky — dropping to 2.5ns with correction data.
SparkFun is continuing to broaden its high-accuracy Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) product range with the launch of a Qwiic breakout board for the u-blox ZED-F9T — offering five-nanosecond timing accuracy.
“This week, we finally get to show off a board that we have been working on for the past couple of months, the ZED-F9T GNSS Timing Breakout,” says SparkFun’s Chris McCarty of the new board. “This is a new piece of technology that we are excited to finally release and we eagerly await some of the new projects you make with it!”