GPS spoofing – The Map Room

Quantum Navigation

Jonathan Crowe — Fri, 28 Jun 2024 14:00:18 +0000

Quantum navigation systems are being tested in Britain. Last month there was a successful test flight of an aviation system, and a system is being tested on test trains on the London Underground. (It’s not clear to me whether these systems are related, but the U.K. has apparently been making a big push into quantum tech lately.) Quantum navigation is essentially quantum mechanics applied to dead reckoning, using the properties of supercool atoms to measure change of position. The advantage of the system is that it’s self-contained: it doesn’t require a GPS signal or navigation beacon to triangulate from, which makes it resistant to jamming or spoofing—and considering how essential real-time location data has become, and how easy it is to disrupt location signals, the appeal of a self-contained solution is self-evident.

CBC News on Russian GPS Jamming

Jonathan Crowe — Thu, 30 May 2024 23:28:17 +0000

CBC News reports on GPS jamming by Russia, which has closed the airport in Tartu, Estonia until authorities could install a backup ground-based beacon. Russia has been accused of messing with GPS signals for years, but the CBC report focuses on the idea that in this case the jamming is at least in part to deal with Ukrainian drone attacks—the implication being that insofar as Estonia is concerned, this is collateral damage (to which Russia is presumably indifferent at best).

See also the BBC News story from earlier this month (previously).

Russia Accused of Jamming Civilian Flights’ GPS

Jonathan Crowe — Mon, 06 May 2024 18:39:14 +0000

BBC News: “Russia is causing disruption to satellite navigation systems affecting thousands of civilian flights, experts say. […] The persistent disruption led Finland’s flag carrier Finnair to suspend daily flights to Estonia’s second largest city, Tartu, for a month, after two of its aircraft had to return to Helsinki due to GPS interference. ¶ Tartu Airport relies solely on GPS, unlike most larger airports which have alternative navigation systems that allow aircraft to land even if the signal is lost.”

Flightradar24’s Map of GPS Interference

Jonathan Crowe — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 00:42:54 +0000

Another map of GPS interference, also based on GPS accuracy information reported by aircraft, this one from Flightradar24. Data updates every six hours. And once again high levels of interference are being reported from conflict zones: Ukraine and other foci of Russian mischief like the Baltics, plus Israel/Palestine, though to be honest I didn’t expect Myanmar. Data is archived, so you can look up previous dates (7 days free, more than that needs a site subscription). [Maps Mania]

Previously: GPSJam Maps GPS Interference.

GPSJam Maps GPS Interference

Jonathan Crowe — Wed, 18 Oct 2023 22:24:30 +0000

GPSJam (screenshot)

GPSJam (screenshot)

GPS Jam, created by John Wiseman, is an online map of GPS interference, updated daily, based on GPS accuracy information reported by aircraft. It’s not necessarily a map of where GPS is being deliberately jammed, but when you look and see that the hotspots are the eastern Mediterranean, western Russia and the Baltics, well. Active war zones (e.g. Ukraine) are blank: this map is based on civilian aircraft data and those are no-go areas.

Ships Are Increasingly Spoofing Their Location

Jonathan Crowe — Sat, 03 Sep 2022 23:09:23 +0000

Ships spoofing their location is an increasing problem, Anatoly Kurmanaev reports for the New York Times. All large ships are required to carry an AIS transponder that transmits the ship’s ID and position, but some ships are starting to find a way around that.

[O]ver the past year, Windward, a large maritime data company that provides research to the United Nations, has uncovered more than 500 cases of ships manipulating their satellite navigation systems to hide their locations. The vessels carry out the deception by adopting a technology that until recently was confined to the world’s most advanced navies. The technology, in essence, replicates the effect of a VPN cellphone app, making a ship appear to be in one place, while physically being elsewhere.

Its use has included Chinese fishing fleets hiding operations in protected waters off South America, tankers concealing stops in Iranian oil ports, and container ships obfuscating journeys in the Middle East. A U.S. intelligence official, who discussed confidential government assessments on the condition of anonymity, said the deception tactic had already been used for weapons and drug smuggling.

We’ve seen examples of this before, but this is starting to look like an endemic problem.

America’s Overdependence on GPS

Jonathan Crowe — Mon, 25 Jan 2021 14:17:00 +0000

GPS signals are relied upon by critical parts of our infrastructure, from transportation to communications to agriculture to financial markets. But those signals are easily spoofed or jammed and, at least in the United States, have no real backup (despite legislation mandating one by last year). Kate Murphy’s opinion piece in the New York Times not only serves as a summary of the problem, and a warning, it also does so in the most mainstream of newspapers: most of what I’ve read on the subject has been in the business, tech and science media. More people will see this. [MAPS-L]

Previously: GPS Is Easy to Disrupt, and the Consequences of Disruption Are Serious; A GPS Spoofing Mystery in Shanghai; The Economic Impact of GPS—and GPS Outages; The Russians Are Spoofing! The Russians Are Spoofing!

GPS Is Easy to Disrupt, and the Consequences of Disruption Are Serious

Jonathan Crowe — Fri, 20 Dec 2019 15:23:50 +0000

In an article in the December 2019 issue of Scientific American, now available online, Paul Tullis looks at the problem of GPS hacking, or spoofing—how easy it is to do, how vulnerable GPS is to it, and the consequences we’d face if GPS was disrupted on a broad level. It’s essential but scary reading. The potential scenarios Tullis describes are far more serious than the instances of GPS spoofing we’ve seen so far. It’s not just about navigation: a lot of critical infrastructure relies on GPS timestamps.

Tullis points out that other GNSS systems have terrestrial-based backup systems; GPS does not, despite a 15-year-old directive to build an eLORAN backup that would put out a signal too strong to spoof.

Previously: A GPS Spoofing Mystery in Shanghai; The Russians Are Spoofing! The Russians Are Spoofing!

A GPS Spoofing Mystery in Shanghai

Jonathan Crowe — Mon, 18 Nov 2019 15:13:07 +0000

Someone is spoofing GPS signals in Shanghai, and we’re not entirely sure why they’re doing it, or how. One ostensibly bizarre theory: sand thieves trying to obfuscate illegal dredging by zonking out the GPS received by other ships’ AIS transponders. But how they’re redesignating ship (and bicycle) GPS locations into riverside circles, rather than, say, shifting everyone’s position a few kilometres away, has not yet been figured out. [MetaFilter]

Previously: The Russians Are Spoofing! The Russians Are Spoofing!

The Russians Are Spoofing! The Russians Are Spoofing!

Jonathan Crowe — Tue, 23 Apr 2019 23:08:18 +0000

Russian authorities appear to be systematically messing with GPS and other GNSS signals in multiple locations, a new report from the Center for Advanced Defense Studies concludes (CBS News, Foreign Policy, Moscow Times, Wired). The tactic is called GPS spoofing: broadcasting a false GPS/GNSS signal in a specific location to fool GPS/GNSS receivers and render them unreliable or unusable. The incidents appear to correlate with sensitive Russian facilities, active combat zones, and the travel itinerary of one Vladimir V. Putin. In one case, while Putin was opening a bridge between Russia and Crimea, nearby ships were suddenly informed by their GPS/GNSS receivers that they were dozens of kilometres away from their actual position.