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Space Debris – A Threat to GNSS?
Blog Editor's Note: NASA is rightly concerned about the future of space and keeping it usable. The immediate problem and the focus of much recent attention has been Low Earth Orbit (LEO). GNSS fly about ten thousand miles above LEO in Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), so it...

“GPS Reliance is Cyber Threat to Maritime Commerce” – US Coast Guard Strategy
Blog Editor's Note: The US Coast Guard recently published its "Maritime Commerce Strategic Outlook." As the service looks forward, it recognizes maritime's dependence upon GPS for a wide range of things far beyond simple navigation. "MTS" is "Marine Transportation...

GPS Problem Reporting site reveals global scale of GPS interference – Guy Buesnel
Blog Editor's Note: Guy Buesnel is an RNTF member who is an expert in GNSS disruption. We strongly commend and recommend his work and that you follow him on Linkedin. Guy has graciously allowed us to re-post his work on our site. Published on October 8, 2018 ...

Selective Availability, IoT, Suez Canal Visit, Featured at Arab Institute of Navigation Conference – Inside GNSS
Blog Editor's Note: It was a privilege to participate in this event and meet with the attendees. A fascinating mix of experience and expertise from the US, Europe and Middle East. Selective Availability, IoT, Suez Canal Visit, Featured at Arab Institute of Navigation...

“Protecting GNSS and Users – The Ideal APNT” Inside GNSS
Blog Editor's Note: There seems to be a lot of talk these days about systems to complement and backup GNSS. We think that establishing a good set of criteria that focus on protecting a nation and its citizens by helping establish a rock-solid PNT architecture is a...

“PNT: A Cyber Worry for Intelligent Transport Systems” – French Space Agency Conference (Inside GNSS)
Blog Editor's Note: PNT is a worry for all navigation systems and navigators, especially for systems like drones and interconnected vehicles. This issue has not had a lot of public visibility in this industry. This may be partly due to an expectation that government...

Specter of Selective Availability Still Lingers – Report from Cairo
At the Arab Institute of Navigation Conference, Cairo, Egypt Several themes have emerged from among the many and varied technical and policy presentations at this annual conference. First and foremost, of course, is that GNSS is a wonderful utility that provides the...

DHS Taking a Risk-Based Look at PNT Resilience – Will It Matter?
Blog Editor's Note: We are always glad to see government officials engage with an important issue. At the same time, 2018 marks the 14th year the US government has failed to act on its own mandates to protect and augment GPS signals. Studies and analysis do little to...

Security and SatNav Experts Agree: GPS Is a Cybersecurity Issue – Inside GNSS
Blog Editor's Note: An excellent article that reflects an important shift in the way people are thinking about this problem. We have recently been talking to very senior officials at the Department of Defense, Department of Homeland Security, and the White House. All...

GNSS Spoofing and Aviation: An Evolving Relationship – Inside GNSS
Blog Editor's Note: Authentication is a real and important issue, whether its something we hear on the news or PNT information. In a world where purported data is ubiquitous, how do we know what is real. The United States Air Force vouches for the quality of the...

GPS Tracker Shows Child 90 Miles From School
We depend upon GPS signals for so many important things, it's often difficult to think of them all. We were reminded of just how important some of these uses are when we read this problem report on the US Coast Guard's website: "My son wears a GPS watch due to the...

A Global Standard for GNSS Receiver Performance Assessment – Inside GNSS
Blog Editor's Note: The below article from Inside GNSS discusses an issue that many are trying to get their heads around. Europe has started to address it with their Radio Equipment Directive and the STRIKE3 project. This is going to be an issue to follow closely as...

“GPS Highly Vulnerable” says Paul Hobby – Houston Chronicle
Blog Editor's Note: GPS disruptions have brought down networks, disabled end use devices, and provided bad data to users which has been used and stored. Yet few in the cybersecurity field see it as something they are responsible for worrying about. Good to see this...

eLoran Standards Published – SAE
Blog Editor's Note: Standards for Loran-C were effectively set by the US Coast Guard. This enabled receivers world-wide to use signals whether they came from Russia, China, Europe or the USA. SAE has assumed this role for eLoran. With South Korea implementing its...

How to Defend Against GPS Spoofing Attacks – Wall Street Journal
Blog Editor's Note: Spoofing seems to have become the concern of the moment, almost eclipsing jamming/denial of service in the public consciousness. Certainly the idea of hazardously misleading information is more disturbing than no information at all. Interestingly,...

GPS Problem Reports Now Available to Public – US Coast Guard
Blog Editor's Note: BZ (Well Done!) to the US Coast Guard for posting GPS problem reports on the internet for all to see and learn from. Reports from 2018 are available now (we counted 43), new ones will be added, as will reports from previous years. Members of the...

“The Kremlin Eats GPS for Breakfast” – Moscow Times
Blog Editor's Note: We just ran across this article from 2016. While it is a couple years old, it has some tidbits we had not seen before. For example that the Russian government is spoofing both GPS and GLONASS in Moscow. Also confirmation that this is related to...

“Protect GPS” High on Space Force To-Do List? – C4ISRNET
Blog Editor's Note: Protection of GPS satellites must be a national priority. Probably even more important is protection of GPS signals. The nation has had policy for 14 years to do just that, but very little has been done. We are glad that Space Force, according to...

National PNT Leadership Needed – ION Newsletter
Blog Editor's Note: This article from the most recent Institute of Navigation Newsletter reflects the widely held belief that the current governance system for GPS/PNT in the US, which was established in 2004, has not been able to protect, toughen and augment GPS as...

eLoran Better for UK Than Yet Another Satnav – Dag Pike in Daily Telegraph
Blog Editor's Note: Dag Pike is a navigator of note from both the old and new schools. We have always found his insights helpful on a variety of issues from boat handling to GPS. The Daily Telegraph requires you subscribe to their site to access much of their...

“US Military In Denial Over Denial of Space” – Joint Force Quarterly
Blog Editor's Note: The most disturbing parts of the below article: "The failure to understand and plan for the probability and severity of loss [of space capabilities] may well lead to the culmination of the United States during war." "Combatant command staffs must...

Research on Alternative PNT in Europe – DME, LDACS, eLoran
Blog Editor's Note: We came across this paper at the IEEE website. It discusses DME/DME, Multi-DME, the L-band Digital Aeronautical Communication System (LDACS) and eLoran as alternatives. The abstract for the paper is below and a full copy is available for a modest...

The Death of Old Time? – NIST Cutting WWV – “Inside GNSS”
Blog Editor's Note: The author of the below article from "Inside GNSS" is the President of the RNT Foundation. The Death of Old Time? – NIST Cutting WWV August 20, 2018 By Inside GNSS The deck of a tall ship rolled heavily beneath me as a freshening wind whistled...

UrsaNav Awarded Contract to Supply eLoran Transmitter Test Bed System in the Republic of Korea – “Inside GNSS”
Blog Editor's Note: The South Korean eLoran project has been delayed several times over the last five years, we understand due to changes in administrations and government focus on other issues. It is good to see some progress in this resilient PNT effort. - Full...

For First Responders – Combating the Single Point of Failure – “Domestic Preparedness”
Blog Editor's Note: "Domestic Preparedness" published this article by RNTF President, Dana A. Goward, yesterday. RESILIENCE Combating the Single Point of Failure by DANA GOWARD Wed, August 22, 2018 On 25-26 January 2016, many first responder radio systems...

Mystery Russian Satellite, Cyber Vulnerabilities – Protecting Space from Earth
Blog Editor's Note: Last week we reported on and linked to a debate about whether or not the US military should "double down" on space. The below two stories seem to come down on the side of relying less on space and increasing resilience by establishing complementary...

EMI from LED? Yes for DSC, AIS. GPS too.
Blog Editor's Note: The US Coast Guard issued the below warning last week. Seems the power conversion circuitry on LED lights, especially inexpensive ones, can generate a broad spectrum of electromagnetic interference. As one of the experts we contacted said "It's...

The Limits of Satellite Navigation: GPS Challenges in the Arctic – All About Circuits
Blog Editor's Note: We have heard conflicting reports about GPS effectiveness at high latitudes. Also that Russia's GLONASS satnav system is specifically designed to provide good coverage to the Arctic. This makes sense as the Arctic is a big area of investment and...

The US Military Should/ Should Not Be Doubling Down on Space – Defense One
Blog Editor's Note: Two different opinions recently published by Defense One. It is interesting, though, that their disagreement is based on the costs of satellites and anti-satellite weapons. Both agree that over-reliance on space systems is a really bad idea. From...

Time Services Cut in NIST 2019 Budget Proposal
Blog Editor's Note: I have an analog clock in my office that I never have to adjust because it is synced with WWV. While neither WWV nor WWVH are sufficiently precise for most commercial applications, it would be interesting to know which users will be impacted if...

New DHS Risk Center to Deal with GPS, PNT Issues
Blog Editor's Note: This new risk center was mentioned at the recent DHS Cyber Security Summit. Mr. Bob Kolasky, it's new leader, has told us that GPS and PNT issues will be one of the center's focus areas. "It is very much top-of-mind" Kolasky told us before the...

PNT Board Letter On Ligado Published
Blog Editor's Note: The National Space-based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board is a Federal Advisory Committee Act body established by Presidential directive and administered by NASA. It reports to the US government's PNT Executive Committee...

Opening presentations at ITSNT focus on PNT resilience – GPS World
Blog Editor's Note: It seems that every forum lately that talks about positioning, or navigation, or timing, is focusing on resilience. GOOD! The tools for all kinds of disruptions are becoming more widely available, cheaper and easier to use. We need to be prepared,...

GPS Experts Vote Unanimously to Oppose Ligado’s Newest Proposal – Inside GNSS
Blog Editor's Note: GPS is really great and the the US government has actively encouraged its use for decades. It has has brought untold increases in efficiency, brand new services, and new businesses. At the same time it under girds every network and most of our...

GPS Backup Provision Moved Out of Defense Bill, Into Civil Dept Legislation
The Senate delivered the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) to the President last week, without provisions proposed by the House supporting efforts to provide a complementary and backup service for GPS. Hill insiders tell us that this was due to...

Toughening and Augmenting the Installed GPS Base – Solutions are Ready, Are Users? – Inside GNSS
Blog Editor's Note: This is a reprint of a piece we published today with "Inside GNSS." 3 August 2018 One of the big challenges to Protecting, Toughening, and Augmenting GPS is the huge number of GPS/GNSS receivers already in use — often referred to as “the installed...

Fake Your Location if Your Parents Installed a GPS Tracker on Your Android Phone – Android.gadgethacks.com
Blog Editor's Note: Tracking and peoples' reaction to it is an entire field of study on its own. While reading "Pinpoint - How GPS is Changing Technology, Culture, and Our Minds" we were surprised to come upon an entire chapter devoted to behavioral science. On...

New, More Convenient GPS Jammer Available
Blog Editor's Note; If you don't want to give up your car's electrical outlet to power your GPS jammer, this new device uses the On Board Diagnostic (OBD) port. We like that the vendor is very careful to explain the limitations of the equipment. It only impacts L1,and...

Can’t/Won’t Fly Without GPS
Blog Editor's Note: There are those in the FAA and the aviation industry who, when asked about the importance of GPS to aviation claim that they have backups and can do without.* Never mind that the entire system would slow down, become less efficient and more...

Protecting autonmous grids from potentially crippling GPS spoofing attacks – UC Santa Barbara
Blog Editor's Note: Whenever we have spoken to folks from the electrical grid sector, their position on GPS vulnerability has been "we can operate the grid without GPS, we just can't manage it." This has always seemed a strange way to approach the issue to us. Who...

“Replacing GPS” – Lots of Hype, Lots of Shortfalls
Blog Editor's Note: We love interesting articles that talk about new PNT technologies. But when they talk about "replacing GPS," well, that's a bit of hype too far, in our opinion. Especially since, while all the systems described seem interesting, all fall short...

SCREWED IN A MILLISECOND – Bloomberg Business Week
Blog Editor's Note: More recent incidents and concerns tend to make many of us forget about the lessons of the January 2016 GPS timing glitch. I wonder how much we learned and how much different things would be today if it happened again. This article first...

DHS Cyber Summit to Address GPS/PNT Vulnerabilities
“PNT vulnerability very much top of mind” says Assistant Secretary We were misinformed that the DHS Cyber Summit was not going to include discussion of PNT issues. DHS’ Acting Assistant Secretary for Infrastructure Protection, Bob Kolasky told us that PNT issues will...

US National PNT Advisory Board Meeting 6 August
The National PNT Advisory Board will meet by teleconference/WebEx at noon EST on the 6th of August. Agenda items are: Finalize and Approve the National Space-Based PNT Advisory Board Topics Paper Finalize and Approve the National Space-Based PNT Advisory Board...

Resilient GPS for Small UAS – DHS Request for Info
Blog Editor's Note; It is good to see DHS concerned about this issue. We wonder why, though, they are focusing only on GPS sensors as GPS/GNSS signals are inherently NOT resilient ... 2018 Resilient GPS Equipment Demonstration for sUAS ...

27 Organizations’ Concerns about Ligado – FCC Filing
Blog Editor's Note: The RNT Foundation has filed several items with the FCC concerning adjacent band interference with GPS/GNSS. Subsequent to Ligado's most recent modification to their application, we joined a number of other organizations expressing continuing...

“Design out GPS” – Part of MITRE’s Approach to Vulnerability
Blog Editor's Note: A recent "Inside GNSS" article discussed broad efforts being made across organizations and companies to address increasing concerns about GPS vulnerability. One of the events cited was a NIST workshop the RNT Foundation helped develop. A MITRE...

Spoofing GPS & Your Maps – Next Level of Danger – “Forbes” and “BleepingComputer”
Blog Editor's Note: First they said "It's really hard to spoof GPS." Then hackers made it easy, and reduced the cost to nearly nothing. Next they said, "Use multiple GNSS constellations because it's almost impossible to spoof them all at once." Then hackers showed how...

NASA Chief – “Space Force to Guard GPS” – Bloomberg
Blog Editor's Note - We are really, really good with guarding GPS. But the real threats to are to the signals, not the satellites, and come from the ground not space. Perhaps we should worry about that first... Bloomberg Politics Trump’s Space Force Will...

“Jamming is Big Business” – Market Report
Blog Editor's Note: We aren't suggesting you pay $5795.00 for this market analysis report. But it is interesting to see that the jammer market is big enough to warrant such an effort. Also that all the companies cited as feeding the market are major players,...