Blog
Home »
China Drone Show Spoiled by GPS/GNSS Jamming
Blog Editor's Note: The associated video (here) compares the actual display with the way it was supposed to have played out. It is clear that the disruptions were localized, but probably came from two or more sources. The center right portion of the display is as...
“GNSS + STL + eLoran = Resilient PNT” – Orolia
Blog Editor's Note: An interesting paper and approach from Orolia. The thesis that, while clocks, inertial, and fiber all have their place in a resilient architecture, our economy has gone wireless, is an interesting one. As is the point they make about it being...
“GPS Jamming and Spoofing a Major Concern in Maritime” – Congressional Hearing
On Tuesday the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation held a hearing on Blue Technology. In his written testimony, Mr. Michael Jones, President of the Maritime Alliance, discussed GPS jamming and spoofing as a maritime...
$5M more for GPS Backup Demo – Draft 2019 NDAA
The recently released House mark for the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) includes an additional $5M to add to the $10M appropriated in the 2018 budget, for a GPS backup technology demonstration. The draft bill says: GPS Backup Demonstration The...
We Don’t Know What To Do If A Satellite Gets Hacked – The Outline
Blog Editor's Note: While it might be exceptionally difficult to hack GPS by invading its operating system (probably not Windows 95 as suggested in the second article below), it is incredibly easy to hack GPS civilian signals by spoofing, and to launch a successful...
UK Police Bust GPS Jammer – Watch Video
Blog Editor's Note: Jamming satnav services, like GPS, is illegal in many countries. Yet few nations have active programs to detect and arrest those violating such laws. In the United States, for example, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has the authority...
GPS Jamming: Major Threat to Drones – AV Web
Blog Editor's Note: This, of course, could be said of any unmanned system, and to a lesser extent for all transportation, manned and unmanned. The US government is doing a technology demonstration of a complementary and backup system for GPS this year. Once...
Electrical Grids Concerned about GNSS Timing
Technologists from the National Institutes of Standards (NIST) report that all the operators of electrical grids they have contacted have reported some problems using GNSS timing. About 20% report that this has caused problems with operations, mostly offline analysis...
Russia Undermining World’s Confidence in GPS
Over the last 12 months Russia has been increasingly active disrupting GPS signals and undermining confidence in "America's gift to the world." These activities seem to be serving several Russian national objectives: Frustrate western military and peacekeeping...
Norway to Russia: “Please Stop Jamming Our GPS!” – Exercise as Intimidation
Blog Editor's Note: Russian forces jammed GPS in northern Norway again last month. The effects were particularly felt by aviation and telecommunications. This follows a similar week-long jamming episode in the same area in September, and jamming in the Baltic later...
Remembering a PNT Giant – Dr. Per Enge
The PNT world lost one of its greats this week. Dr. Per Enge succumbed after a brief but severe resurgence of an illness. His list of honors and official bio are widely known and easily found. We asked three people who knew him more intimately for some of their...
DoT GPS Adjacent Band Compatibility Study Released
Blog Editor's Note: The release of this study has been much anticipated. We don't know why it is only being released now, even though it is dated December 2017. It has already been referenced by the NPEF's published Gap Analysis report. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY The goal of...
Russia Jamming GPS to Promote GLONASS?
Blog Editor's Note: The below news release from Russia got us thinking. For years we had heard from our maritime contacts that GPS and AIS were not reliable in Russian waters. Then last summer we heard from a merchant captain in the Black Sea. He and about 20 other...
$5 GPS Spoofer Now Available – Hackaday.com
Blog Editor's Note: An alert member pointed us to this item just posted yesterday. Hackers have their own websites where this kind of information is readily available. We are posting it here to help inform those who worry about hackers and are trying to make policy...
UK’s NSA – ‘Resilience More Important Than Defense’
Blog Editor's Note: It's incredibly important to defend against cyber attacks, but no defense is perfect. Nations need to focus on resilience, according to an official at the UK's GCHQ, Britain's equivalent of America's National Security Agency (NSA). "Absolute...
NSF Funds GPS Spoofing “How-To” Guide
Blog Editor's Note: There's lots of information "out there" to help the bad guys figure out how to mess with GPS. So occasionally we point out some of it because most of our readers are the good guys and need to be reminded, or need help reminding others, just how bad...
GPS Problem Disables 911 System – ‘Suddenly it was 1997’
Blog Editor's Note: This incident from last year is an example of how GPS and PNT are taken for granted by many users. During the SVN-23 glitch in January of 2016 most all the first responder systems in North America seem to have had fault reports, if not more...
“Beyond GNSS – UK Efforts to Combat PNT Vulnerability” at RNTF Annual Meeting
Join us on the 15th of May for the RNT Foundation Annual Meeting and Reception aboard the USS Constellation in Baltimore's Inner Harbor. - All are welcome! The evening includes: Guided tours of the USS Constellation Reception with heavy hors d'oeuvres, wine, and...
The sneaky ways China and Russia could threaten US satellites – Defense News
Blog Editor's Note: Attacking satellites directly is difficult and dangerous. Attacking and disabling the GPS constellation would be especially difficult as it would require damaging at least 7 or 8 different satellites. Such attacks would also be dangerous as it...
Expect Bad GPS: Egypt, Turkey, Korea, Philippines, Elsewhere – Flight Services Bureau
The most recent Unsafe Airspace Summary from the Flight Services Bureau cautions pilots about chronic GPS disruptions in Egypt, Turkey, North and South Korea, and the Philippines. A subsequent update identified problems in Cypress as well. The US Maritime...
China Installed Jammers on Spratly Islands – Wall Street Journal
Blog Editor's Note: China has been jamming US drones and patrols in the area for a while. Installing jamming equipment on the Spratly Islands extends the reach of their ability to disrupt systems while reinforcing their sovereignty claims. (Interesting how on the...
Russia Jamming GPS Signals in Syria to Counter US Drones – NBC News
Blog Editor's Note: Russian military doctrine is that all signals from space will be denied in any hot conflict, so their forces are fully prepared to operate without them. US military operations are highly dependent upon signals from space, such as GPS, and the...
“Expect your GPS to be Trashed”- GPS & ADS-B Problems At Manila Airport
Blog Editor's Note: We have reported several times on GPS disruptions in the Philippines. See for example Unsafe Airspace and Aviation Disruptions. Kudo's to RNTF member Guy Buesnel of Spirent for finding this ICAO report and the outstanding Linkedin post below. Guy...
Space war is coming — and the U.S. is not ready – Politico
Blog Editor's Note: The best way to prepare for something bad that might happen is to make sure when it does, it causes the least damage possible. We have the technology today to ensure that, with a minimal investment, when GPS goes away the nation can keep on going...
GPS Jamming at Ports a Problem – US Coast Guard R&D gets $500K to Examine
Blog Editor's Note: In 2014 portions of a mid-Atlantic container port were idled for seven hours by an apparent GPS jamming incident. Since then the use of jammers has continued to increase, especially by drivers of commercial vehicles that are part of fleet tracking...
New GPS Costs Up $930M Last Year – What if just 10% went to protect users?
From C4IRSNET 5 April 2018: The cost of new GPS programs jumped $930 million last year By: Mark Pomerleau The cost of two Air Force GPS programs increased a total of $930 million in the last year, according to a new report released by the Pentagon April 3. The...
Google Doodle – Father of Trusted Time, John Harrison, 325th Birthday
Blog Editor's Note: Today Google celebrated the 325th birthday of John Harrison, inventor of the first practical chronometer with a doodle. Harrison's was the first of many continuing steps to provide trusted time in support of navigation and thousands of...
Extended GPS Interference Eastern Mediterranean – MARAD
Blog Editor's Note: Kudo's to MARAD for posting this. Getting info out about GPS problems is not their job. We have had a hard time getting this kind of info to be made public. The statement they were allowed to publish, in typical governmentese, says "possible...
$10M Funds GPS Backup Tech Demo – GPS.gov
Blog Editor's Note: The last two administrations (G.W. Bush and Obama) promised Congress they would build eLoran systems to serve as a complement and backup for GPS. Bush Administration Announcement Obama Administration Announcement Despite these promises being...
Air Force: GPS Satellites Vulnerable to Attack
Blog Editor's Note: The nation relies heavily on vulnerable space assets, including GPS. The Department of Homeland Security has called GPS "a single point of failure for critical infrastructure." We hope our leaders begin to consider that the best way to protect the...
Space Launches Causing Small GPS Disruptions – Ars Technica
Blog Editor's Note: Space launches are on the upswing with over 12,000 new satellites scheduled to go into orbit in the next several years. Most launches will put multiple satellites in space, but that still leaves lots of rockets making holes in the ionosphere. We...
“Shutting off DGPS OK, But Don’t Destroy Valuable Infrastructure” – Congress
The US Coast Guard has announced termination of the nation's remaining Differential GPS (DGPS) transmissions beginning in September of this year. The first phase of DGPS decommissioning was announced in 2016. In response, a group of congressmen wrote to the Deputy...
Too Much Sun Could Wreak Havoc on Driverless Cars – Bloomberg
Blog Editor's Note: We understand from developers that autonomous cars will be able to use wheel counters, hyper-fine maps, Lidar, cameras, and other sensors to find there way when GPS/GNSS is not available. Space disruptions are still likely to impact them, though,...
Govt Tests Show Ligado Interference w/ GPS
Blog Editor's Note: On Friday, the US Government posted a report entitled "Assessment to Identify Gaps in Testing of Adjacent Band Interference to the Global Positioning System (GPS) L1 Frequency Band." The report examined five different sets of tests that have been...
EU Calls for Non-Space Backup Systems
The European Commission published the European Radio Navigation plan (ERNP) last week. Among other things, the plan calls for non-space backup systems - something we heartily endorse. From the plan's conclusion: "There are, however, some challenges that will need to...
UK Government responds to GNSS dependence – call for action
"In the few weeks since the review of satellite determined position and time was released, the government has and continues to act. Some would say unusually fast, but this shows how important this issue and the challenges it raises, are being taken." Andy Proctor,...
GPS: Why our reliance on the Cold War satellite technology is an accident waiting to happen – The Telegraph
Blog Editor's Note: A good overview article, especially about what is happening in Britain. GPS: Why our reliance on the Cold War satellite technology is an accident waiting to happen The Telegraph James Titcomb 11 MARCH 2018 • 7:04 PM Last June, more than 20 ships...
Financial & Power Among Most Likely Spoofing Targets – Fugro
Nation-states attacking financial institutions and power grids, and organized criminals stealing high value assets were deemed among the most likely spoofing scenarios in a recent presentation by Fugro. Discussing "the world of spoofing," as part of a presentation to...
Budget Spoofers and iPhone6 – Septentrio
In a recent presentation, Septentrio provided an excellent overview of GNSS jamming and spoofing issues. Of particular interest to us was their discussion of "budget spoofing." It was a clear explanation of how spoofing GNSS has dropped in price and complexity to...
Haste and Consequence in Regulation: The Cautionary Tale of Ligado Networks – Bloomberg Law
Blog Editor's Note: There are really two areas of concern with Ligado's proposal pending before the FCC. The first is the technical analysis. Ligado claims that their proposal will not significantly impact GPS services. Others say it will - a lot. We expect to see...
GPS Spoofing A Growing Problem for Uber – Solid Driver
Blog Editor's Note: We have seen an increasing number of reports of drivers for taxi and ride-sharing services spoofing GPS/GNSS in order to increase the amount of work they get. See this item about Grab drivers, for example. There have even been reports from Russia...
“Interference will always be a problem for GNSS users” – Novatel
Novatel provided an excellent presentation that highlighted the attributes of its Interference Tool Kit (ITK) at the Dutch Institute for Navigation workshop on the 31st of January. One of their observations was that "interference will always be a problem for GNSS...
SPOOF, JAM, DESTROY: WHY WE NEED A BACKUP FOR GPS – Wired
Blog Editor's Note: An interesting overview article by Wired. It briefly discusses Satelles, which could be a good complement for GPS (though perhaps not a backup) and DARPA's STOIC efforts. We have always had mixed feelings about STOIC and other "signals of...
Dozens of Jammers at Amsterdam Office Every Day – Dutch Aerospace Center
The Dutch Aerospace Center (NLR) office in Amsterdam detects numerous GNSS jammers passing by every day. On the 31st of January the Dutch Institute for Navigation hosted a workshop on GNSS interference. NLR provided an excellent overview presentation describing the...
FCC must act to avoid a grave threat to GPS – The Hill
Blog Editor's Note: The three authors of this opinion piece are among the most qualified in the world to opine on this issue. Similar recommendations to these were made by the President's National PNT Advisory Board in 2017. FCC must act to avoid a grave threat to GPS...
‘Holistic thinking such as eLoran needed to protect space assets’ – Testimony at National Space Council
Vice President Pence chaired the second meeting of the National Space Council last week at the Kennedy Space Center. During the meeting the Hon. Kirstjen Nielson, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, asked a panel what could be done to incentivize...
DHS Looking for GPS Complementary and Backup Systems
Blog Editor's Note: This is the most recent of several requests for information (RFIs) that the federal government has issued on this topic in the last few years. While the title says "Alternative Technologies" the text states the goal as "complementary and backup...
Why Russia is one step ahead of US Army’s plans for future GPS – GPS Daily
Blog Editor's Note: We don't normally give space here to Russian propaganda, but this piece, re-posted by GPS Daily from Sputnik News, is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the Russians have spent a good part of the last 12 months demonstrating how they can defeat...
UK Government Supporting eLoran – Maritime Journal
Blog Editor's Note: Since we first reported on this, we have come to learn that the GPS backup issue in the UK is being lead by the Cabinet Office - the UK's equivalent of the White House. The GPS backup effort in the US is at the agency level. Recommendations need to...
Detecting and Defeating GPS Signal Jamming – Maritime Executive
Blog Editor's Note: A good overview article by Sean McCrystal at Orolia about the need for resilient PNT. Orolia has been positioning itself as a resilient PNT provider for several years. We understand that some of it's Spectracom brand products have the ability to...
Blog
Vulnerable GPSs on Israeli Army weapons could mean three-year delay – Danish Public Broadcasting
Image: Shutterstock What's new: Denmark bought weapons from Israel that have "civil" GPS built in. So, no M-code. Why it's important: Electronic warfare can easily and greatly degrade the effectiveness of such weapons, as the Russians have demonstrated in Ukraine....
Senators want DHS to detail efforts to mitigate GPS disruptions – NextGov/FCW
Image: Shutterstock What's new: The Senate Homeland Security Committee becoming interested in the topic. Why it's important: DHS has a role to play, even if they are not a co-chair of the national executive committee. See SPD-7. What else to know: DHS has done some...
How Diplomacy Can Save GPS – Global Security Review
Image: Shutterstock What's new: The idea that since increasing interference looks to continue, every nation will be driven to have some level of sovereign PNT capability that is independent of but can cooperate with GNSS. Expediting that process through international...
Dead reckoning: experts warn of looming threat to nation’s GPS – InvestigateTV
Image: InvestigateTV What's new: Coverage of the issue by Gray Media which owns 113 TV stations (which all have news rooms) across the US. Why it's important: One way to improve awareness among senior leaders who can fix the problem is by educating the public. What...