GPS is easy to disrupt with serious consequences

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Now, in the December 2019 issue of Scientific American, there's a report 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.

The potential scenarios the author, Paul Tullis, describes are far more serious than the instances of GPS spoofing we’ve seen so far. (I had mentioned the Russian manipulation in a different thread earlier this year.)
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.

Scientific American: GPS Is Easy To Hack, And The U.S. Has No Backup

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@Walter Hinteler,

Well, that was certainly comforting...

...no it wasn't!

It was informative though. Appreciate your placing it here, Walter.

The U.S. having no backup, does not surprise me, in the least (sadly).

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@Walter Hinteler,

we disassembled our LORAN systems yers ago. My association after teaching was with a geophysical company that had several contracts in taking down the LORAN C on the Aleutians through Canada

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@farmerman,

When I was working as a navigator, I didn't like LORAN but mainly used the Decca Navigator System, but generally relied on normal ("analogue") terrestrial navigation methods. (Our radia direction finder was an excellent source for music during night watch.)

Here, in Europe, we've got now the NELS - the Civil Northwest European Loran-C System.
Loran-C can be used to broadcast DGNSS corrections, integrity
messages and other data. This service is called Eurofix and NELS has implemented Eurofix on four stations (Eurofix Feasibility Phase).

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@Walter Hinteler,

is the LoRAN corrected by comparing to known ground stations??

Our LORAN C could never be used for weapons because its accuracy was about +/- 30 Km.

Im not familiar with LORAN e , (Ive gotten so damned dependent on GPS and plotters)

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@farmerman,

FWIW, there was a Chinese national who was a US citizen and trained at MIT he was one of our leaders in celestial navigation (new tech). He defected in 2014 and tried to take all his data and notes of the NAV that would be employed in the MARS 2025 launches. His knowledge of new generation nav could be used by the Chinese to disable and override our present systems (there was a discussion about it today on CBC)

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@farmerman,

There's a pdf-report about it LORAN/EUROFIX/EGNOS Integration Test & Validation Programme - Concept and First Results

I remember that we had had done some tests on and with our boat in 1970, with an accuracy of -often- less than 10 metres.
It wasn't LORAN, more similar to DECCA if I remember correctly.

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@Walter Hinteler,

thanks, I see the basis now. Sorta like what we us to refin our survey GPS using a WAAS system. That will give us a sub cm accuracy.

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@farmerman,

Read that article. Makes me nervous. I use gps to find my way to the grocery store. If it was taken down I would probably starve.

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@RABEL222,

I read it, Im still trying to translate all the tech jargon. We use WAAS and LAAS (Wide Area and Local Area Augmentation), which uses fixed base stations that triangulate by instrument, to sharpen our survey level GPS,(and plane landings).

I still dont know all the EU terms.
Thats the trubble with techy stuff, you have to spend time llearning the language and there is usuallyno effort to present it in plain language

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GPS is easy to disrupt with serious consequences

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