16 votes

The world economy runs on GPS. It needs a backup plan

3 comments

  1. Pilgrim
    Link

    Over the next 11 hours, cellphone towers lost their connections, U.S. police and fire stations reported communications errors, BBC radio signals were interrupted, and the telescope that tracks asteroids in Earth’s orbit went offline.

    The root cause was a bug in the GPS network. When the U.S. Air Force, which operates the 31 satellites, decommissioned an older one and zeroed out its database values, it accidentally introduced tiny errors into the database, skewing the numbers. By the time Buckner’s inbox started blowing up, several satellites were transmitting bad timing data, running slow by 13.7 millionths of a second.

    Along with the telecommunications industry, banks, airlines, electric utilities, cloud computing businesses, and TV broadcasters require constantly precise GPS timing. Emergency services do, too, as do military forces. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has designated 16 sectors of infrastructure as “critical,” and 14 of them depend on GPS.

    4 votes
  2. [2]
    unknown user
    Link
    Does anyone know what this is talking about? I'd be interested to know what methods are being investigated to avoid GPS spoofing.

    But [the GPS 3 satellites] still lack the two strongest antispoofing technologies on the market, both essentially extra layers of security to detect attacks and prove signals and navigation messages are legit.

    Does anyone know what this is talking about? I'd be interested to know what methods are being investigated to avoid GPS spoofing.

    3 votes
    1. Pilgrim
      Link Parent
      Great question! I do not know but found this that I thought was interesting: From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoofing_attack#Preventing_GPS_spoofing

      Great question! I do not know but found this that I thought was interesting:

      From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoofing_attack#Preventing_GPS_spoofing

      There are different ways to prevent GPS spoofing. The Department of Homeland Security, in collaboration with the National Cybersecurity and Communications Integration Center (NCCIC) and the National Coordinating Center for Communications (NCC), released a paper which lists methods to prevent this type of spoofing. Some of the most important and most recommended to use are:[13]

      Obscure antennas. Install antennas where they are not visible from publicly accessible locations or obscure their exact locations by introducing impediments to hide the antennas.
      Add a sensor/blocker. Sensors can detect characteristics of interference, jamming, and spoofing signals, provide local indication of an attack or anomalous condition, communicate alerts to a remote monitoring site, and collect and report data to be analyzed for forensic purposes[1].
      Extend data spoofing whitelists to sensors. Existing data spoofing whitelists have been and are being implemented in government reference software, and should also be implemented in sensors.
      Use more GPS signal types. Modernized civil GPS signals are more robust than the L1 signal and should be leveraged for increased resistance to interference, jamming, and spoofing.
      Reduce latency in recognition and reporting of interference, jamming, and spoofing. If a receiver is misled by an attack before the attack is recognized and reported, then backup devices may be corrupted by the receiver before hand over.

      These installation and operation strategies and development opportunities described herein can significantly enhance the ability of GNSS receivers and associated equipment to defend against a range of interference, jamming, and spoofing attacks.

      2 votes