Power grid, mobile or military radio-many systems today rely heavily on GPS signals. This interference may have dangerous consequences.
Recently at Newark Liberty International Airport (Newark Liberty International Airport): A newly installed GPS assist system was designed to help pilots land commercial aircraft in inclement weather. Although the technology did not show any errors, it failed twice a day. As reported by the US trade magazine New Scientist, the airport administration only discovered the error a few months later: it was a truck driver driving a GPS jammer on the highway because he wanted to save on tolls charged by GPS. The use of such devices for fee fraud is clearly beyond the scope of legality, but it is still very easy and cheap to buy them.
Mail-order sellers sell these devices for more than $20, and the driver only needs to plug them into the vehicle’s 12-volt cigarette lighter socket to operate. Electronic enthusiasts will find all the parts for making this device in their digging box. The interference of GPS signals is so good because they reach the surface of the earth extremely weakly. Each satellite emits 100 watts of power at a distance of about 20,000 kilometers. It’s like the megaphone announcement of the whole city.
Once someone opens their mouth, like an audio jamming transmitter next to the receiving ear, you will never hear it again. As little as one watt or two watts of transmit power is enough to cause the small buzzing of GPS to often cause confusion, which is beyond the expected range.
The sensitivity of GPS can be seen from the fact that it will be strong in strong solar wind and may blacken the entire continent; or a poorly shielded FM radio (tuned to the correct frequency) will simultaneously receive GPS signals from the following locations : Driving a car is blocked.
GPS tracker may interfere with the receiver
In addition to the charging fraud described, there are other typical reasons that interfere with nearby GPS receivers. For example, there are many automatic vehicle tracker providers, some of which are used for fleet management, but mainly for theft tracking. The small battery box can be installed concealedly, and its current location is sent to the provider’s central tracking computer at a set time interval through the mobile network.
This equipment has been the standard configuration of yachts for many years. Thieves usually turn off this device regularly. Police authorities also use small GPS trackers to monitor people, which they secretly attach to the vehicles to be tracked. Finally, some control freaks will electronically force monitoring of their life partners. We tend to see the only legitimate reason for GPS interference here, although the relationship to electronic warfare may be broken anyway.
Another more common trace is not shouting but forged GPS signals. To this end, the scammer will send slightly changed GPS timestamps on the original frequency and increase the signal strength, because based on these timestamps, the receiver usually triangulates according to its position relative to the satellite: when it arrives , Which signal arrives from which satellite which transmits the timestamp? The receiver determines the distance to the satellite from the moment the signal propagates. Their positions are known, so the distance between them translates into a clear position.
With certain expertise, GPS devices may be misled by wrong timestamps. For cars, this may sound complicated, but it can lead to potentially very profitable coups by Somali pirates and even hijackers. Because as a society, we are accustomed to the continuous availability of GPS, so we take it for granted. The alternative navigation function is getting worse.
This can be checked in normal road traffic, because when ordinary people drive through bushes, because “the navigation system says I should”. This can also be seen in civil servants. Anyone who has ever navigated a ship on a GPS chartplotter will immediately want to know how they can navigate in different ways, and after only a while they usually cannot complete the navigation correctly.
GPS interference can also affect other systems
In addition to human problems, other systems are also poorly constructed. To all the crew’s surprise, in a test conducted by David Last, a British consultant and former member of the Royal Nautical Society, he found that gps blocker could not disable radar and gyroscopes because of two types of GPS. The system is increasing. accurate.
In addition, satellite communication also failed because its directional antenna also relied on GPS. In all three cases, this is a very bad design, because in the case of GPS failure, the device may automatically revert to a function that GPS cannot correct. The designer obviously never thought that the GPS frequency might be blocked.
Of course, this careless assumption runs through many everyday technologies. In fact, many of them actually only use the exact time of satellite atomic clocks, such as time stamps for financial transactions. Today, many of these systems are extremely susceptible to the simplest failures. This can be solved by a ground antenna system that works similarly to GPS, but it emits longer waves with higher signal strength. However, we are more likely to wait and hope that nothing will happen.
As the related EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) example shows, actions must be taken to truly threaten oneself. A relatively simple method can be used to generate strong pulses that destroy the microstructure of our ubiquitous semiconductors.
For example, such equipment can be made from old microwaves. Hobbyists are currently using pulse generators (they are made up of the flash coils of small cameras) to destroy the RFID chip in the new electronic ID card. However, it is still valid as a status document. Our civilian infrastructure is largely unprotected against EMP. However, the knowledge on the subject is extensive.
Even the army is not fully prepared
With enough criminal energy, the corresponding elements can make medical equipment, all vehicles (including armored vehicles), all communication technologies, consumer electronics, computers or server farms very quiet or useless in a quiet environment. A small area around a device of sufficient size. As the U.S. EMP Committee criticized in the investigation commissioned by the government in 2008, even the military did not adequately prepare for EMP.
During the Cold War, the situation was very different. At that time, another evil superpower was still expected to throw an atomic bomb at you, and the side effect of the atomic bomb exploding in the earth’s magnetic field was still EMP.
There are strict regulations on how to protect electronic equipment or where it is not practical (for example, antenna receivers are difficult to fix), and there are well-trained exercises to quickly replace the system. damaged. The specially designed non-nuclear PEM weapons that have existed since the 1950s are also part of the threat scenario. Because electromagnetic pulses are very selective weapons.
It will not harm anyone (except those with a pacemaker), it will not damage the building, it will not damage the infrastructure, it will only make the electronic equipment useless. Those who don’t want to bomb their opponents on the lunar landscape, but want to occupy something, by the way, to this day. Researchers in China and Russia are studying atomic bombs, which may hit the safest military electronic equipment with particularly destructive “super EMP”.
This invisible danger can be avoided effortlessly. For example, a GPS jammer will display its own location through its signal. In times of war, therefore, the jammed missile will simply switch to the source of the jamming signal. The police can do this in a more peaceful environment; it can check the source of the interfering signal, thereby quickly sending appropriate social sanctions to GPS sanctioners.
If there is a risk of paying the cost of airport downtime, truck drivers may be more willing to pay tolls. After all, the growing popularity of GPS moyin may have some benefits. It makes us realize how fragile our technology is and how good our daily electronic wallpapers are-without the immediate cold war.