GPS jammers and spoofers threaten infrastructure, say researchers
By Sean Gallaghe
During the GNSS Vulnerability 2012 event at the UK's National Physical Laboratory on Wednesday, experts discussed the threat posed by a growing number of GPS jamming and spoofing devices. The increasing popularity of the jammers is troubling, according to conference organizer Bob Cockshott, because even low-power GPS jammers pose a significant threat to cell phone systems, parts of the electrical grid, and the safety of drivers.
Since cell phone towers and some electrical grid systems use GPS signals for time-keeping, GPS jamming can throw them off and cause outages. "We're seeing a large number of low power devices which plug into power sockets in a car," Cockshott told Ars. "These devices take out the GPS tracker in the vehicle, but they also create a 'bubble' of interference, sometimes out to up to 100 yards. They're illegal, so their quality control is generally not good."
There has also been an emerging threat from more powerful GPS "spoofing" systems, according to Cockshott, who is also the director of Position, Navigation and Timing technology for the UK's ICT Knowledge Transfer Network. GPS spoofing attacks can provide both inaccurate location and time information, potentially creating much larger problems than a dropped call. "There have been incidents where trucks carrying high value goods have been hijacked," he said, "where GPS and cell phones have been blocked."
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The article mentions "Spoofing" several times, but there are no citations of actual spoofing incidents, only of GPS jamming. GPS Spoofing, if it's possible, would be orders-of-magnitude harder to do than jamming.
As for GPS jamming, I'm tempted to say "What did you expect?", but I'm old enough to know that it's not that simple. Large trucking firms are always seeking efficiencies, and the mid-level managers who make buying decisions (for the "Tattler" GPS systems that are installed on trucks) are under constant scrutiny by their superiors, and live in a world where they are expected to have an explanation ready for every possible delay, breakdown, gas-price increase, and flat tire: I think they are jealous of the relative freedom they think the drivers enjoy, and compensate by trying to keep the drivers under an electronic thumb.
The truck drivers, who are in a world where their doctors lecture them about weight, and their wives about long absences, and where they must balance their boss' demands for "More!" against government regulations concerning speed and rest, are the kind of people who like being competent, dependable, and alone. The intrusion of GPS trackers into their world could be the subject of a doctoral dissertation: suffice to say that we all know you can't treat people like cattle.
Bill Horne Moderator