The most common way for the world to intersect the geographic area is through GPS-enabled positioning technology and other GNSS, which support and support global transportation, communication and logistics. Unless we expect navigation to be accurate and easy to use, this part of our invisible infrastructure will be deeply embedded in our daily lives in ways we would not normally expect. Undermine the reliability of the system? Play GPS? You fight with words.
Even then, it will happen and more. The 30 or so GPS satellites themselves are not as susceptible to interference as the signals they send and the equipment that receives them. For example, it seems like a good idea to create a quiet area by blocking incoming calls, messages and WiFi in a certain area. However, if you interfere with these signals, many other systems (such as GPS) will face collateral risks. It is illegal to own, sell, or use cell phone jammers in the United States, but not in many other places. These devices themselves are mass-produced in China and elsewhere, and their low cost (about $100 or less) makes them more attractive to attractive people. As long as there is a willingness, people have the opportunity to obtain and use it.
Signal jammers are a simple but less elegant method of GPS Jammers signals. Its more complex and complex cousin GPS spoofing is becoming easier and easier to use both technically and financially. Spoofing sends a fake signal to a GPS receiver, which mimics the signal sent by a real satellite. The weak signal strength of these false signals has been a problem in the past, but new technology has made the signal strong enough-more similar to the real world-and the receiver may also start to select the wrong signal. Follow the truth. David Last, the former dean of the Royal Nautical Institute, recently stated: “A jammer will kill the receiver, and deception will kill the receiver.”
Todd Humphries, an engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin, explained this well in his 2012 TEDx talk. In the video, he shared how he made a picture of flashing small blue dots on the phone map-the universal symbol of the “You are here” symbol-and the block away from him and his hometown, the phone actually stood still. Since then, he and his research team have done more than just these simple family demonstrations. In 2013, they tested their deception technology on a 200-foot yacht in the Mediterranean (with the full cooperation and awareness of the crew), and digitally manipulated the ship to adjust its course as a “correction” that was actually completely misguided.
Larger ships are also susceptible to such manipulations. In 2017, a tanker in the Black Sea used its navigation system to indicate that it was suddenly in a completely different and unlikely location: an airport 30 kilometers from its actual location on the sea. A total of about 20 ships were affected by this temporary attack, which is believed to be the Russians trying to adopt new methods to deal with cybersecurity violations. GPS signals are often blocked in the area near the Moscow Kremlin, but the Black Sea issue has been the largest known and successful deception so far.
The intentions of some GPS scammers are more harmless, such as those who try to mislead their Pokémon GO players by wrong movement. However, in reality, these skills do more harm than good. Curtis Zeng of Virginia Tech and his colleagues managed to break the barrier further by creating a successful deception system (costing only a few hundred dollars). Using this cheap system, they were able to insert the wrong signal into the navigation route, which the volunteers followed in a simulated driving situation. The attacker does not change the original target, but manipulates the user’s real-time location on the map (now the “ghost” location). The navigation system recalculates a false virtual route from the phantom location to the original destination, which is physically feasible for the user to travel in the real world. Ideally, this would not trigger a “recalculation” warning, depending on whether the phantom position is on or on the original navigation route. The driver continued to follow the navigation instructions, but was actually on the new route planned by the attacker.
To make matters more difficult, Zeng and his colleagues managed to swap the wrong card layout to keep the driver dark. With these “ghost cards”, almost all drivers in the study naively followed optimized instructions to reach the wrong destination. Zeng: “Users tend to rely heavily on navigation systems in unfamiliar areas, rather than learning old-fashioned maps and planning routes in advance. For them, it is (already) difficult to drive, follow navigation instructions and check the surrounding environment at the same time. In addition, Few users understand how navigation systems work and how hackers manipulate them. Many users have also noticed short-lived navigation failures in real life so that you are not warned by “quick prompts” in the system (if changes are made) .”
Tech-savvy people are looking for solutions for shameful reasons. Other tech-savvy people are trying to stop them, or at least give us more opportunities for better results. A group of Irish electrical engineers recently documented how they successfully acquired fake multi-frequency GPS signals using cheap and easily available equipment to indicate the possibility (multi-frequency is considered unreachable) and keep the conversation active. Overestimating and underestimating the opponent’s abilities are counterproductive activities.
Researchers, the public sector and the federal government are trying different strategies and strategies to solve these problems. Some of these have in common that the entire navigation system is less dependent on GPS signals and related time stamps. These atomic clock-enabled timestamps are considered so reliable that they can be used in countless processes. At Clemson University, engineers are experimenting with a technique that periodically samples real GPS signals and flags them to confirm their validity. The devices of other users can automatically compare the devices issued by Clemson with the devices that collected their devices. This will not prevent spoofing from happening, but will alert the end user when the end user’s signal is threatened. At the same time, other researchers are taking further measures and developing methods to correct the damaged signal. If the GPS signal is found to be irregular, other methods used by private companies are to prepare the navigation system to receive signals from alternative sensors such as cellular networks or commercial satellites. These different strategies do not seem to be coordinated, but one organization focused on this issue is the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, which handles many global fronts. One method pursued by private companies is that if the GPS signal is found to be irregular, the navigation system is ready to receive signals from other sensors, such as cellular networks or commercial satellites. These different strategies do not seem to be coordinated, but one organization focused on this issue is the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, which handles many global fronts. One method pursued by private companies is that if the GPS signal is found to be irregular, the navigation system is ready to receive signals from other sensors, such as cellular networks or commercial satellites. These different strategies do not seem to be coordinated, but one organization focused on this issue is the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation, which handles many global fronts.
The jammers and deceptions we face can be successfully accomplished by small actors who build cheap equipment in their basements and large actors with stronger funds and expertise. These experts may work for foreign governments. Indeed, this is part of a larger problem: the overall GPS system has too little redundancy, and too many potential leaks to resolve quickly. One method to follow is to simply add more GPS satellites to the collection as quickly as possible and produce new receivers with as many cyber security countermeasures as possible. We celebrate the adoption of an open GPS system, which provides us with a novel and independent way of using location-based goods and services,