GPS jamming: a clear and present reality

Paul Marks, senior technology correspondent

(Image: Torsten Blackwood/AFP/Getty Images)A secret network of 20 roadside listening stations across the UK has confirmed that criminals are attempting to jam GPS signals on a regular basis, a conference at the National Physical Laboratory, in London, will hear later today.?Set up by the government's Technology Strategy Board (TSB) and run by Chronos Technology of the Forest of Dean, UK, the Sentinel network has sensed an average of ten jamming incidents per month since September 2011, according to Chronos chief Charles Curry.?

Details on the incidents are scant as Sentinel is still evaluating the causes, but at least one jamming device has been seized. Oddly, more than one person appears to be responsible for the jamming at some locations: Chronos is trying to differentiate between different jammers to give "a better idea of how many individuals at a particular location are jamming GPS". Vigilantes could be one source: a major problem with GPS is the way some small villages and towns suffer visits from dangerously outsized trucks - which often get stuck in tiny streets - attempting to follow satnav-advised shortcuts. So it is possible locals are placing jammers to prevent drivers' antisocial behaviour.

The GPS signal is weak and easily jammed - it's radiation is only as intense as a car headlight shining from 20,000 kilometres away. Hundreds of online vendors illegally sell jamming equipment online yet at the same time the GPS signal has fast become critical national infrastructure. In addition to location services via satnavs, the atomic clocks aboard the satellites are used to provide crucial timing signals for systems as diverse as cellphone towers and banking systems - and without GPS they fall over.That's why it's no surprise that a US company called LightSquared, which wanted to run a 4G cellphone service very near to the GPS frequencies,?has been barred from doing so?by the Federal Communications Commission. It could not demonstrate that its technology could steer clear of GPS signals that stray from its alloted bandwidth.?The conference will also hear about how the GPS signal can be spoofed so that satnavs are lured in the wrong direction. You can see videos of how spoofing works over at the University of Texas. Spoofers could become the latterday equivalent of wreckers who used to make false lights to draw ships onto the rocks. The General Lighthouse Authorities, for instance, suspect that ships are now so dependent on GPS that in the world's busiest sealane - the English Channel - they confidently expect "an incident" due to GPS failure, jamming or spoofing in the next decade.

"The question for the authorities is what we are going to do once the owners of jammers are identified and how can we prevent others using them," says Curry.

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/1cd77fad/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Conepercent0C20A120C0A20Cgps0Ejamming0Ea0Eclear0Eand0Epresen0Bhtml0DDCMP0FOTC0Erss0Gnsref0Fonline0Enews/story01.htm

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