War may effect wardrivers...

[murakami]

follow-up

Well, the signal was not degraded and in fact it was selectively improved over the middle east according to this article

There is a brief description on how this was done for all interested.

[blackwave]

update: well the war is well underway... no significant changes in the degradation of gps accuracy... though the war isn't over yet, we are currently at orange [high] (http://www.homelandsecurity.com/modu...eat&file=index)





though the war isn't over yet, and who knows wtf would happen if the condition changed to severe...

let's just hope we never have to see this:

[murakami]

I once had an interesting discussion with a satellite guy. He said that lauching a ton of gravel in the orbital paths of geosynchronous comm and gps sats could take out significant chunk of the infrastructure and it would take years to recover. I believe China, France, India, and Russia have this capability.

[blackwave]

more rumors to spread like butter on bread!

US to disrupt GPS, satellite comms in Gulf?
http://www.securityfocus.com/news/3231

Re: Re: Re: Re: yup...

Originally posted by murakami
radius

Yes, it is a rumor, but people like to get scared about anything that one person says..

[murakami]

Re: Re: Re: yup...

Originally posted by KeLviN
is that deiameter or radius?

just curious.........

radius

[KeLviN]

Re: Re: yup...

Originally posted by murakami

An the effective resolution of the consumer grade GPS is 15 meters, not 3 meters. [/B]

is that deiameter or radius?

just curious.........

[murakami]

Re: yup...

Originally posted by blackwave
I just read on the kismet mailing list they are degrading the gps signal to be accurate up to 100m, (from 3m)...

Its a fuckin rumor and total BS!

Read the article ...

The summary is basically bimmer owners fear that they can't find their local beer hall because they think that the DOD might turn on Selective Availability. Fucking old Europe!

An the effective resolution of the consumer grade GPS is 15 meters, not 3 meters.

[blackwave]

yup...

I just read on the kismet mailing list they are degrading the gps signal to be accurate up to 100m, (from 3m)...

http://www.spacedaily.com/2003/03031....7p1uva5u.html

Looks like they'll be degrading the GPS accuracy to 100m (instead of 3m)
Bad for wardriving, but in theory if your GPS has WAAS you'll get the
standard accuracy from the ground towers.


http://www.kismetwireless.net/archive.php?mss:3939:oabhpaidcpeipncfokkk

[astcell]

You'd sooner get better use out of Hussein than Compaq.

[Cyb3RSoldi3R]

Just a quick question, does anyone else find it funny that BW spells Iraq the same way as iPAQ?

[simple3]

Originally posted by astcell
If the US tweaks the GPS readings, then why would the bad guys not just go on a White House tour and measure the false readings? Then input those to a warhead...the coordinates may be wrong but they'd match the final location. Now if the skew was constantly changing then that'd work I suppose.

That's exactly how dgps works, though automagically.

--simple3

[MrYowler]

Simplicity...

I concur with the simplicity argument. Any idiot with a mortar mounted in the back of a pickup truck could probably bomb the hell out of the California State Capitol building, from about a mile away, in McKinley Park, for at least 15 minutes, or so, at nighttime, before authorities got wise to where the attack was coming from. It does not have to kill anyone, or hurt anyone, or even do any significant damage, to effectively shut down business in the State capitol, for probably a week or more, and cost an enormous amount of money while the State installs privacy-invasive countermeasures all over central Sacramento. The terror effect would be considerable, and the cost would be far greater, to defend against this type of attack, than the cost of implementing it - and this is the standard by which the success of guerrilla warfare is measured.

All of this, ignoring the devastating effect that the resulting countermeasures would have on the freedom and privacy of people who live and work in the Sacramento area, and throughout California; it's worth noting that it is the erosion of our way of life that the terrorists typically seek to achieve, and every time that we have one of these attacks, and the subsequent knee-jerk reaction, we give them exactly what they want, on a silver platter.

Finally, the would-be terrorist is within one block of a major freeway - so escape takes mere seconds, so long as the authorities have not yet arrived at the scene to determine what vehicle to chase. At a rate of one launch, every 15 seconds, for five minutes, the attacker could fire 20 mortar rounds into downtown, with ease - if he planned his attack, with this in mind, he could complete the attack in his allotted five minutes, and easily have ten minutes to disappear, while the authorities rounded themselves up to react. Here again, accuracy is not important, since damage to surrounding business infrastructure is just as effective in eliciting the desired reaction, as actually caving in the Capitol building dome. What the attacker really wants, is widespread effect, so as to make a large cross-section of people - preferably influential people, but anyone will do, in a pinch - feel unsafe. That buys him the knee-jerk response that the attacker is looking for...

An attack on the White House, or any other target, does not have to be successful, in order to have the desired result - it merely needs to give the public the perception that it *might have been* successful.

In terms relevant to the example given; there is no need to ship in, and assemble, a high-tech attack aircraft - every corner toy and hobby store sells radio-controlled planes for just a few hundred dollars. Strap your shit to one of these, and guide it in by radio - much more accurate, reliable, cheap, and logistically sound - and do you seriously think that anyone would have the slightest idea what you were doing, to stop you, before you achieved your goal? Sure, the FCC has equipment to track your transmitter - but they don't know which signal is yours, immediately, nor are the vans carrying the equipment likely to be deployed and manned, and close enough to find and stop you in time. Hell, by the time that they figure it all out, you've blown up your target and been gone for hours. You're riding the Amtrack to Vancouver, where you catch a bus into Canada, and fly to Europe from Ontario, changing planes to your destination in India. There, you have a car waiting to take you back to Iraq, via Jordan...

I just made that entire scenario up, on the spot, out of my head. Imagine how much better the plan is, that the real terrorist comes up with, having had weeks, months, or years to think about it, in advance... :-/

Simple works best...

[murakami]

Originally posted by blackwave
it is understood from past behavior that "terrorists" often find a cheap method to cause damage; the side effect being suicide for running into a building strapped with explosives... though with these public reports of these teched out drones being detected coming via ships and being assembled by terrorists already on US soil, what consideration is there that terrorists might take a different technological approach to attacking the US from within?... and finally what measures would the US do to protect its citizens if any. It is said these drones rely on GPS to reach their targets. Is this just going to be ignored as an "oh well, that is what collelateral damage is about"?... of course this is based from the premise of these public reports being true (which is plainly nonsensical as to why the US would allow these things to visibly be shipped into the US)... I find it interesting that if such needs were to be taken not only would the terrorists be hindered, but so would the citizens since you mentioned that GPS is obviously a shared resource for the daily infrastructure... and surely this must have been thought of before in some large thinktank... is it simply said that this information is being withheld so no counter measures are taken?... no need to answer any of these questions, it is all rhetoric anyway... feel free to comment though.

You make an interesting point, but the history of the IRA shows that simple things work the best. Bringing and assembling drones then having them fly automatically to their target is technically possible, but execution would probably require a high degree of very sophisticated hands-on. Futhermore, there are other GPS constellations such as GLONASS that are also available. SA doesn't really help ammeliorate such an unlikely threat. It probably is more of hindrance.

In the unlikely occurence that GPS satellites get switched off or SA gets switched on, it is because there is very specific chatter. Kinda like the missile batteries around the Lincoln Memorial.

[blackwave]

Originally posted by murakami
There are too many things dependent on commercial GPS frequencies: logistics, general aviation, even things like providing a time signal to earthquake monitoring stations use GPS. There really isn't a compelling usecase for turning on when we know that low or no tech terrorist actions can accomplish the same goals. Macveigh didn't need a GPS.

it is understood from past behavior that "terrorists" often find a cheap method to cause damage; the side effect being suicide for running into a building strapped with explosives... though with these public reports of these teched out drones being detected coming via ships and being assembled by terrorists already on US soil, what consideration is there that terrorists might take a different technological approach to attacking the US from within?... and finally what measures would the US do to protect its citizens if any. It is said these drones rely on GPS to reach their targets. Is this just going to be ignored as an "oh well, that is what collelateral damage is about"?... of course this is based from the premise of these public reports being true (which is plainly nonsensical as to why the US would allow these things to visibly be shipped into the US)... I find it interesting that if such needs were to be taken not only would the terrorists be hindered, but so would the citizens since you mentioned that GPS is obviously a shared resource for the daily infrastructure... and surely this must have been thought of before in some large thinktank... is it simply said that this information is being withheld so no counter measures are taken?... no need to answer any of these questions, it is all rhetoric anyway... feel free to comment though.