It feels like we are on the tipping point of a total technology collapse. Newspapers are publishing AI hallucinated news and don't understand why their editors aren't catching it. GPS and mobile communications are subject to jamming/spoofing. Public utilities are subject to hacking. Air traffic control is teetering on the edge of a cliff. And our best technical minds are working on keeping teenagers addicted to 15 second dopamine hits.
joe_guy 9 minutes ago [-]
> Newspapers are publishing AI hallucinated news
Is there an example of a reputable (subjective, sure) news source having done this?
catastrophic thinking is a mental state.. what you say is true but not new to many.. constructive engagement is called for in this age of precision and network
lifestyleguru 14 minutes ago [-]
The reason is that everything is nearshored and outsourced, where starting from age 35 they stop responding to your CV. Then everyone are hired on some form of "1 person company" B2B basis where software professional has no power to push back.
gibibit 18 minutes ago [-]
"A single 1-kW jammer can take down GPS for a 300-nm radius.[...] A CRPA can shrink the effective radius of the 1-kW jammer to 3 nm. The jammer’s area of effectiveness is slashed from 280,000 m² to 28 m²."
An example of the kind of unit confusion that could crash a Mars orbiter?
I thought we were talking about nanometers and square meters here for a second. But this only makes sense if "m²" means square miles and "nm" means nautical miles. How about at least using "mi" for miles to reduce confusion?
lbourdages 9 minutes ago [-]
Well, nautical miles are the standard unit in the context of aviation, so I don't think it's all that bad. "mi" refers to a different unit.
gibibit 7 minutes ago [-]
True, "nm" initially seemed to be nautical miles, but then this square meters thing appeared. The point is that "m" should be meters, but "mi" would be a more customary abbreviation for miles in the U.S.
SAI_Peregrinus 12 minutes ago [-]
Agreed, though there's a space between the number & the unit which generally indicates non-SI units (SI should never have a space). The switch from nautical to statute miles is still really weird though.
fenced_load 9 minutes ago [-]
Are you sure? NIST says there should be a space:
> There is a space between the numerical value and unit symbol, even when the value is used in an adjectival sense, except in the case of superscript units for plane angle.
mile and nautical mile are not the same so it still doesn't make any sense
upofadown 4 minutes ago [-]
>One of the deadliest GPS L1 civil signal interference events occurred on Dec. 25. On that date, Azerbaijan Airlines Flight 8243, an Embraer 190, was lured off course while enroute from Baku, Azerbaijan, to Grozny, Russia.
I am not seeing anything about that in the Wikipedia article:
It sounds like the GPS was jammed, not spoofed. The aircraft had already shot some missed approaches at the destination airport before the event that caused the loss of the aircraft.
geerlingguy 8 minutes ago [-]
GPS jamming is certainly a fun problem to deal with... I've been getting into GPS for timing data, and especially if you're building a global network or coordinated system using GPS as the time source, you have to account for it if you care at all about time stability.
Apparently (I haven't had this happen personally, yet) many truckers install GPS jamming cigarette lighter accessories in their trucks when they want to mask their location from trucking companies that track them everywhere. That can wreak havoc on GPS receivers at facilities, especially if you have, say, a logistics building right next to a datacenter.
plandis 23 minutes ago [-]
For anyone as confused as I was, this article uses nm to mean nautical miles not nanometers.
geerlingguy 11 minutes ago [-]
Oof, especially regarding GPS, nm (nanometer) and ns (nanosecond) are frequently used units of measurement. Nautical miles seems like it'd be more of a seafaring term?
rlpb 45 seconds ago [-]
Aeronautical navigation also uses nautical miles. And as the article says: "A quarter century ago, the primary use for GPS was aviation and marine navigation".
jajko 2 minutes ago [-]
Its an US article, dont expect much. Anything but metric system is the mantra and people's egos won't allow any change
lukan 23 minutes ago [-]
"GPS is falling behind Galileo and Beidou as the preeminent GNSS"
I remember, that Galileo went offline a few years ago for some days - and the joke was, no one noticed. So possible that today they are more regular users and possible that there are some advanced features of Galileo like the mentioned
"Galileo’s open service (civil-access) E1 signal incorporates public/private key encryption to digitally sign and authentify data"
But I think GPS falling behind Galileo would imply a bit more Galileo users, compared to GPS. Which would surprise me.
beastcatdog 19 minutes ago [-]
They introduced a few useful features that are unique and decided to offer them for free.
Like HAS (30cm precision after some integration time. Without additional correction data) and cryptographic verification of the transmitted GNSS data.
londons_explore 16 minutes ago [-]
> Galileo’s open service (civil-access) E1 signal incorporates public/private key encryption to digitally sign and authentify data
Which is fairly useless. The spoofed data can be legit data just selectively delayed by a couple of milliseconds and the receiver has no way to know.
beastcatdog 30 minutes ago [-]
> Goward says Todd Humphreys of the University of Texas Radionavigation Laboratory suspects that China’s Beidou can mimic and spoof both GPS and Galileo signals.
Galileo has optional cryptographic signatures of its navigational data. They embed the data into their broadcast. Can be used for free.
SAI_Peregrinus 11 minutes ago [-]
It's still vulnerable to replay attacks, even with signed navigation data.
causality0 7 minutes ago [-]
Wouldn't that require them to match the timestamp somehow?
quadhome 5 minutes ago [-]
Galileo’s open service (civil-access) E1 signal incorporates public/private key encryption to digitally sign and authentify data. False Galileo signals from malicious forces are easily detected and rejected by GNSS receivers because they lack encryption watermarks. The feature, called Open Service-Navigation Message Authentication (OS-NMA), has been fully operational since August 2023.
lenerdenator 19 minutes ago [-]
Alternatively, we could start providing real geopolitical consequences for the Russians doing the trampling.
Don't phased array antennas and similar need to be on a somewhat stable platform to be able to track a satellite? I can't imagine that would work too well in a mobile phone
zipy124 13 minutes ago [-]
For sending yes depending on what you mean as stable. For slow moving objects or fast moving objects with a steady heading (low changes in direction of the velocity, or acceleration) it isn't that much of a challenge anymore. For fighter aircraft or some of the faster drones it still presents a challenge that is expensive, but solvable with today's technology (at least from my understanding, the best of these systems are still highly classified).
For receiving however, you can simply use a phased array antenna to gain directional information in addition to your magnitude. This allows you to ignore interferance that is coming from the ground (though not any from a jammer located above the device, or any reflections from the atmosphere). The effect of this is somewhat like a shotgun microphone.
londons_explore 12 minutes ago [-]
'stable' on the timescale of radio waves is like claiming the statue of liberty isn't on a stable platform because one day continental drift will move it about...
22 minutes ago [-]
jpm_sd 30 minutes ago [-]
Supposedly CRPAs are already due to come off the ITAR list later this year, so that's good news.
> Scott said of the rule change. “You’re not going to be able to buy them at Walmart or on Amazon, they’ll still be export controlled, but not on the munitions list.”
Is there an example of a reputable (subjective, sure) news source having done this?
The article it published was a nationally syndicated piece, though. Maybe they thought somebody else was vetting?
An example of the kind of unit confusion that could crash a Mars orbiter?
I thought we were talking about nanometers and square meters here for a second. But this only makes sense if "m²" means square miles and "nm" means nautical miles. How about at least using "mi" for miles to reduce confusion?
> There is a space between the numerical value and unit symbol, even when the value is used in an adjectival sense, except in the case of superscript units for plane angle.
https://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/checklist.html
I am not seeing anything about that in the Wikipedia article:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijan_Airlines_Flight_824...
It sounds like the GPS was jammed, not spoofed. The aircraft had already shot some missed approaches at the destination airport before the event that caused the loss of the aircraft.
Apparently (I haven't had this happen personally, yet) many truckers install GPS jamming cigarette lighter accessories in their trucks when they want to mask their location from trucking companies that track them everywhere. That can wreak havoc on GPS receivers at facilities, especially if you have, say, a logistics building right next to a datacenter.
I remember, that Galileo went offline a few years ago for some days - and the joke was, no one noticed. So possible that today they are more regular users and possible that there are some advanced features of Galileo like the mentioned
"Galileo’s open service (civil-access) E1 signal incorporates public/private key encryption to digitally sign and authentify data"
But I think GPS falling behind Galileo would imply a bit more Galileo users, compared to GPS. Which would surprise me.
Like HAS (30cm precision after some integration time. Without additional correction data) and cryptographic verification of the transmitted GNSS data.
Which is fairly useless. The spoofed data can be legit data just selectively delayed by a couple of milliseconds and the receiver has no way to know.
Galileo has optional cryptographic signatures of its navigational data. They embed the data into their broadcast. Can be used for free.
For receiving however, you can simply use a phased array antenna to gain directional information in addition to your magnitude. This allows you to ignore interferance that is coming from the ground (though not any from a jammer located above the device, or any reflections from the atmosphere). The effect of this is somewhat like a shotgun microphone.
https://insidegnss.com/crpas-to-be-removed-from-itar-list-op...
Why not? I have a FLIR which is under export restrictions and you can buy from them, shit like this will have a card inside saying you can't sell to unfriendly nationals: https://www.amazon.com/FLIR-One-Thermal-Imager-Android/dp/B0...