A 63-hour-long marathon of GPS jamming attacks disrupted global satellite navigation systems for hundreds of aircraft flying through the Baltic region – and Russia is thought to be responsible

Russia is suspected of launching a record-breaking 63-hour-long attack on GPS signals in the Baltic region. The incident, which affected hundreds of passenger jets earlier this month, occurred amid rising tensions between Russia and the NATO military alliance more than two years since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

“We have seen an increase in GPS jamming since the start of Russia’s war against Ukraine, and allies have publicly warned that Russia has been behind GPS jamming affecting aviation and shipping,” a NATO official told New Scientist. “Russia has a track record of jamming GPS signals and has a range of capabilities for electronic warfare.”

11 points

Is this where the beginning g of the end of free open GPS starts?

Been wondering when we’d have to start paying for the privilege to use an encrypted private GPS service.

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2 points

That’s not how jamming works

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-1 points

Explain how jamming works. The person isn’t saying encryption overcomes jamming, just that encryption will be used to make the new system private and paid instead of free to use. Not being GPS will make it avoid GPS jamming.

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4 points

It doesn’t matter if you encrypt it, it still has to make information out of communication with satellites. Jamming saturates the band range that something is attempting to communicate across. So no sensible information is available because it’s all noise

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4 points

That will not fix this, unless your private service flies their own satellites with more transmitter power

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-1 points

Xona is out there planning their own satellite constellation in their own band of the spectrum (so not jammed at the same time as GPS), and is fully encrypted.

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8 points

Russia could just as easily jam two signals at once.

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-6 points
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You are talking about Xona. Private company, fully encrypted signal, paid service, not jammed at the same frequency as GPS.

EDIT: I would love for one of the people who down-voted me to explain what was wrong with my completely factual description of a company who is doing exactly what this person asked about.

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1 point

If enough people are using this new system, Russia could easily pivot to target it as well. Jamming is not inherently hard, especially if a nation is attempting it.

Jamming in the US will bring the FCC down your throat. The stronger the signal, the faster they will show up. Russia transmitting a jamming signal from Russia doesn’t have to worry about such things. A jamming device is not hard to find, but on sovereign soil it’s still untouchable short of war.

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1 point

Not the point of the post I replied to or my post. I develop GPS satellites for the Space Force. I understand jamming quite well and know what capabilities Russia has.

The person didn’t say that this hypothetical private system couldn’t be jammed. They said that if GPS is jammed then it opens up a niche for a private company to sell their own service. I said that exact thing is happening. That isn’t to say that service couldn’t also get jammed, but Russia is mainly jamming GPS because it affects military missions. Since the military wouldn’t be using this private company, then Russia is unlikely to jam their signal.

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1 point

that’s… not how gps works, y’know?

the satellites only send out signal, they don’t care about the ground

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83 points

It wouldn’t matter against jamming though. You just need a jammer that screams louder

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-2 points

Unless they are on a different wavelength from GPS, which is what Xona is doing.

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5 points

Ok, then they just block that one

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3 points

It would matter if they chose not to jam certain frequencies due to some agreement.

Thinking only of GPS-like services, there are multiple suppliers who could take advantage of Russia jamming other services. GPS is only one, owned by the American air force. Other suppliers might be more open to making agreements with Russia. Money can make things happen.

I’m not saying it’s like that, only that it is possible for bad actors to benefit from playing on both sides in a jamming war, just like any other kind of war.

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-3 points

In a war like this they jam everything and anything they can. No commercial solutions would be loopholed out of it.

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48 points

Yup. As long as you’re transmitting via radio waves, if something on that frequency “screams” louder, you won’t get the original signal. That’s why the FCC has strict rules against radio interference. About the only way you could get past that would be some sort of laser guided/optical communications, but would be damn near impossible given the number of planes and weather conditions.

Luckily the louder something screams the more easy it is to pinpoint.

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8 points

“Our system is unjammable! Just make sure this laser receiver has clear line of sight with three satellites way up in geosynchronous orbit at all times.”

“You’re fucking with me, right?”

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14 points

I mean, doesn’t matter. We pinpoint russia and then what. Sure, we can retaliate and block their comma, and radio communication doesn’t work for both of us. We can always invade, but a load of political capital is needed, and the west doesn’t exactly have the most ammo ever right now.

Finally, I think the true source is this

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133 points
*

Russia is really stretching this out, aren’t they. Maybe they need some proper ass kicking to fall back in line.

At some point the west has to react.

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2 points

There needs to not be a ‘Russia’ after this. Split it up. Try to keep the regions peaceful and shit, but absolutely divide them politically, so one cannot say ‘Russia’ is a meaningful entity.

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0 points

Bring back Novgorod.

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1 point

Russia will be paying back for these years, for decades to come.

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-3 points

Or just carve up Russia so no part us big enough to pull this shit again, and people there are less under the thumb of a handful of shit heads in Moscow/st Petersburg.

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6 points

Yeah, we know how it went with Africa. Sure. You’d like to do that from the comfort of your home, right?

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0 points

Africa was carved up with the intent to be exploitable, with minority regimes that needed colonial support in power and intentional ethnic and resource conflicts aplenty.

Don’t be a dick about it, carve it up based on extant cultural regions with balancedish resources, and it could work. At least closer to ‘works’ than having a ‘Russia’ is right now.

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5 points

Oh that sounds easy and like it surely would backfire spectacularly /s that’s how you get a nuclear war or similar.

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-5 points
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You can’t convince me Russia’s nuclear arsenal works for shit, much less the missiles.

And even if one or two get through; still a net gain on human life over another year or ten of meat grinder warfare.

And if you put a bounty on Russian warheads…

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81 points

Never mind Russia, I’d be happy with anyone making a “special military operation” on Putin’s whereabouts. NATO doesn’t have to fight Russia. They only need the head of the snake.

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59 points
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don’t think that this will work. Russia is rotten to the core and there is always another head.

we are fighting a hydra not a snake.

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32 points
*

Except Putin’s behavior isn’t sane even by oligarch standards. Another corrupt leader would just take Putin’s place, but they might not be inclined to continue with Ukraine. They could just blame it all on Putin and quietly retreat the military. It’s not the best outcome, but at least Ukraine would be safe.

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38 points

Anyway, we should start at the top and work downwards. It’s a waste of ammo to kill all the involuntary cannon fodder. If the top goes, Russia would have to reconstruct, however that might turn out.

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9 points

It’s not just Putin, and it’s not all of Russia. The Kremlin+oligarchs are the problem.

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1 point

But not the same shitty, abd since they’re not Putin, they can disown this whole shit show and shut it down without looking weak.

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8 points

There is no way to convince me that the CIA, MI6, and/or Beijing couldn’t take him out if they wanted him gone, which makes me wonder why they wouldn’t, I guess World War III but it’s not like that’s not already a possibility

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8 points

There isn’t a replacement in place for Putin that would be any different. Everyone that thinks and acts different is kept away from power in Russia. Pushed out of windows, deaths in prison or the aircraft falls out of the sky. There is a possibility that he is replaced by someone worse.

It’s much better if he is removed from power by Russians. The next leader has to be different and havs the support of the people. Intelligence services taking him out won’t achieve this. Your likely to get an extremists that tries to escalate the war in Ukraine.

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2 points
*

Nah. These are all state actors. They don’t want to break the taboo on assassinating world leaders when they do atrocities, because they may want to do atrocities later.

So millions of poor fuckers die in the mud.

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4 points

Because then Russia will try to assasinate US leaders

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3 points

Yea they even got OBL murdered when they wanted. It seems that they just don’t want Putin gone for now, profits or “escalation” as a reason.

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6 points

The CIA attempted to assassinate castro between 8 and 634 times

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10 points

So let the other heads see what happens when you fuck around too much.

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9 points

Like many things political, you start doing outside political killings from another country, pretty soon you can find yourself dead as a political leader. It’s playground tit-for-tat rules.

Plus, unless you are prepared for a “You break it, you buy it” situation, can and always will get something worse. See: the Middle East at this moment in time.

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1 point

That’s why none of them will do it.

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18 points

There are smart people in Russia who need better things to do. This bullshit is out of control.

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-8 points

Article 5

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4 points

No.

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125 points

“…and Russia is thought to be responsible.”

Nooooooo… Russia? Really? They would neeeveeeer?

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71 points

Isn’t that kinda pathetic? Jamming GPS is not hard, nor impressive. It’s just annoying.

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28 points

That’s all they’ve got left after throwing all of their troops into the meat grinder.

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13 points

Not all. Just too fucking many.

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3 points

The thing about Russia is, they’ve always got more sausage they can make

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2 points

Unfortunately, their recruitment rate is at a record high 😕

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9 points
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Deleted by creator
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29 points

Seems like a message is being sent.

I love to be a fly on the wall behind the scenes, as far as what’s going on between the two sides, that they actually decided to do something as annoying as this.

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2 points

looks to be pretty effective to me

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-1 points

And that effect was…???

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2 points

Maybe they were just testing reaction time

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6 points

Threatening the lives of EU citizens and commerce in an effort to force the European nations to withdraw support from Ukraine.

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13 points

Its on par with bringing the dog out when merkel was visiting. Thats all they have.

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11 points
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As if being impressive is the goal of these attacks.

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8 points

I dont think they are doing it to impess.

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