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.”
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.
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.
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
That will not fix this, unless your private service flies their own satellites with more transmitter power
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.
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.
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.
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.
It wouldn’t matter against jamming though. You just need a jammer that screams louder
Unless they are on a different wavelength from GPS, which is what Xona is doing.
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.
In a war like this they jam everything and anything they can. No commercial solutions would be loopholed out of it.
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.
“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?”
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
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.
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.
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.
Yeah, we know how it went with Africa. Sure. You’d like to do that from the comfort of your home, right?
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.
Oh that sounds easy and like it surely would backfire spectacularly /s that’s how you get a nuclear war or similar.
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.
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.
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.
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.
It’s not just Putin, and it’s not all of Russia. The Kremlin+oligarchs are the problem.
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
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.
The CIA attempted to assassinate castro between 8 and 634 times
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.
Article 5
“…and Russia is thought to be responsible.”
Nooooooo… Russia? Really? They would neeeveeeer?
Isn’t that kinda pathetic? Jamming GPS is not hard, nor impressive. It’s just annoying.
That’s all they’ve got left after throwing all of their troops into the meat grinder.
Threatening the lives of EU citizens and commerce in an effort to force the European nations to withdraw support from Ukraine.