Your Survival Guy

Preparing your investments and family for when disaster strikes.

Disclosure

  • Home
  • Your Survival
    • EMP Threat
    • Tucker Explains
    • Newport Gas Outage
    • Water
      • Emergency Water Storage
      • Let There Be Water
    • Get Your Gun and Your Training Now
    • Satellite Phones
    • Navy SEAL Survival Kit
  • Your Money
    • Coronavirus Infects Stock Market
    • Looking for a Better America
    • You Invest, They Win
    • Where to Keep Your Cash
    • Paris
    • How to Buy a Boat
    • Dead or Alive? The Future of Long-Term Investing
    • Is Vanguard too Big?
    • Cryptocosm and Life After Google
    • The Last Intelligence Report
    • The Truth Behind the S&P 500
    • RAGE Gauge
    • How Many “Retirees” Will Keep Working?
    • Your Retirement Life
    • You’ll Love This if You’re Dreaming of an Active Retirement Life
  • Weapons
    • Self Defense
    • Every Family Should Own at Least One Shotgun: Here Are Three
  • About Me
    • Preparing for Times Like These
    • My Videos/Pics
    • Music
      • RIP Neil Peart: You Will Always Be Remembered as a “Modern-Day Warrior”
  • You
    • Our Cabin on Kodiak, Alaska
    • If You Are in Pain, this May Help. It Helped Me.
    • How to Save for a Grandchild
    • FIRE! Financial Independence, Retire Early
    • Compound Interest
    • Arithmetic of Portfolio Losses
    • Maximum Portfolio Withdrawal Rate
    • An Efficient Frontier
    • Retirement Compounders
    • Counterbalanced Total Returns
  • Survive & Thrive
    • February 2021
    • January 2021
    • December 2020
    • November 2020
    • October 2020
    • September 2020
    • August 2020
    • July 2020
    • June 2020
    • May 2020
    • April 2020
    • March 2020
    • February 2020
    • January 2020
    • December 2019
    • November 2019
    • October 2019
    • September 2019
    • August 2019
    • July 2019
    • June 2019
    • May 2019
    • April 2019
    • March 2019
    • February 2019
    • January 2019
    • December 2018
    • November 2018
    • October 2018
    • September 2018
    • August 2018
    • July 2018
    • June 2018
    • May 2018
    • April 2018
    • March 2018
    • February 2018
    • Welcome

How Vulnerable are Vital U.S. Military Systems to GPS Jamming & Spoofing?

August 16, 2019 By Steve Schneider

Russian Khmeimim Air Base, also Hmeimim Air Base in Syrian. Image via Google Earth.

Just ask the Russians who’ve made massive investments in electronic warfare and turned their cell phone towers into GPS jammers. They’ve also created “one of the most aggressive electronic warfare environments,” in Syria and are jamming F-35 GPS Systems near Iran. Foreign Policy even points out that Vladimir Putin’s bodyguards use a GPS Spoofer to protect the Russian president against drone strikes.

Putin’s bodyguards are using what on its face is a counterintuitive approach to prevent assassination attempts by drone. The GPS spoofer that travels with Putin impersonates civilian GPS signals and provides the receiver with false coordinates for local airports. It chooses the coordinates of local airports because commercial drones typically come preprogrammed with safety mechanisms that make them automatically land or shut down when they enter the airspace of an airport.

In theory, drones operating near Putin will shut down or automatically land when they come within range of the spoofer. Fear of assassination by drone is a realistic one: Last year, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro survived an attempt on his life that involved using drones to target him with explosives.

But Russia’s use of spoofing technology is having some surprising side effects. In September 2016, Putin traveled to the Kerch Strait along with Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev to inspect progress on a $4 billion bridge to the Russian mainland and meet with workers. While the two Russian leaders were there, the automatic identification systems of nearby ships—systems that rely in part on GPS—started reporting their locations as the Simferopol Airport about 125 miles away.

Researchers have noticed a funny coincidence whenever Russian ships get close to a harbor. GPS of ships that are moored start going haywire, say researchers at the Center for Advanced Defense Studies. GPS Jamming has been reported in the Black Sea, around Russian borders with Norway and Finland, in the Ukraine, and pilots flying through the Middle East, specifically in and around Syria have noticed GPS systems displaying wrong locations.

Todd Humphreys, a professor at the University of Texas has been tracking this phenomenon for months and has identified the source of the signal jamming GPS in and around Israel, it’s the coming from the Khmeimim Air Base which was built by Russia in 2015. Judah Ari Gross of the Times of Israel goes on to say (abridged):

According to Humphreys, the method being used by Russia appears to be a combination of jamming, in which GPS service is outright denied, and spoofing, the term for feeding GPS receivers false information.

He said the sudden appearance of the problem in Israel could be the result of any number of changes to Russia’s deployment of its transmitters, also known as jammers — either the deployment of additional transmitters, an increase in the power of them or a repositioning of one of the jammers closer to the border with Israel.

“But my assumption is that Russia relocated one of its transmitters recently,” he said.

Israeli officials have also said Russia appeared to be to blame for the GPS interference, with some unnamed defense officials telling the Haaretz newspaper on Friday that the source of the problem seems to be coming from either a land-based or ship-based jammer.

The Russian Embassy denied the claims by Israeli officials, saying the allegations were “fake news.”

I don’t find Russia’s denials credible. I can actually see [the signal] from space

But Humphreys said based on his data, he was 90 to 95 percent positive that Moscow was behind the interference.

“I don’t find Russia’s denials credible,” he said, repeating, “I can actually see [the signal] from space.”

This GPS denial of service does not affect Russian pilots taking part in the civil war in Syria, as Russia does not rely on GPS satellites for its navigation. Instead, Russia uses its indigenous Global Navigation Satellite System, or GLONASS.

If you enjoyed this post, email it to a friend:

  • Email
  • Print
  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • WhatsApp

Related Posts

Trending

  • Permitless Carry Corridor Expands: Red States Trouncing Blue States on Freedom
  • Welcome to the Interest Rate Prediction Business, JACK!
  • Long Live Rush Limbaugh: Our Walk in the Woods
  • America’s Growth Corridors as Written in 2013 by Joel Kotkin
  • How One Man and His Family Survived the Texas Deep Freeze
  • New Assault Helicopter Design to Revolutionize U.S. Army Capabilities
  • Your Retirement Life: Meet Larry the Car Wash Guy
  • Deep Survival, Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why
  • You’re Worried About Money, Not Just Losing It
  • COVID Chaos: New York and California vs. Florida and South Dakota

YOUR SURVIVAL GUY MUST READS

  • The Great Reset: What’s in a Name?
  • America 2022: Time to Take Back What’s Ours
  • Why Buying Bonds Matters in Times Like These
  • Stocks: Are You Sticking Your Neck Out Too Far?
  • Let’s Take a Vote: America Needs to be Open for Business
  • Today’s Suburban Female Voter: “You Ain’t Takin’ My Guns.”
  • A FAST Way to Lose SLOW Money
  • Stealing Your Dollars in the Dead of Night
  • Where Have You Been? Now You’re Flying the American Flag?
  • 2020: College Is not What You Signed up For
Only if You’re Serious
50 + Years
Only if You’re Serious
Only if You’re Serious
Only if You’re Serious
Only if You’re Serious
Escape the City
Smith Family Robinson
The Best States for Survival
Only if You’re Serious
Why Vanguard is Too Big for YOU
See Who's Missing the Boat
You Invest, They Win
Emergency Water Storage
Emergency Water Storage
Emergency Water Storage
Why Fidelity is Number One

Copyright © 2021 | Terms & Conditions

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.