Business · The Register
Researchers move in the right direction, develop powerful GPS interference alarm
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GPS spoofing, which sends fake satellite-like signals, and GPS jamming, which drowns receivers in noise, are increasingly serious problems.
Key facts
- As an example, ORNL pointed to an incident last year in which two tractor-trailer loads of tequila from a brand co-founded by celebrity chef and Flavortown mayor Guy Fieri and former Van Halen singer
- GPS spoofing, which sends fake satellite-like signals, and GPS jamming, which drowns receivers in noise, are increasingly serious problems
- The ORNL device also operates entirely independently of GPS: It doesn't even have a GPS-specific receiver or knowledge of expected GPS signals, according to the lab
- ORNL acknowledged the problem of GPS interference in aviation in its writeup, and while the device could potentially help detect attacks against aircraft, the lab’s immediate focus appears
Summary
ORNL said Wednesday that a group of boffins led by researcher Austin Albright has developed a new portable device that can detect both spoofing, which sends fake signals that mimic GPS satellite signals to provide bad location data, and jamming, which simply floods GPS receivers with noise. That sensitivity would be notable enough, but ORNL said that the device can do something else that no known GPS interference detector can: It's able to detect spoofing even when fake and real signals are equally strong. The ORNL device also operates entirely independently of GPS: It doesn't even have a GPS-specific receiver or knowledge of expected GPS signals, according to the lab. "Trucking needs a solution that works without special conditions or dependence on a trusted reference source," Albright said of the new device in ORNL's writeup.