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Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones

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221–230 of 243 posts

Re: Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones

#221
post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Astral navigation is probably accurate enough

Dead reckoning with a minute or two to get a gps fix with the jammer off once a day.

What's to stop someone spoofing a GPS signal during that fix?

Re: Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones

#222
post #96

I wish there were cheap Bluetooth jammers to prevent speakers from playing when hiking

Where do you hike where it’s a problem? I mean if I meet perhaps 10 people max over 2 hours. If all of them were blasting music it still wouldn’t worry me at all.

I encountered this two weeks ago on the Springwater Corridor along the river in Portland, OR. There were families out just trying to walk/bike/enjoy nature and every minute or so an idiot blasting music at the highest volume would go by, disrupting the whole experience. The first two I didn't mind, but after that it got very annoying.

I can't help but think it's intentionally deviant behavior, because any semi-ordinary person would at minimum reduce the volume to a reasonable level. But no, these folks have it dialed to the max, they want everyone within a 100 yard radius to know their shitty taste in music.

Re: Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones

#223
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sustaining human life Not really. Drone ships are very much a thing these days.

How can a drone ship hold its designated position while it's blocking gps?

A camera that looks at the stars / sun and a very accurate clock...

Or one of the many methods described in TFA.

Re: Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones

#224
post #56
post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even a 160m guy-wire tower is cheap. 40m.. my friend installed 32m one just to have better internets, not exactly out of pocket cash, but nothing compared to say swapping a car.

Sure, but such an antenna will be extremely conspicuous and easy to triangulate. You can't install it covertly. Meanwhile, GPS can be jammed or spoofed with a briefcase-sized device for a couple of kilometers around you.

I thought we were talking about how eLoran is cheap enough.

But if you are about jamming, well. Either discontinue AIS/ADS-B or directed VHF jammers are not that conspicious. Not even a PESA, 60s tech.

Re: Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones

#225
post #141

We have a defense budget. Deploy some troops or hellfire the jamming operator

With each hellfire costing upwards of $150k per shot, it's not cost effective to use them to shoot down jammers

To be fair, parent commenter said the operator, not the jammer.

Re: Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones

#226
post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sustaining human life Not really. Drone ships are very much a thing these days.

How can a drone ship hold its designated position while it's blocking gps?

Beyond what everyone else has said it could also have sonar and keep track of its position relative to the local ocean floor like an optical mouse.

Re: Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones

#227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two types of GPS jamming. There's GPS jamming by the military, mostly in war zones. This seldom effects airliners because they steer clear of active war zones. Then there's GPS jamming by delivery drivers who don't want their boss watching over their shoulder all the time. When the article mentions jammers as small as a cellphone and costing less than $100, those are sold to drivers. Delivery drivers don't…

> boss watching over their shoulder all the time Sounds like the root cause to me. It should be illegal to use GNSS to track employees, or anyone really. Jamming is starting to sound a lot like self-defense against surveillance.

When I use a company provided laptop, I know I'm using company equipment. Same for the delivery driver driving a company truck.

Re: Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are two types of GPS jamming. There's GPS jamming by the military, mostly in war zones. This seldom effects airliners because they steer clear of active war zones. Then there's GPS jamming by delivery drivers who don't want their boss watching over their shoulder all the time. When the article mentions jammers as small as a cellphone and costing less than $100, those are sold to drivers. Delivery drivers don't…

If I was a concerned boss, I would likely use GSM cell info to track my drivers. While not good enough to do turn-to-turn navigation it certainly is good enough to tell where people are. Btw, don't smartphones have this built in? I remember some old and cheap Android phones without GPS that came with this.

That's A-GPS. I think that the A stood for Assisted or maybe Augmented.

Re: Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones

#229
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I strongly suspect those would be very illegal and could result in serious side effects, such as for people who use continuous glucose monitors.

I am a volunteer coach in a rec soccer league for 6th graders. Bluetooth jamming could literally kill one of my diabetic (type 1) players during a game because of this scenario.

That sounds like a serious flaw in his hardware.

Re: Cheap GPS jammers are filling the world with navigation dead zones

#230

This is likely just the start. With growing consumer reliance on GPS, jammer proliferation will mirror what we see in military contexts. Same thing will happen to starlink and jamming in contested zones

You can't jam starlink, at least from what we've seen so far in the war happening in Ukraine.

The more likely counter in a proper hot war context between major powers would be shooting down the satellites with ASAT weapons, which is technically feasible but politically a much bigger step
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