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GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

sciencealert.com

21–30 of 159 posts

Re: GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

#21

TL;DR: 1. Not today. November 2025. They don't make it clear. 1.1. One would expect that to be put in the title, when the article is written almost a year after that. 1.2. No, the article doesn't state that in the first paragraph. Posting in it full seem to be the only way to fend off lazy comments: In November 2025, Earth was buffeted by several massive eruptions of solar material that slammed into the magnetosphere…

>P.S. A separate comment would be too much to respond to the false claim below - no, there's nothing about GPS in "the first 3 words of the article".

He's talking about your first (incorrect) claim. The article begins "In November 2025"

Re: GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

#22
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh interesting, I think I conflated two things; Selective Availability and the military-only bands on GPS. While it's true that access to the military band could improve accuracy with dual-band receivers, consumer devices can use dual-band as well (as your link shows), since there are multiple unencrypted bands from navigation satellites nowadays. I am not sure how to interpret your link, though. It doesn't measure a…

My understanding is that the encrypted military-level GPS is much more robust against jamming and spoofing. There's probably a lot of capabilities we don't know that's classified, too.

That is my understanding as well. But having another band allows for error correction as a side benefit.

Re: GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

#23
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh interesting, I think I conflated two things; Selective Availability and the military-only bands on GPS. While it's true that access to the military band could improve accuracy with dual-band receivers, consumer devices can use dual-band as well (as your link shows), since there are multiple unencrypted bands from navigation satellites nowadays. I am not sure how to interpret your link, though. It doesn't measure a…

My understanding is that the encrypted military-level GPS is much more robust against jamming and spoofing. There's probably a lot of capabilities we don't know that's classified, too.

Called M-Code.

Has a fascinating history.

https://odimpact.org/case-united-states-opening-gps-data-for...

Re: GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

#24
post #12

This is exactly the sort of thing that leads to people getting reincarcerated after their electronic monitoring devices mistakenly report them leaving their homes. Some reporting I did on the topic a few years back: https://chicagoreader.com/news/many-on-house-arrest-in-cook-...

Sounds like you could be a convict, have your gang interfere GPS on a local level but enough to have other people in the neighborhood notice, make a quick run for whatever you'd need to, and still claim plausible deniability.

Re: GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

#25
post #16
post #2

not just space weather, I am pretty sure the atmosphere is being disturbed by toxic human activity both by accident and on purpose I've run outside every morning for decades and used Garmin with GPS since 2015, I've never had so much trouble Garmins finally supports dual-band (L1+L5) and BeiDou on newest models but it's still not enough to compensate, I have to use a Stryd footpod to guarantee accurate distances/spee…

It seems that all the device manufacturers (they mention Apple, Samsung, and Google) are using BeiDou anyway. I don't know if that includes Garmin watches, though. https://www.reuters.com/technology/us-agency-probes-risks-fo...

AGPS also helps if you have cell towers nearby.

Re: GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

#26
post #24
post #12

This is exactly the sort of thing that leads to people getting reincarcerated after their electronic monitoring devices mistakenly report them leaving their homes. Some reporting I did on the topic a few years back: https://chicagoreader.com/news/many-on-house-arrest-in-cook-...

Sounds like you could be a convict, have your gang interfere GPS on a local level but enough to have other people in the neighborhood notice, make a quick run for whatever you'd need to, and still claim plausible deniability.

Or you could cause such localized things more so to try to get a person sent back to prison or otherwise penalized intentionally

Re: GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

#27
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like you could be a convict, have your gang interfere GPS on a local level but enough to have other people in the neighborhood notice, make a quick run for whatever you'd need to, and still claim plausible deniability.

Or you could cause such localized things more so to try to get a person sent back to prison or otherwise penalized intentionally

Also true.

Re: GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

#28
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh interesting, I think I conflated two things; Selective Availability and the military-only bands on GPS. While it's true that access to the military band could improve accuracy with dual-band receivers, consumer devices can use dual-band as well (as your link shows), since there are multiple unencrypted bands from navigation satellites nowadays. I am not sure how to interpret your link, though. It doesn't measure a…

My understanding is that the encrypted military-level GPS is much more robust against jamming and spoofing. There's probably a lot of capabilities we don't know that's classified, too.

I think the new US GPS satellites have ability to do a spot beam of increased strength in a region of interest.

Re: GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

#29
post #11
post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For resiliency reasons alone, it's been proposed to allow (stop software-disabling) BeiDou in the US, but the last time this was brought up, the administration ran out of time. It's a shame, because when there is precise coverage, it enables things like lane-level city navigation. https://warontherocks.com/a-signal-point-of-failure-integrat...

yup that was my first link but of course this administration is never going allow China-anything like low cost electric cars even if it means saving people a fortune in gas so hopefully in 2029 it can be looked at again or maybe Dems will also get the Senate too and can be petitioned if they run out of corruption investigations before 2029 it is critical to explain to everyone who isn't technical that GPS is "read on…

Read only or not, relying on Chinese or Russian gps data for increased accuracy even in civilian increases dependency no? That seems like a bad idea to me. I’ve thought for about 20 years that increasing our dependence on anti democratic regimes was a risk, no matter what the benefits for global development etc. It’s not isolationist to want to only rely on your friends and not enemies. (Which is why Europe needs to disentangle itself from the US as fast as possible).

Re: GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

#30
TFA article claims: "Indeed, the solar storm of May 2024 is estimated to have cost the US agricultural industry $500 million due to disruptions in precision navigation."

This seems hard to believe. The link provided hand waves through how it maybe could happen, and ends with an Economist just SWAGing that it could have been maybe a dollar an acre or so.

"He estimates that affected farms lost about $1 per acre. Nationally, this equates to an estimated half-billion dollars in lost earning potential, Griffin says."

So yeah, hard to believe was the right call. Very few farms were affected, but if we assume half of the total 900 million acres of farm land were, add 10% to get a round number, and guess it at a dollar per acre, we get the quoted big number.

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