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GPS glitched across the US by as much as 33 feet

sciencealert.com

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

#131

Post by DoctorOetker »

It's strange that agriculture incurred so large losses, I would expect precision farming to rely on RTK (with relatively close reference base station at a fixed location).

The article doesn't mention, but how immune or affected were base station corrected RTK positioning systems?

It sounds a lot less dramatic if we can absorb such events with RTK base stations.

That does add the extra dependency of network links to get the RTK correction stream, unless some day it is standardized to be broadcast locally on FM or so.

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

#132

Post by weberer »

rotringlvr wrote: post #73
delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #8

*10 metres

Feet are actually great units for RF because a nanosecond is very close to a foot. Since feet has many prime factors and/or the foot-meter conversion is also easy, you can quickly get a wavelength of, say a 2GHz (6 inches), and get it in cm (15cm). Of course, ideally we'd ditch the silly metric system and use natural units. Then these 30 feet are a more comfortable 50M/eV. But those SI guys are really conservative an…

I would love a new measurement system based on planck units.

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

#133

Post by Aurornis »

brewdad wrote: post #100
Aurornis wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GPS is not that accurate even on a good day. A small device attached to someone’s ankle with a small antenna and an obstructed view of the sky will frequently be registering locations outside of the footprint of someone’s house. A single 33 foot anomaly is already within the geofence buffer zones used. In dense urban areas the geofence buffer allowance may be 10X that already.

It should be treated that way but we’re talking about elected prosecutors who are itching for an excuse to put people in prison rather than looking “soft on crime” by allowing people to live under house arrest.

No, I’m saying it’s literally treated like that with a buffer zone. That’s how these systems work.

If people were getting arrested every time their GPS tracker was recording a ping 33 feet from the center of their house, nobody would ever survive house arrest.

This is a basic reality of using GPS.

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

#134

Post by win311fwg »

DoctorOetker wrote: post #131

It's strange that agriculture incurred so large losses, I would expect precision farming to rely on RTK (with relatively close reference base station at a fixed location). The article doesn't mention, but how immune or affected were base station corrected RTK positioning systems? It sounds a lot less dramatic if we can absorb such events with RTK base stations. That does add the extra dependency of network links to g…

I recall that event. It wasn’t the error that was the problem, it was that the units weren’t able to get fixes amid the solar storm, rendering the machines inoperable; save driving by hand, of course, but that isn’t practical with many modern planters.

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

#135

Post by dataflow »

porksoda wrote: post #98
dataflow wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> To answer your question Looking forward! > motions by prosecutors Motion ≠ incarceration. So, not an answer (yet?)... Did defendants get incarcerated as a result of these motions, or no?

You've kind of spoiled my day with this. Its like an angry chess game when you've got momentum, you POUNCE! But nobody else here appears to have chosen violence. really I get that he "maybe snarked you". But you should be reminded of the beautiful rules of hn discussions.

Thanks for the feedback, but I think you're missing something. This is not about us, it's about everything and everyone else implicated in the discussion. About the fact that we're essentially being demanded to assume - without clear evidence - that the vast majority of those with power over us are categorically incredibly incompetent or malicious. That is not only incredibly insulting toward the good subset of humans who have dedicated and even risked their lives for the public good, but it goes further and sows deep distrust and resentment, continuing to tear apart the very fabric of society. If you/we want to do that, be my guest. It is HN after all. But we damn better be able to justify it with rock-solid evidence, not just go "trust me bro, they're all stupid, they're not techies like us."

Throughout this entire chain of comments, there has not been one shred of evidence that this has actually even happened once, never mind that it is a repeating phenomenon as they claimed. All we have been given is repeated attempts to make us believe those claims were true, supported by claims of existence of (not actual) evidence that - even if existent - would not remotely imply the claim is true. If we want to believe things without evidence and damn other who disagree to hell based purely on beliefs, we certainly can - that's what freedom of religion is for. However, I hope the irony isn't lost on anyone that it's quite literally the diametric opposite of what we're expecting from the justice system.

Whether the claim is ultimately accurate or not, that is what what should be spoiling your day before anything I wrote. It certainly did mine. It should absolutely spoil your day to watch the integrity of huge swathes of people running your society get smeared without clear evidence, with more nails being hammered into the coffin that is the trust holding your society together. Either you're watching something unjustified, in which case that should make you upset on its own, or it's justified, in which case it's even sadder. Either way, I would think that seeing evidence should be at the bedrock of it all, not the last straw whose demand finally spoils your day.

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

#136

Post by masfuerte »

dataflow wrote: post #97
chaps wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They did, yes. I hope you have a better day.

Okay thanks, so here's what I don't understand. When there is video evidence that someone was in their house the whole time, and given that everyone who has used a GPS knows it can easily be inaccurate by 30ft, why in the world would the judge trust the ankle monitor accuracy over video footage they see with their own eyes that directly contradicts it? Something about this just doesn't seem very plausible, especially…

Why did literally hundreds of judges in the UK accept bogus evidence from the Post Office and Fujitsu leading to nearly 900 innocent postmasters being convicted?

Because judges are nearly always the kind of people who instinctively trust authority. They wouldn't be judges otherwise.

Hope that helps.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Post_Office_scandal

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

#137

Post by entrope »

leptons wrote: post #111
altmanaltman wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Okay but the claim is people are being re-arrested because of this "sort of thing". But I read the linked article, and it doesn't mention anyone getting re-arrested. There is only one situation described where the person is arrested and then let go after the cops got proof the alert was faulty. So yes, it absolutely sucks that this technology is so inconvenient and bad but at the same time, the author and GP claims a…

>Also telling people to "calm down" over text when they are not even talking to you is very passive aggresive for no reason. Your "This" quote was the least genuine comment I've seen on HN in a very long time. You took a comment and removed all context to complain about how it's wrong, when it wasn't wrong at all. There should be no doubt that GPS glitches can cause people with ankle monitors a lot of needless troubl…

> This time the glitch was 33 feet, who's to say next time it couldn't be 3300 feet?

People who study this. This glitch was caused by unusual, structured, widespread distortions in the ionosphere. There's no known mechanism that would cause enough distortion to make the errors 100 times as large. There would also be other symptoms of any unknown cause.

https://claude.ai/share/5cc4163e-9cbf-47cd-9749-4bb55bca42fe if you don't mind discursions into safety of aviation navigation systems. Caution: Do not take the error bounds in the second half as relevant to errors for unaugmented single-frequency users; those users will see much bigger errors.

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

#138

Post by chaps »

prepend wrote: post #122
chaps wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It wasn't easy to find, heh. Lots of FOIA requests to even get to a point of where I could go through court records at the Clerk of Courts. Obstinate lawyers for months and months. But after all that, I can find the court documents at the Clerk of Courts. I printed them there and I don't have them anymore. I would need to redact even if I had them. But they were all the same form, but with the actual violations large…

If you FOIA’d them, then why would you need to redact? If you can’t show evidence, then it’s probably best not to cite that evidence. At that point it seems to me that you’re asking people to just trust your claim. You seem like a nice person, but what sort of rational reader trusts an internet stranger. This is an important issue and you seem interested in the topic.

The documents I'm talking about didn't come from FOIA. They came from printing them at the clerk of courts' office. They aren't redacted.

But yes, these documents should be FOIA'able and I shouldn't have to redact them. It's one of the reasons why I'm involved in advocating for masking the judicial branch FOIA'able in Illinois.

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

#139

Post by chaps »

dataflow wrote: post #135
porksoda wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You've kind of spoiled my day with this. Its like an angry chess game when you've got momentum, you POUNCE! But nobody else here appears to have chosen violence. really I get that he "maybe snarked you". But you should be reminded of the beautiful rules of hn discussions.

Thanks for the feedback, but I think you're missing something. This is not about us, it's about everything and everyone else implicated in the discussion. About the fact that we're essentially being demanded to assume - without clear evidence - that the vast majority of those with power over us are categorically incredibly incompetent or malicious. That is not only incredibly insulting toward the good subset of human…

Next time try to make yourself easier to talk to and maybe you'll get better answers. When responding to you it felt like all you were trying to do was "own the left" instead of approach it with actual curiosity and interest. The sort of thing where nothing I say will ever, ever, ever satisfy you. Have a good one.

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

#140

Post by chaps »

Aurornis wrote: post #133
brewdad wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It should be treated that way but we’re talking about elected prosecutors who are itching for an excuse to put people in prison rather than looking “soft on crime” by allowing people to live under house arrest.

No, I’m saying it’s literally treated like that with a buffer zone. That’s how these systems work. If people were getting arrested every time their GPS tracker was recording a ping 33 feet from the center of their house, nobody would ever survive house arrest. This is a basic reality of using GPS.

Friend, these things happen even with buffer zones.
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