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Ships fooled in GPS spoofing attack suggest Russian cyberweapon
New Scientist ^ | 08/10/2017 | By David Hambling

Posted on 08/21/2017 4:50:22 PM PDT by oxcart

Reports of satellite navigation problems in the Black Sea suggest that Russia may be testing a new system for spoofing GPS .

On 22 June, the US Maritime Administration filed a seemingly bland incident report. The master of a ship off the Russian port of Novorossiysk had discovered his GPS put him in the wrong spot – more than 32 kilometres inland, at Gelendzhik Airport.

After checking the navigation equipment was working properly, the captain contacted other nearby ships. Their AIS traces – signals from the automatic identification system used to track vessels – placed them all at the same airport. At least 20 ships were affected.

While the incident is not yet confirmed, experts think this is the first documented use of GPS misdirection – a spoofing attack that has long been warned of but never been seen in the wild.

Until now, the biggest worry for GPS has been it can be jammed by masking the GPS satellite signal with noise. While this can cause chaos, it is also easy to detect. GPS receivers sound an alarm when they lose the signal due to jamming. Spoofing is more insidious: a false signal from a ground station simply confuses a satellite receiver. “Jamming just causes the receiver to die, spoofing causes the receiver to lie,” says consultant David Last, former president of the UK’s Royal Institute of Navigation.

Todd Humphreys, of the University of Texas at Austin, has been warning of the coming danger of GPS spoofing for many years. In 2013, he showed how a superyacht with state-of-the-art navigation could be lured off-course by GPS spoofing. “The receiver’s behaviour in the Black Sea incident was much like during the controlled attacks my team conducted,” says Humphreys.

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events; Russia; Technical
KEYWORDS: cyberwar; cyberweapon; drone; gps; radar; russia; spoofing
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To: aces

Oh what a load of tripe. Those martians, urrr Russians, ur martians are at it again. It’s an attack!!!

Puleeze.

Ships have bridges (even the latest stealthy ships). With glass. People look out of them. They see other ships. They don’t run into them.

This is a leaderships issue. If we stay PC long enough eventually we’ll have a navy to rival that of the Democratic Republic of the Congo.


21 posted on 08/21/2017 5:13:14 PM PDT by TheTimeOfMan (A time for peace and a time for war)
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To: lavaroise

You know, when I was in, the Quartermaster was still required to use a sexton and to validate position using it.

We knew we could see them using it whenever the ship shut down all receivers and transmitters, I forgot what they use to announce, but if we wanted to see the Quartermaster work we could go up at that time to see them in action.

Our ship was nuclear capable, it had to have all the equipment required to enable it to work even if all the satellites were toast.


22 posted on 08/21/2017 5:14:51 PM PDT by dila813 (Voting for Trump to Punish Trumpets!)
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To: Kozy

“They will shortly be rebuilt with Putin in the saddle.”

Yes...and wearing a muscle shirt!


23 posted on 08/21/2017 5:20:03 PM PDT by ryderann
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To: dila813; null and void

Russians? Spffft!

Like WE didnt build features like this into GPS before WE deployed it. GPS is spoofable on a digital scale. DuH !!

LORAN-C was spoofable for crying out loud. Alter the 100mHz signal by 10 microseconds and everyone in your coverage area is 60’ from where there little “smart box” told them they were.

There is nothing wrong with your GPS receiver. Do not attempt to adjust the reception. We are controlling the transmission. If we wish to make it seem like you are 1000 meters to the east of where you actually are, we will guide you there. If we wish to make you think your speed over ground is 275 kts when your stall warning is blaring, we will make your instruments read exactly that. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical. We can speed you on your way with pinpoint accuracy and digital precision, or guide commercial freighters into U.S. military war vessels in the dark of night, despite their best efforts to avoid it. So please set quietly, we repeat: there is nothing wrong with any of your digital equipment, smart phones, internet connected vehicles, digital assistants, etc. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to – The Outer Limits.


24 posted on 08/21/2017 5:23:01 PM PDT by Delta 21 (AntiFa and BLM should be on the United States list of Terrorist Organizations)
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To: Delta 21

Excellent!


25 posted on 08/21/2017 5:28:37 PM PDT by Navy Patriot (America returns to the Rule of Law)
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To: oxcart

Spoofing GPS is a fairly easy thing to do.


26 posted on 08/21/2017 5:29:49 PM PDT by CodeToad (Victorious warriors WIN first, then go to war! Go TRUMP!!!)
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To: oxcart
"Is that a Russian freighter??"


27 posted on 08/21/2017 5:30:24 PM PDT by Larry Lucido (Take Covfefe Ree Zig!)
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To: oxcart

beneath you


28 posted on 08/21/2017 5:33:38 PM PDT by KC Burke (If all the world is a stage, I would like to request my lighting be adjusted.)
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To: oxcart

It could have simply been a technical error with a local Differential GPS transmitter erroneously transmitting a grossly inaccurate correction signal.


29 posted on 08/21/2017 5:34:05 PM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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To: lavaroise

You tin foil paranoiacs need to 1) stay current on your psych meds and 2) stop posting on FR. You make this place look bad.


30 posted on 08/21/2017 5:39:20 PM PDT by LouAvul (The most High ruleth in the kingdom of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will.)
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To: oxcart

How hard is it to have lookouts posted at duty stations with night vision and thermal whenever transiting congested waters?


31 posted on 08/21/2017 5:42:29 PM PDT by Rebelbase (Tyranny can hide within decorum.)
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To: lavaroise

Somebody is always supposed to be looking out of the window.


32 posted on 08/21/2017 5:45:50 PM PDT by ebshumidors
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To: lavaroise; oxcart
Tell that to Ron Brown's pilot.

Oh wait...you can't.

33 posted on 08/21/2017 5:50:43 PM PDT by Eagles6
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To: Sirius Lee

I learned to use a sextant to back up inertial fixes early in my naval career. It’s actually kind of fun and rewarding when you can verify your electronically derive position with technology basically from the renaissance period. I wonder if it’s taught any more? Ya can’t spoof the stars out of place and that big old printed almanac is only vulnerable to spilled coffee.


34 posted on 08/21/2017 5:53:20 PM PDT by Afterguard (Deplorable me!)
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To: oxcart

I assure you if it was GPS bs it would have surfaced after the first three boneheaded crashes. This is lax officers. Gps is not an issure. I assure you. If it is that in itself in inexcusable.


35 posted on 08/21/2017 5:55:02 PM PDT by raiderboy (All leftist terrorist are"Anti- Trump"!!)
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To: oxcart

Years ago when I was a tactical radar controller this was called meaconing. Successful meaconing can cause aircraft to be lured into “hot” (ambush-ready) landing zones or enemy airspace, ships to be diverted from their intended routes, bombers to expend ordnance on false targets, or ground stations to receive inaccurate bearings or position locations.


36 posted on 08/21/2017 5:55:53 PM PDT by Portcall24
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To: oxcart

Logic tells me that it is virtually impossible for a large U.S. warship crash in to anything for any reason. Now it has occurred twice in a few months.
I know explanations will come. It is still unexplainable if you ask me.


37 posted on 08/21/2017 5:59:57 PM PDT by cornfedcowboy
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To: TheTimeOfMan

why does the new german navy have glass bottom boats, so they can see their old one


38 posted on 08/21/2017 6:03:13 PM PDT by aces
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To: TheTimeOfMan

..........one night on the bridge of the USS Haynesworth I had my Navy talk phone hanging from my chest and a Chief Petty Officer was instructing me how to use it and how to report on it and so on (circa 1967). We were enroute from New Orleans to Mayport, florida to reload after putting a new screw on the boat in New Orleans. We were somewhere south of Mississippi and it was around midnight with clear skies. A Chief handed me a pair of binoculars and said “now, IF you see ANYTHING!!!!....ANYTHING AT ALL................REPORT IT on these phones and you keep reporting it every 5 minutes until you don’t see it anymore!!! And you make sure the OOD hears and acknowledges your report and if he doesn’t you walk in and talk to him face to face...........got it!! Yes Chief!

So, between then and my watch expiring around sun up, I saw a ship about every 15 or 20 minutes and I dutifully reported it and kept reporting it until I couldn’t see it. None got within MILES of us without us lookouts seeing it. This is why I cannot understand what the hell is going on!!! All of us were deadly serious and no screwing around and very scared as teenagers that we might screw up and endanger this warship we were so privileged to ride on but were too young to appreciate THAT fact at the time.


39 posted on 08/21/2017 6:37:54 PM PDT by Cen-Tejas
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To: Sirius Lee

My daddy could operate one of those when he was navigator on the USS Northampton.


40 posted on 08/21/2017 6:40:56 PM PDT by arthurus
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