Posted on 07/05/2026 1:25:32 PM PDT by E. Pluribus Unum
U.S. policy used to jam up GPS. Now, those signals beam into your pocket.
Shortly after the burst of the dot-com bubble in 2000, a new type of Silicon Valley start-up began to crop up: companies specializing in GPS chips. At the time, GPS — the Global Positioning System, a constellation of satellites that provide location and time to receivers on Earth, courtesy of the American taxpayer — was still relatively niche for everyday people.
This small handful of companies was founded on the basis of two gambles. One was that, like any other chip, GPS chips — at the time, about the size of a postage stamp — would continue to get smaller and more powerful. The other was that GPS could fulfill a recent — and technically challenging — government order: make mobile phones trackable when calling emergency services.
Landlines were already trackable. Every landline phone number in the United States was linked to a database of addresses, which enabled dispatchers to know where to send ambulances or other emergency vehicles if an emergency caller hung up or didn’t know where they were.
Mobile phones available at the time didn’t have this capability, and by 1999 the Federal Communications Commission had issued a diktat: By 2001, mobile phones had to transmit a location when they called 911.
In the late 1990s the most obvious way to locate a mobile phone was to use triangulation from mobile phone masts, using the timing of the phone signals. But because the signals are traveling across the ground — rather than beamed down unobstructed from space — they can encounter all kinds of obstacles en route, making their location less accurate.
The runner-up method was GPS. Although this was more accurate — besides sending signals from orbit, GPS satellites also contain highly accurate...
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Most don’t know what to do with that as it is. It won’t do a thing for you unless you fluff it up with a uP and a display device. I find few able to do that.
Oh, that??
I’ve known about that for decades. I’m one of those weirdos who actually checks the traffic before I have to drive or ride home from work.
I remember those on flashbulbs. ;-D
Me too.
Miss them
I’m not talking about Apple stuff... The “beast” is the computer in general, IMO.
Seems you missed all of the fun ones: PDP-11, PDP-8, Z-80, MC6800, MC6809, MC68000, IBM 360, UNIVAC 1108...
I can remember when “blue points” (blue dots) were appearing on FM car stereos. Then I realized they only appeared on Blaupunkt radios. As I evolved I further realized that “Blaupunkt” was German for “blue point”. I hope this helps.
I can relate. Not only could I not limp away fast enough, I would have trouble seeing where I was limping to.
“some sort of Faraday blockage illegal on smartphones.”
I use my phone as a Wi-Fi hotspot.
Putting my phone in a stainless-steel pot with the stainless-steel lid on doesn’t block my Internet access.
Putting the combination in my refrigerator does.
Not to mention the terror of long flights of stairs.
Every landline phone number in the United States was linked to a database of addresses, which enabled dispatchers to know where to send ambulances or other emergency vehicles if an emergency caller hung up or didn’t know where they were.
Have to take the good with the bad all progress works they way.
Thats what I do.
Swap license plates.
GPS has made the quality of my life so much better. I can get lost anywhere and the need to consult maps all the time was a pain.
First thing I always check. Also always keep some empty 55 gallon drums around.
Thats what we want them to think. 3d chess and all that...
Get a burner phone NOT in your name...I always have one or two lying around.
Yes they can pinpoint most of them, just can’t do anything about them. Democrats and judges stall the process...
If you boil it in water, that will work also.
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