U.S. Army awarded contracts to Russian GPS jammer vendor

The U.S. Army awarded $192,000 in contracts in 2002 to a Russian company identified in news reports as a supplier of Global Positioning System (GPS) jamming equipment to Iraq. Moscow-based Aviaconversiya Ltd. has denied selling the jamming equipment to Iraq, according to the news reports. Officials there couldn't be reached for comment this week, despite repeated attempts by Computerworld to do so.

On Tuesday, President Bush personally complained to Russian Premier Vladimir Putin about the sale of Russian military equipment to Iraq, according to White House spokesman Ari Fleischer. In a press briefing that day, Fleischer said the White House was "concerned" about reports "of ongoing cooperation and support to Iraqi military forces being provided by a Russian company that produces GPS jamming equipment. ... We have credible evidence that Russian companies provided the assistance and the prohibited hardware to the Iraqi regime.

"The President raised with President Putin our ongoing concerns about support [that] would be provided for Iraqi military forces by Russian companies that produced the equipment," he said. Putin promised to look into the issue, Fleischer said.

Iraq evidently tried to use those jammers against U.S. forces after the U.S.-led coalition began strikes against Iraqi targets last week. "We have noticed some attempts by the Iraqis to use a GPS jamming system that they obtained from another nation. We have destroyed all six of those jammers in the last two nights' airstrikes. I'm pleased to say they had no effect on us," Air Force Maj. Gen. Victor Renuart, of the U.S. Central Command, said yesterday.

Air Force Lt. Col. Ken McClellan, a Defense Department spokesman, acknowledged that the Army had let contracts to Aviaconversiya. The company is included on an online list of all Defense Department contracts worth more than $25,000 that were awarded in 2002 (download PDF from Defenselink). But he declined to provide any details.

"Because of the sensitive nature of what constitutes exact military capabilities, or potential vulnerabilities, I doubt seriously whether you'll find anyone willing to go beyond the previously released information from Defenselink or Commerce Business Daily," McClellan said in an e-mail reply to questions about the contract.

GPS experts said the Army most likely bought equipment from Aviaconversiya to test its capabilities, which in turn would help U.S. forces avoid jamming or attack jammers being used against them. But, James Hasik, a GPS consultant in Atlanta, said he doubts that the jammers would have much effect on GPS-equipped smart weapons used in Iraq such as the Tomahawk cruise missile or Joint Direct Attack Munitions, because they have backup guidance systems such as gyroscope-based inertial navigation systems.

Richard Langley, a professor of geodesy at the University of New Brunswick in Canada, agreed and said the jammers would also have a hard time interfering with an encrypted military GPS code broadcast at a frequency of 1227.6 MHz. But the jammers could interfere with signals broadcast at 1575.42 MHz, a band used by commercial GPS receivers. Such receivers could have been bought by individual troops, but the Army tried to derail that practice in January. In the January 2003 "Pathfinder" newsletter (download PDF), the Army warned troops of the "severe risks" associated with the use of commercial GPS receivers on the battlefield. The newsletter is published by the Army's Program Manager GPS in Fort Monmouth, N.J.

"Never use them for calling in your critical position information," the newsletter cautioned, urging the use of a crypto-protected Precision Lightweight GPS Receiver (PLGR) made by Rockwell Collins Inc. in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The newsletter said the PLGR is "your best protection against spoofing and jamming and the mission failure or death that could result from their effect on a commercial" receiver.

Hasik said jamming of civilian signals could be detrimental if pilots of aging aircraft such as the Air Force A-10 or the Navy F-14 have bought handheld commercial receivers to make up for those planes' lack of built-in GPS. Jamming could interfere with critical navigation functions of the receivers, he said.

GPS receivers are susceptible to jamming because of the weak nature of the signals as they travel to receivers on earth from 24 satellites in space, Hasik said.

This week's warning about the sale of Russian GPS jammers to Iraq and the subsequent attack on them illustrate the Pentagon's concern about interference with one of the core technologies of its smart weapons systems. Earlier this year, McClellan said the Pentagon had a "somewhat serious concern about an online article in 'Phrack' that detailed how to build a homemade GPS jammer" (see story).

Homemade GPS jammers raise concerns

By Bob Brewin JANUARY 17, 2003

Government officials and communications experts are assessing the public safety and security implications of a newly posted online article that provides directions for making cheap devices that can jam Global Positioning System (GPS) signals. Information in the article that appears in the current issue of the online hacker magazine Phrack potentially puts at risk GPS devices used for commercial navigation and military operations, authorities said.

The Phrack article provides a detailed guide to building a low-cost, portable GPS jammer out of components that can be easily obtained from electronics supply houses. According to the article, the "onslaught of cheap GPS-based navigation (or hidden tracking devices) has made it necessary for the average citizen to take up the fine art of electronic warfare." Electronics and GPS experts who read the article this week called it technically competent and said amateurs with a certain amount of technical skill could build a GPS jammer from the plans.

Although the article said the jammer is designed to work only against civil-use GPS signals broadcast on the frequency of 1575.42 MHz and not the military frequency of 1227.6 MHz, James Hasik, an Atlanta-based consultant and author of the book The Precision Revolution: GPS and the Future of Aerial Warfare, disagreed.

Hasik said that while the Phrack jammer is targeted at civil GPS signals, known as the C/A code, it could also threaten military systems, since "almost all military GPS receivers must first acquire the C/A signal" before locking onto the military signal, known as the P(Y) code.

Hasik said that GPS receivers are especially vulnerable to jamming because of low signal strength after traveling through space from GPS satellites orbiting 12,000 miles above the earth.

The U.S. Department of Defense, which faces the possibility of having its GPS-guided weapons come up against Russian-made GPS jammers in Iraq, has antijamming technology at its disposal. Still, Defense officials viewed the Phrack article with concern.

Air Force Lt. Col. Ken. McClellan, a Pentagon spokesman, said the implications of homemade jammers described in the article are "somewhat serious" because the use of such jammers "could disrupt commercial operations."

McClellan said GPS experts at the Pentagon do not "at the moment" view homemade jammers as a hazard to flight safety for commercial aircraft or ship operations, "but rather a nuisance."

The Federal Aviation Administration is developing a nationwide GPS-based precision landing system. And the Coast Guard operates a GPS-based maritime navigation system on both coasts, the Great Lakes, inland waterways and Hawaii. Bill Mosley, a spokesman for the Department of Transportation, the parent agency of the FAA and the Coast Guard, said his department is well aware of the threat posed by GPS jammers.

The DOT's John A. Volpe Transportation Systems Center, in Cambridge, Mass., prepared a report in August 2001 that said, "Some jamming devices/techniques are available on the Internet and proliferation will continue, because a single device that could disrupt military and civil operations worldwide would be attractive to malicious governments and groups."

As a result of that study, Mosley said, Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta last March ordered an "action plan" to protect civilian GPS signals and users by, among other things, "the transfer of appropriate antijam technology from the military to civil use." Mosley was unable say whether that technology transfer has occurred.

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Richard Langley, a GPS expert and professor of geodesy at the University of New Brunswick in Fredericton, New Brunswick, called the implications of home-brew GPS jammers "scary." But he expressed doubt that the Phrack jammer would be very effective against aircraft when used from the ground. However, Langley noted that if a terrorist used the jammer from on board an aircraft, it would extend the range and "hence the effectiveness of the jammer."

James Miller, program manager for GPS at United Air Lines Inc., said the loss of a GPS signal in a commercial aircraft wouldn't "cause a catastrophic event," because airliners operate with multiple navigation systems. But loss of a GPS signal by general aviation aircraft flying solely on GPS could be "quite challenging," he said.

Warren Morningstar, a spokesman for the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association in Frederick, Md., said general aviation pilots don't use GPS as their sole navigation source and called the potential of jamming a "nuisance" rather than a safety hazard.

"You need to take it seriously anytime there is publicity about things that could disrupt the critical infrastructure," said Mike Swiek, executive director of the U.S. GPS Industry Council in Washington. But, Swiek said, "there is no need for panic. All the GPS systems are monitored for any type of interference." Swiek noted that while "any garden-variety radio engineer" has the knowledge to build a GPS jammer, there have been few reports of any attacks against GPS systems.

Gabe Neville, a spokesman for Rep. Joseph Pitts, (R-Penn.), co-chairman of the House Electronic Warfare Working Group, said news of the Phrack story about jamming indicates that GPS jamming technology is "easily available" and that the Pentagon needs to beef up its electronic warfare research and development budget. But Neville said he doubts a homemade jammer could cause as much damage or disruption as systems acquired and operated by foreign governments

This is BS. Nothing more than snake oil salesmen. Anyone who knows how spread spectrum modulation works ( which is what GPS uses ) Knows it is somewhat jam proof. It probably can be jammed but not with some low power home built.

In a nutshell spread spectrum works by taking what you want to send. And then adds a whole lot of “ garbage “ to it. ( but it is known to you garbage ) this spreads your signal bandwidth over a large portion of the spectrum. Also because you have a fixed amount of transmit power. Your signal level above noise gets reduced. ( think of a long bump Vs. a Mt. peak. but both use the same amount of material )
On the other end the person you want to receive your signal “ de-spreads “ the signal by removing the “ garbage “ ( he knows what the garbage is too )
Now the spreading / de-spreading process is the same. There reverse images of each other. So as your signal is being despread. Any added noise ( which is what a jamming signal is ) gets spread out. Your signal is being raised out of the mud. And the noise is being pushed down into the mud. ( remember that fixed power thing ). So a jammer would need to transmit a very wideband high power signal. To saturate the spectrum and survive the despreading process. This take a lot of TX power. Plus attracts homi
missiles

From Russia with blood: missile attack kills four Americans
By Lindsay Murdoch, Herald Correspondent in central Iraq
March 28 2003

Iraq's military yesterday continued hit-and-run guerilla tactics against United States forces moving towards Baghdad through irrigated areas of central Iraq, north of the Euphrates River.

In a surprise attack south of Najaf, Iraqis used a Russian-made anti-tank missile to destroy a US tank, killing its four crew.

A US light-armoured vehicle was also hit, injuring several marines.

US commanders did not know that the Iraqis possessed the type of missile used in the tank attack. The missile can penetrate the armoured plating of US tanks that are at the front of huge convoys of about 20,000 first division marines as they move towards Baghdad.

A convoy the Herald is travelling with started moving again yesterday after 48 hours being dug into defensive positions because of sporadic attacks and a severe storm.

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Small-arms fire could be heard to the east of the road the convoy was travelling on.

The bodies of several Iraqis lay behind burnt-out vehicles on the side of the road near an oil plant.

Discarded Iraqi uniforms were booby trapped, marines found. The attacks are believed to be initiated by highly mobile units of the Baghdad-based Republican Guard, backed by local army units and militia.

The Republican Guard units are travelling in small armoured vehicles. They engage the most forward deployed US armoured vehicles and then retreat.

Lifting of the storm will allow US attack helicopters and aircraft to target Iraqi units on the ground for the first time since the storm hit on Tuesday. The US forces' push north to Baghdad has been stop-start since Monday, but the 1st Marine Division is more than halfway from the Kuwaiti border to Baghdad.

Roads have been mined, Iraqis dressed in civilian clothing waving flags have opened fire on troops, and there have been attacks by mortars and small arms.

US commanders in the convoys have been told of US-gathered intelligence that indicates the Republican Guard is ready to use chemical weapons against US forces on roads leading to Baghdad.

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