Fox News alert: US fears Iraq has transported GPS guided drones to America

Fox News Channel | 02/24/03 | Brett Baird

[MPB]

I agree. Sounds like an expensive, roundabout and probably relatively ineffective way to do this.

Well, if you already had some delivery system, equipping it with a GPS guidance system, as opposed to blind firing, is a drop in the bucket compared to the rest of the costs involved.

A simple system using any commercial GPS with serial output could be rigged to a PIC device even, controlling thrusters for maneuvering. That would really be the easiest part of a design like that.

[section9]

Oh, I remember that. But it was my impression that Saddam was going to use this thing on Tel Aviv.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

[Catspaw]

You can & you can't. Just plugging the GPS into a serial port isn't going to cut it. I mean I can plug our 76S into our laptop to upload and download in waypoints, etc., but in order to control the vehicle (in our case, a boat, but in this case, it's a missle), you'd need the software interface as well, and the software would have to be rewritten, then it'd have to uploaded to the GPS in a format the GPS would accept. They'd have to using more than a commercial GPS--it'd have to be specialized, as well as the guidance software. They'd have to have a military grade GPS that'd survive the degradation of the GPS signals to commercial GPS units.

[aristeides]

There were stories that Atta and the others had GPS devices on 9/11. Atta visited the WTC the day before. People have speculated he set his GPS device.

HIJACKER IN CITY SEPT. 10 Used navigation tool to pinpoint WTC site .

[Sacajaweau]

We know absolutely that the hijackers used GPS.

Moussaoui also had one when they picked him up as well as the simulation videos for the planes.

[watchwoman]

Could be this was leaked by the Iraqi propaganda-mongers to scare us away from attacking them.

[RummyChick]

shep read an email from someone calling me him a jerk and fool for scaring people about drones
I like shep..even with his 'magical' comments

[jae471]

I wonder if the terrorists who hijacked the planes on 9/11 had GPS devices on them that led them to our cities? Food for thought. All I know is if I took control of a plane headed from Boston to LA, I wouldn't have a clue on how to find NYC.

My guess is yes-and-no. Don't forget that some of the hijackers were training to be commercial pilots. It would have been easy for any pilot to plot the course with a standard flight map and on-board nav systems. GPS was probably one of these systems, but anyone training for commercial flight has to go through the old-fashioned IFR navagation training.

[Catspaw]

If they're not going for a specific target, but an area, a commercially available GPS would probably work (say the middle of DC, NYC or LA). But if they want to hit a specific target like the 9/11 hijackers, they'd need a military unit or do it before the signals are degraded. But it seems like a lot of trouble when all it would take would be someone riding a subway in NYC.

[CaptainJustice]

Drones? You mean like Sheryl Crow, Martin Sheen, and Sean Penn?


/joke

[verity]

Let me know when it is safe to come out of the shower!

[MPB]

There were stories that Atta and the others had GPS devices on 9/11. Atta visited the WTC the day before. People have speculated he set his GPS device.

Dang, he could have saved himself the cost of that trip by just using ANY COMMERCIALLY AVAILABE MAPPING SOFTWARE to get a lat/long. :) Planes already have GPS, and I'm presuming the flight courses they had made at least some mention to navigation using on-board equipment.

The frightening thing is just how easy it is for these terrorists to do the things they do.

[mikhailovich]

I'm going with the Haydel P tube and some Tungsten Iron.

[Myrddin]

It seems we could shut down the civilian GPS network(which the Iraqis are surely using) in an emergency with relatively little impact on military operations.

You can't shutdown the "civilian GPS". That is what is known as the C/A channel. Part of the C/A channel information is a current "bookmark" for the pseudo random number sequence that is being broadcast on the encrypted channel. That PN sequence repeats every 7 days, so you need some way to latch onto the current spot. You also need the current crypto key to encrypt your version of the PN sequence to attempt to get "chip sync" with the encrypted channel.

[Travis McGee]

What are you talking about? You absolutely can walk into any marine store today and walk out with hardware that will steer an autopilot to a GPS waypoint. That autopilot/GPS combo can be rigged to a drone as easily as a boat.

And if the signal is degraded (selective availability) that won't help much if the target is an entire city.

[TShaunK]

right on brother, kick their ass and take their gas!

[MindBender26]

Cessna 182 with off the shelf equipment?

[Diddle E. Squat]

"Others focus their emotions on the need to strike back, although it isn't clear at whom, since the FBI hasn't caught anyone yet. Even so, they post furious tirades on FreeRepublic.com urging the president to kill all "ragheads and camel drivers," "nuke Mecca" and turn Baghdad into "a glass parking lot."

The author sure nailed that one.

[mwl1]

A guided drone... at first I thought they meant Bill Clinton.