Submitted 2 weeks ago by otter@lemmy.ca to technology@lemmy.world
https://www.wired.com/story/the-dangerous-rise-of-gps-attacks/
cross-posted from: lemm.ee/post/30835184
This sounds legitimately annoying… But why is this canceling flights? Do the pilots not carry maps? Plus, they’re in the air, can’t they rely on radar guidance? They may have radar on the aircraft, but there’s definitely ground based radar as well. Pilots are very well trained, they should be able to handle this…
Not an expert, but given the high numbers of planes simultaneously in the air, it’s critical to know high precision position data and not estimated numbers based on maps and manual triangulation with a calculator. That might have been viable decades ago, but the tightly scheduled flights nowadays operate with minimal intervals between the flights. Even if pilots still master the old craft of navigation, it is simply not practical in an overcrowded sky, where minimization of risks is paramount.
Pretty much this, yes.
There’s also the complexity of approach procedures that they need to follow in order to mitigate noise complaints. Back in the old days, they’d just fly from radio beacon to radio beacon, with look-out-the-window navigation for the final approach.
These days, lots of airports are within or close to cities, which means a much more complex routing and specific altitude and speed restrictions. GPS made that possible; they’re simply too much workload for pilots.
So yeah, in emergency situations where GPS fails completely, there’s going to be some changes to procedures needed in order to make that work. They’d also need to increase separation between planes in order to prevent problems.
The simple solution is: nobody should fuck around with GPS since we literally all benefit from it.
They are cancelling flights because those specific airports don’t have the equipment to provide a precision landing (ILS) during low visibility weather. They only published a landing procedure with GPS. They will now spend a few months installing the ILS system to enable such landings so they can resume commercial flights.
Before GPS, all airports would be either VFR only or would have an ILS system installed. Since then, some airports were built without an expensive ILS but used a published GPS approach to allow low-vis landings.
They could have continued flights with only VFR navigation, but that would seriously restrict the weather they could operate in.
There was a civilian airplane that mistakenly drifted into Soviet airspace and was shot down back in the 1983, killing everyone on board. Pilots can train for scenarios requiring manual operation, but that doesn’t mean they should only rely on human perception, especially when it involves other people’s lives.
Per Kagi’s summary tool:
There has been a significant increase in GPS/GNSS jamming and spoofing attacks, particularly in the Baltic region and around Ukraine and the Middle East. The attacks have disrupted air and maritime navigation, with thousands of planes reporting issues with their GPS systems in the Baltic region. Russia has been increasingly blamed as the source of these GPS attacks, with signals traced back to Russian regions like Kaliningrad. The attacks can either jam GPS signals entirely, making the systems unusable, or spoof the signals to show false locations. The disruptions have led to flight cancellations and aborted landings, raising concerns about the potential for major accidents and environmental disasters. Governments and aviation/maritime safety experts are increasingly sounding the alarm about the threat posed by these GPS attacks. The attacks may be a form of "hybrid warfare" aimed at creating uncertainty and disrupting civilian and commercial activities. The number of GPS jamming and spoofing incidents has increased significantly over the past 4 years globally. While the disruptions have mostly impacted high-altitude planes and ships, there are concerns about the potential to impact individual GPS-reliant systems in the future. Technical countermeasures are being explored to reduce the impact of these GPS attacks, but the threat is expected to continue growing.
Isnt GPS and other signal blocking against ITU? Seems like a slippery slope into being sanctioned further
solrize@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
It might be possible for e.g. airliners to use military GPS with anti-spoofing (encrypted GPS signal which is harder to spoof or jam, but which needs special receivers that have to be rekeyed regularly). Obvs that would require some bureaucratic cooperation between the air carriers and the military. Also, at least near airports, ground beacons can be used the same way.
Obviously the stuff with maps and triangulation, or celestial navigation can be done by computer now, instead of by some crewmember with a calculator. But GPS is sure a lot simpler to use.
Spoofing GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and the Chinese system (I forget what it’s called) all at the same time might be much more difficult than spoofing just one.
0x0@programming.dev 2 weeks ago
The Chinese one is Beidou and I fail to understand why planes use only GPS.
dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
Planes only use GPS because GPS has a very rigorous signal integrity program that others don’t have. The “safety of life” requirements on GPS are onerous. Also, GPS has both L1 C/A and L5 (not enough L1C or L2C to be useful yet) signals. I don’t think Galileo or GLONASS have extra signals, but I think Beidou does (not an expert on other systems).
Just this January, ESA completed the safety of life analysis requirements for Galileo to be used as a civil aviation signal.
dogslayeggs@lemmy.world 2 weeks ago
The military won’t give access to the decryption keys to that many organizations, especially foreign organizations. The crypto tech and keys are both classified, so anyone handling a unit would have to be given at least Secret clearance. Anyone doing the key updating would need to have Top Secret clearance (I think, not 100% on that). Every plane would have to be constantly monitored at all times (both in flight and while at foreign airports) by cleared personnel to ensure the boxes aren’t taken by adversarial states.