The jamming of sat-nav satellites is escalating tremendously, today we are witnessing hackers becoming more advanced and have even been able to program the receivers display. Not only is sat-nav at risk from this jamming but even critical national infrastructures. Recently a meeting was held in the UK to deliberate on this major problem. We are all aware that these satellites distribute information for GPS transportation, industries and emergency services. It is plain to see the magnitude of this situation and a solution must be put into place immediately. Few people realize that these GPS systems also supply the constant feed of internet, bank transactions, our online power grid and our so vital and precious telephone networks.
Executives and administrators brought up the point at the 2004 New Years Day malfunction of a satellite and the way that it has altered the progressive nature of sat-nav data outputs. The major problem associated with the GPS are the tremendously fragile signals that arrive at the receiver. The common misconception is that the failures of the satellites themselves lead to problems. One satellite within a sat-nav collection illuminates about 20,000 kilometers, which is more than 1/3 of the surface of the earth. It is interesting to note that one satellite puts out less power than a common household radio set. This information tells us that high tech devices on earth can easily disturb signals sent and received.
Criminals from the most common to the most dangerous in the world are well open to attack whether it is for personal gain or a worldwide attack. While some of the more common criminals use this infiltration to gain access to television stations other more advanced criminals have bigger plans. The military is known to have been jamming the GPS frequencies for many years in an effort to distort enemy systems putting their destructive plans to a stop. Today we are faced with the worldwide distribution of minute jamming instruments which are low power and extremely cheap allowing anyone to take full advantage of their capabilities. High powered models are capable of much more harm through mobile and GPS signals. With this advanced technology anyone can completely fool a system to believe false information, for example the wrong co-ordinates to a location or an incorrect time. All these small features can bring about much harm to the population of the world.
Because of the GPS interference even road usage can be affected. A “spoofer” can change prices of tolls and it can even be taken to a more corporate type of crime if tracking devices on company cars are blocked. This hacking can be so simple that the people responsible are “hacking for fun”.
We must look at a solution that can be implemented as soon as possible so that our satellites will not be at the mercy of hackers who would surely use this hole in the system to their advantage. We can only wait and see what our heads of state will provide as a solution for this problem.
