
USAF Is Jamming GPS in Western U.S. For Largest Ever Red Flag Air War Exercise - tonyztan
http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/17987/usaf-is-jamming-gps-in-the-western-u-s-for-largest-ever-red-flag-air-war-exercise
======
matheweis
They do this all of the time.

I subscribed to the FAA alerts a couple of years ago after learning that the
GPS interference tests were one of various causes of so-called “flyaways”
(unexpectedly losing control of a GPS guided drone).

Anyway, since then I’ve gotten an alert about these tests almost every month
or so for the last couple of years.

Not sure why a big deal is being made about this particular one...

~~~
0xfaded
As I understand it the military wants to prevent the FAA from decommissioning
radio NavAids and secondary radar. The FAA had counted on $100 billion from
the decommissioning after the introduction of ADS-B. Jamming GPS signals
forces aircraft to rely on the old systems, so it has become part of a
politics game.

~~~
criley2
Interesting. I was under the impression that GPS was made available to
Civilians by Reagan after the Soviets shot down a South Korean plane that
strayed into Soviet airspace. Their tools and training were ineffective at
guidance and they got shot down.

Reagan made GPS open to international civilian use because there was literally
no other tool that could accurately help planes not get murdered by the
Russians, etc.

But now you're suggesting that the older tools were effective enough and
should remain in place 30 years after civilian GPS?

~~~
rahkiin
On top of that: isn't the solution for USAF to stop jamming a widely civilian
used protocol? Forcing others to keep using old tools and not realy on newer
and better tools just so they can jam it at will seems counterintuitive

~~~
gbacon
The Air Force is jamming GPS. What if an adversary did?

~~~
marcosdumay
Civilian equipment is often not prepared for dealing with an unexpected war. I
don't think this is a problem to be solved.

~~~
dmix
There's still thousands of planes in the sky whose safety needs to be
considered in such a (predictable) event.

------
verelo
As a private pilot, this is the kind of thing that makes me scared to fly
without being well versed on radio nav aids. I feel like i know them well, but
honestly i use them so rarely in practice it would likely be an uncomfortable
situation.

~~~
chrisper
As a private pilot you would look at NOTAMs before flying, no?

~~~
verelo
Of course, but my real concern is the possibility that this happens and is not
in a NOTAM.

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colordrops
Title is a bit misleading. They are jamming an area over Nevada, not the
entire western U.S. Suggest a title change.

~~~
s0rce
Yah, not clear. I was going to be annoyed since I plan to go hiking this
weekend in California. Probably would have been good to practice the old map
and compass stuff, actually.

~~~
davchana
Even if this was not happening, and GPS were supposed to be working, carrying
old school maps, compass, paper & pen is always a good idea.

~~~
jschwartzi
An altimeter is pretty useful too. I use my altimeter more than my compass
unless I don't have any handrails nearby.

~~~
dmix
Sorry if this is a dumb question as an inexperienced hiker, why would an
altimeter be more helpful in those situations?

~~~
splendidtube
Most maps for hiking/backcountry use are topographic. If you generally know
what line you’re on, like a trail or along a creek, you can match your
altitude to the elevation on the map and identify your position. It’s a lot
quicker and easier than finding a point, taking the angle from a compass, and
plotting your position on the map.

~~~
chiph
And a time-saver over the old technique used in case of getting lost where you
just went downhill until you reached a road (this got some friends & myself
un-lost in the Sierras back in the 80's)

~~~
s0rce
Careful, there was just a rescue the other day in socal on my. Baldy where a
woman got stuck trying to do basically this. It was too steep to go back up
and there was a waterfall below. Had to be rescued. Still not the worst idea.

------
CaliforniaKarl
I wonder, will the GPS jamming cause any disruption to (or, worse, deviation
of) GPS time signals? If yes, that could cause some interesting effects to NTP
servers and appliances that use GPS as their stratum-zero source of time.

~~~
api_or_ipa
How many NTP servers run off GPS? My understanding was that most people just
piggy backed off pool.ntp.org and didn't bother running their own stratum 1.

~~~
gh02t
I'm currently building one for fun using a Raspberry Pi and a cheap GPS module
from Aliexpress. I don't think a lot of hobbyists do it, but it's pretty
common for stuff like datacenters to have their own local GPS disciplined NTP
server.

It's not that hard to make one yourself by the way, and the hardware costs
about $15. At the pro level you can get rack mount units with GPS + an on
board TXCO/OXCO/rubidium frequency reference. You can probably get one with a
cesium reference too, but I don't think that's much use outside a metrology
lab (and will cost a _fortune_ ).

[https://spectracom.com/products-services/precision-
timing/en...](https://spectracom.com/products-services/precision-
timing/enterprise-class-securesync) edit: if someone knows about how much
these cost please comment, I'm curious but I don't want to request a quote.

[https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2017/02/22/how-to-
build-a...](https://developers.redhat.com/blog/2017/02/22/how-to-build-a-
stratum-1-ntp-server-using-a-raspberry-pi/)

~~~
api_or_ipa
Using a raspberry pi as a GPS NTP timeserver greatly amuses me since the
raspberry pi doesn't ship with an RTC (or at least last time I checked). As a
follow up question, how does the system time get set on one of these time
servers? Does the NTP process have rights to update local system time or does
the system rely on requesting NTP from itself?

~~~
gh02t
System time gets set either from the GPS signal if not connected to the
network or another NTP server if you are at boot. The satellite gives you a
coarse time directly (accurate to milliseconds I think), plus a high precision
frequency reference driven by the onboard atomic clock, which NTP uses to keep
time. Once setup, this thing is supposedly capable of stability in the
microsecond range, which is better than you'd get relying on an external
server (dunno if true yet however).

NTP can set your system time I believe.

Lack of a RTC doesn't matter in this case because you wouldn't want one, they
typically aren't stable enough. You're not supposed to turn it off very often
anyway. If you were more serious about it than me you'd probably add a
rubidium oscillator to serve as a secondary reference when GPS is offline and
hook the whole thing up to a large battery, so that it never turns off. I
don't care that much though, I'm just having fun with cheap toys.

------
shostack
The IMAX movie Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag was pretty cool if people
want to see more about this training exercise. The level of coordination to
pull this whole thing off is staggering.

I wonder what sorts of things they need to account for in this day and age of
drones, digital warfare, etc.

~~~
kfcm
This movie is an example of what happens when Boeing's Marketing department
and USAF recruiting (with assistance from SAF/FMP) team up.

------
askvictor
Given that an individual or state could implement such an attack, I would
imagine it wise to test the impacts of an GPS jam on the otherwise normal
running of society. How many delivery drivers don't know how to get anywhere
within a GPS?

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tlb
If the goal is to similate navy pilots flying with intermittent GPS, they
should add a test mode to their planes receivers rather than jamming which
disrupts all planes.

~~~
hudibras
When I was in the Navy, I participated in similar exercises. Operating in a
GPS-denied environment is only one objective we trained on. Identifying that
you were being jammed was also key. GPS jamming looks just like the "Huh,
we're not locking on any satellites yet, better restart it" that we've all
experienced with our car or smartphone.

Also, it's likely that there are classified counter-counter-GPS systems or
tactics that are being tested or trained on during Red Flag and other similar
exercises, but these won't make it into the press.

~~~
gbacon
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_Block_IIIA#Military_(M-cod...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPS_Block_IIIA#Military_\(M-code\))

------
mrep
If you want to see some crazy US Air Force training, youtube "red flag
training". Those videos give an amazing perspective on what our military is
trained to do.

~~~
craftyguy
As someone who served in "our military", public videos do not capture the
"hurry up and wait" that dominates the majority of all military actions.

~~~
13of40
Moving, cleaning, and sleeping on large green objects doesn't make for very
engaging cinema.

~~~
arca_vorago
Relevant:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTkgi7scKo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yuTkgi7scKo)

------
tlrobinson
The article about astro-inertial navigation systems, as found on the SR-71, is
interesting as well:

[http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-
zone/17207/sr-71s-r2-d2-coul...](http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-
zone/17207/sr-71s-r2-d2-could-be-the-key-to-winning-future-fights-in-gps-
denied-environments)

I imagine the military has also developed downward-looking computer-vision
and/or radar based positioning systems.

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mncharity
Very not my field, but for context which hasn't been mentioned here yet: GPS
spoofing attacks appear to have become more accessible of late, and to have
occurred in the wild (notably on the coast of the Black Sea). And jamming
could be relatively easier.

[1] [http://gpsworld.com/spoofing-in-the-black-sea-what-really-
ha...](http://gpsworld.com/spoofing-in-the-black-sea-what-really-happened/)

------
nongle
GPS jammer is an important equipment for GPS positioning, which is very
important for anti-tracking and protection. It's good for your safety.
[https://www.jammer-buy.com/gps-jammer/c-25.html](https://www.jammer-
buy.com/gps-jammer/c-25.html)

------
lilythberky
The imaginary enemy may be China and Russia. Russia, in particular, has a very
powerful disruptive force. China and Russia will work closely together to try
to prevent the outbreak of conflict. Hopefully there won't be a major outbreak
of war. source: [http://www.perfectjammer.com/gps-blockers-
jammers.html](http://www.perfectjammer.com/gps-blockers-jammers.html)

------
dmix
If you're curious what the Russians will be deploying in remote areas (outside
of aircraft) this is their primary electronic warfare vehicle which can jam
low-orbit satellites, which I'd imagine includes GPS and other NATO networked
systems.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasukha_EW_System](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krasukha_EW_System)

> The Krasukha-4 has the range for effectively disrupting low Earth orbit
> (LEO) satellites and can cause permanent damage to targeted radio-electronic
> devices. Ground based radars are also a viable target for the Krasukha-4.

------
d33
It kind of baffles me that today the best solution we have to the problem of
navigation is still based on the concept of having satellites in the space. Is
there an ELI5 answer to why we can't have a decent system of figuring out
where we are on this planet without making any unstable additions to it?

~~~
Zeebrommer
Well why do you think we should? I don't know of any positioning principles
that do not rely on measuring the distance to some known reference -- be it a
star, sattelite, ground station or your place of departure.

------
xen2xen1
Hasn't there been stories here about the GPS signal near important buildings
in Moscow being shifted 20 blocks or something? Regardless, after a second I'm
totally up with it being messed up sometimes. If it never turns off you
literally don't know how to live without it.

------
lettergram
This makes so much sense... Yesterday I saw at least 6 Apache helicopters take
off from the rather small Champaign, IL airport. Earlier this week I saw some
strange jets as well.

Was pretty confused, but they were probably moving around for this exercise
(either too or from).

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murukesh_s
What about self driving cars and self driving cab services? Will they run into
each other? Do they depend on GPS for navigation?

~~~
microcolonel
If they did, they would be crashing into parked cars and buildings as well.
GPS can not be the basis of fine navigation, and it does nothing for collision
avoidance.

~~~
mannykannot
Navigation by GPS and collision avoidance are not mutually exclusive - people
do it all the time. They operate at different scales.

------
microcolonel
It'd be cool to have another good documentary. I remember there being a good
cut of one of these exercises some years ago.

------
madengr
Are they jamming GPS, or just turning it off over that area? Sort of hard to
tell reading that article.

~~~
itronitron
they wouldn't be able to turn it off over a single geographic area as the GPS
satellites are broadcasting from space but they might be able to turn
Selective Availability (SA) on for individual satellites however that would
downgrade the signal received by every GPS receiver in view of the satellite
until they turned SA back off

~~~
tialaramex
Modern GPS satellites don't know how to do Selective Availability, this
feature was not being used, so implementing it in spacecraft (which is not
free) made no sense and new birds aren't fitted with it.

Newer models of GPS satellite implement a new variant of COSPAS-SARSAT
instead, unlike a Geostationary satellite they pass over the whole Earth's
surface, so they can see your rescue beacon from anywhere, and unlike the
weather satellites used in the past to cover the whole surface they have
powerful transmitters in the right frequency range already, so they could
reply.

Today (in testing only) this means faster rescue after triggering a beacon.
Search and Rescue resources will know where you are (often to within metres)
just minutes or even seconds after you activate the beacon, an improvement on
prior models (10+ minutes on most of the surface, up to hours nearer the
poles) and eventually new beacons will be able to tell you that rescue is
coming perhaps with short text or coded messages e.g. "Mountain patrol on
their way. ETA 48 minutes. Stay where you are if safe."

------
basicplus2
Denial of GPS is one thing but how do you detect when the coordinates are
deliberately shifted... If you are flying could be mountain goat you hit

------
sjg007
Maybe that explains why my pizza was delivered to the wrong house.

------
jrue
Why aren’t GPS signals digitally signed? It would be simple to prevent this
kind of attack.

~~~
tritium
Jamming is denial of service. If the transmission medium is flooded with a
high noise floor, digital signal processors will fail to decode any valid
values from the band the carrier signal transmits on. Authentic signatures
have no utility if excessive noise outshines the entirety of the signal.

No one can check any signatures, if the signed message cannot reach an
audience.

Perhaps an aperture could prevent omni-directional cross-talk and
interference, forcing a receiver to only listen from a specific, selected
line-of-sight source, but to simulate warfare, what if the enemy really does
manage to completely destroy a resource?

A genuine disruption keeps everyone honest in the spirit of the exercise. It’s
really down. Not just “what if”? No peeking. No cheating.

~~~
jrue
I see. So it’s not just about spoofing messages.

------
masonic
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16242891](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16242891)

"inconsistent GPS service" for 3 hour late-night windows each day during the
exercise does not justify the clickbaity title.

~~~
anigbrowl
I don't find it clickbaity since it includes meaningful context about purpose
and scope.

~~~
greglindahl
I'm in the Bay Area, should I be concerned that my GPS will be disrupted?
"Western U.S." is a big area. Maybe I should click on it just to be sure?
Heeeey, yeah, clickbait. Maybe an innocent mistake from a headline writer who
lives in the Eastern US? Neah. Clickbait.

~~~
anigbrowl
How much information do you want them to shoehorn into a headline? Be
realistic please.

~~~
dawnerd
I dunno, how about "USAF Is Jamming GPS in Nevada For Largest Ever Red Flag
Air War Exercise"

~~~
hedora
They could also say they’re jamming GPS in a radio room in an Air Force base,
but it wouldn’t change the fact that the jamming will impact a multiple state
area, including Colorado and the coast of California.

~~~
TeMPOraL
That depends on the strength and method of jamming, which is the point of this
complaint.

