

Are We Getting Overly Reliant on GPS-intensive Systems? - RiderOfGiraffes
http://spectrum.ieee.org/riskfactor/aerospace/satellites/are-we-getting-overly-reliant-on-gps-systems

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cschmidt
The Economist had an interesting story on GPS jammers. Apparently truck
drivers use them so their employers can't track their movements, but they mess
up anything nearby.

<http://www.economist.com/node/18304246>

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gm
Hmm dude, I think we're over-reliant on freekin' being connected all the time.
GPS may fail once every X monts/days/whetever. Whatever the fail likelihood of
GPS actually is, the likelihood of not being connected to the internet at any
given location is far greater, yet we depend on it more and more.

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RiderOfGiraffes
Someone else submitted this, but now it's dead. I did put a comment pointing
to the earlier, related article, and I hope they didn't delete this link
because of that.

If so, you appear to have mis-understood my intention - sorry if I didn't make
myself sufficiently clear.

Here's the comment I made: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2386292>

Here's the earlier, related submission:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2380668>

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yannickmahe
It's encouraging that a number of other systems are being developed (EU,
India, Russia, China). What is slightly discouraging is the time and delays it
takes for them to launch.

Original date for the EU's Galileo was 2010. Now, it's going to be delayed
until at least 2014. That much more time during which we're still dependent on
GPS.

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kovar
Why do you find this encouraging? For the average consumer, these other
systems will have zero impact. The cell phones, handheld, and in car
navigation systems available to them will probably still use GPS.

Given the cost of launching and maintaining these systems, I think the average
consumer would be better off with a single standard rather than competing
systems.

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MoreMoschops
"I think the average consumer would be better off with a single standard
rather than competing systems."

The history of technology so far makes it clear that competing standards lead
to innovation and improvement; furthermore, purity of systems is weakness -
one exploit, one flaw, is effective in 100% of cases.

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kovar
The GPS system may be an exception to the purity argument.

The only GPS degredations that I'm aware of were intentional.

The US military is heavily dependent on the GPS system for everything from
weapons delivery to route finding to station keeping, to .... The system is
probably one of the most fault tolerant and well maintained systems in
existence today.

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EliRivers
"The only GPS degredations that I'm aware of were intentional."

Yes, it has to be intentionally spoofed or jammed. However, there are bad
people in the world who intentionally do bad things. This can be done with
surprisingly little knowledge and ability, and such devices are commercially
available. The GPS system is fine; the problem is that anyone can flick a
switch and mess with it. The US military does not have some kind of magic
device to stop that happening.

"The GPS system may be an exception to the purity argument."

It is very definitely not. With one device I can mess with everyone's nav
system, if everyone uses GPS. If there was a mix of systems being used; GPS,
Galileo, GLONASS, the forthcoming COMPASS, the regional Beidou and other such
regional systems, LORAN and eLORAN ground-based systems, inertial navigation
systems (Which aren't brilliant but are getting better) and various other
options, I will have a much, much harder time of messing with everyone's
navigation.

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hammock
I've been asking a similar question that people often don't like to consider-
Are we getting overly reliant on the Internet?

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wladimir
You could also ask "Are we getting overly reliant on technology"?

But the original question about GPS is already interesting. The GPS network is
getting pretty old. What if a few satellites fail? Replacing them will take a
while, won't it?

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hammock
Technology is technology. The cotton gin is technology. The tomahawk is
technology. I don't think that's the right question to ask.

We get into trouble when people conflate the Internet with technology. The
Internet is is just ONE new development of tech, the way television was, or
electricity, or woven textiles. It's not the end all, be all, and there is
probably <0.01% of people in this world thinking about what happens when the
Internet gets replaced by something else - or more to the point, what the
opportunity cost is of spending so much time and effort on the Internet when
there might be something better just around the corner.

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wladimir
With technology I meant "electronic technology". One big solar flare, and all
our devices break down due to EM. I'm not so much worried about it, but it's
still an interesting question what would happen to human civilization.

I'm not sure what you mean about the internet being "replaced". Unless we find
an fundamentally different information unit to transfer (qubits?), the
international packet-switched network is pretty much it.

Sure, protocols might change, mediums might change, formats might change, the
scope could change from Earth to to the solar system, heck we might call it
some other name and start sending direct neural impulses over it, but when is
it "replaced"?

Hey, be optimistic, we're still using television, electricity and woven
textiles :)

~~~
hammock
>With technology I meant "electronic technology". One big solar flare, and all
our devices break down due to EM. I'm not so much worried about it, but it's
still an interesting question what would happen to human civilization.

In that case I agree and it's an interesting question for sure.

>I'm not sure what you mean about the internet being "replaced". Unless we
find an fundamentally different information unit to transfer (qubits?), the
international packet-switched network is pretty much it.

See that's the attitude I'm talking about; so many people aren't willing to
consider the possibility that there's a better way. "Replaced" was the wrong
word to use- TV or the internet won't ever be replaced, but something else
will come along that will divert some or all of our attention away from it.

