Can geolocation easily be falsified? Sure you can jam GPS, but can you easily falsify it?
I'm not an expert, but I was surprised to learn that GPS chips aren't as simple as I imagined. E.g. to get a "normal" (civilian I guess) licence you have to manufacture your chips so that they shut down if the object is moving too quickly (otherwise it could be used for missiles).
It can be done for probably less then a thousand dollars, even.
It's also pretty trivial to detect the simple falsification schemes, but outside of exotic military and research projects, none of the easily available GPS SoCs bother.
> was surprised to learn that GPS chips aren't as simple as I imagined.
On that you are very right.
I'm often amazed by GPS, or any of the other GNSS technologies really.
A fleck as big as a thumbnail which can communicate with multiple satellites wizzing-by to lock your location within 10s of meters. The fleck contains the antenna, the RF frontend, signal locking and tracking circuit, and a small computer to provide the navigational solution from the observables. And you get all this wonder super cheap.
The whole system, the space vehicles, the ground segment is of course very expensive, but somehow the militaries of the world decided that they will you use all of that for free. If you would write this in a sci-fi I would trash your manuscript immediately. Except somehow it is not science fiction. It is reality.
I'm not an expert, but I was surprised to learn that GPS chips aren't as simple as I imagined. E.g. to get a "normal" (civilian I guess) licence you have to manufacture your chips so that they shut down if the object is moving too quickly (otherwise it could be used for missiles).