this post was submitted on 23 Nov 2023
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425
Commercial Flights Are Experiencing 'Unthinkable' GPS Attacks and Nobody Knows What to Do (www.vice.com)
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Commercial Flights Are Experiencing 'Unthinkable' GPS Attacks and Nobody Knows What to Do::New "spoofing" attacks resulting in total navigation failure have been occurring above the Middle East for months, which is "highly significant" for airline safety.

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 11 months ago (3 children)

The GPS chips have internal limits on how fast they think they can move. If they determine that they are moving faster than 300m/s they will stop outputting any results for a period of time. This limit is, IIRC, put in at the silicon level, so only military chips can bypass it.

If you try to use mapping apps on a plane you sometimes run into this issue.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

It is trivial to make your GPS receiver firmware ignore these limits. There are even open-source receivers (SwiftNav piksi, for example). Modifying a binary is much harder, but not impossible for a motivated state like Iran or Russia. It's best to think of the COCOM limits as suggestions.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (3 children)

But even the fastest airliners at the moment (A330 neo) moves slower than 300m/s. Wikipedia claims that COCOM limits are even higher so I don't think that they are the reason for the inaccurate tracking on planes.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 11 months ago

There's also a height limit

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Turns out it's 1000 knots (~600m/s), or 18,000 feet. So it's the altitude in this case. But a slow-moving drone at <18,000ft is fine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 months ago

Maybe a misapplication then. I've run into it with model rocketry before (for good reason)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 11 months ago

Oh, neat. I was not aware of that. I have seen that before but thought it was due to the phone not being able to lock on to the signal from inside a big metal tube.