NavList:
A Community Devoted to the Preservation and Practice of Celestial Navigation and Other Methods of Traditional Wayfinding
Re: GPS "spoofing"
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2013 Jul 27, 10:55 -0700
From: Lu Abel
Date: 2013 Jul 27, 10:55 -0700
I think any navigation treatisesays "a good navigator uses all available sources of information." Over-dependence on a single source of data is wrong. But denigrating that source of data because it might, in some technologically esoteric circumstances, be spoofed is wrong, just as we would object to someone denigrating celestial because "it's sometimes cloudy out."
There was a spectacular "all available sources" incident off Cape Cod (Massachusetts, for our overseas readers) about two decades ago. A cruise ship had a fancy new navigation system -- large screen chart display, ship's position on chart, etc, etc. The connection to the GPS antenna failed. The system was so sophisticated it fell back on dead reckoning navigation. It even displayed a message saying so -- but in an obscure way on an obscure corner of the screen. So the ship's crew continued to believe in "X marks your spot." Cape Cod is subject to some significant currents as the moon-drawn tidal bulge makes its way from Europe to smash against the east coast of North America. So the ship drifted landward, but the crew continued to believe the DR "X" -- even when other navigation sources, such as the ship's radar showed the coast of Cape Cod far nearer than the navigation system told them. And, you guessed it, the ship grounded. Fortunately, the waters off Cape Cod are sand bottom, not rocky crags like in Costa Concordia-land.
There was a spectacular "all available sources" incident off Cape Cod (Massachusetts, for our overseas readers) about two decades ago. A cruise ship had a fancy new navigation system -- large screen chart display, ship's position on chart, etc, etc. The connection to the GPS antenna failed. The system was so sophisticated it fell back on dead reckoning navigation. It even displayed a message saying so -- but in an obscure way on an obscure corner of the screen. So the ship's crew continued to believe in "X marks your spot." Cape Cod is subject to some significant currents as the moon-drawn tidal bulge makes its way from Europe to smash against the east coast of North America. So the ship drifted landward, but the crew continued to believe the DR "X" -- even when other navigation sources, such as the ship's radar showed the coast of Cape Cod far nearer than the navigation system told them. And, you guessed it, the ship grounded. Fortunately, the waters off Cape Cod are sand bottom, not rocky crags like in Costa Concordia-land.
From: Randall Morrow <randall.f.morrow@kp.org>
To: luabel@ymail.com
Sent: Friday, July 26, 2013 5:04 PM
Subject: [NavList] GPS "spoofing"
Apparently someone with a PC and an antenna can fool the GPS on any ship and use that to missdirect them. See the Fox news artice this afternoon for details. You could theoretically "highjack" a ship or steer them withing reach of pirates, buh wah-ha-ha! Navigators who know how to use a sextant may be back in style.
Randy
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