GPS Jamming & Spoofing - How Does It Work, And Who's Doing It?

[@Am_Yeff]

Sorta stopped watching this channel over the years because i fell out of my passion for space exploration and began my career in planning and defense analystry, lets just say that seeing you start talking about my field in a actually correct and well informed way now makes me happy. Thanks Scott!

[@TheAechBomb]

radio proot :D

[@scottmanley]

Thank you

[@volvo09]

I don't care too much about space, but I still like the things he covers. He does a good job.

[@theDemong0d]

The exact same thing happened to me, wonder why that is

[@ChaineYTXF]

this channel has always been good.

[@KeepEvery1Guessing]

I was on the original GPS receiver project at Rockwell Collins, Before you de-spread the signal, it is below the noise, so an early anti jam feature was to have an antenna with a number of electronically steered nulls. If you heard anything coming from the antenna, you diddled the direction of the nulls until it went away. Then you fed the remaining noise into the de-spreader.

[@Oberon4278]

Ya what now? Diddle? Despread? Null? I can't tell which of these terms are technical and which are old man for "screw around."

[@KeepEvery1Guessing]

@@Oberon4278 look up direct sequence spread spectrum.

[@DrewNorthup]

​@@Oberon4278 Hate to tell ya man, but for somebody who knows antennas & RF it is all technical, no faff.

[@pavloz1818]

What?

[@pavloz1818]

@KeepEvery1Guessing worked on the first GPS receiver project at Rockwell Collins. At that time, the GPS signal was very weak and hidden by background noise before it could be processed. To prevent jamming, they used a special antenna that could electronically steer its reception direction. When they detected a jamming signal, they adjusted the antenna to create “nulls” (areas where the antenna couldn't receive signals) in the direction of the jammer. By doing this, they minimized or eliminated the jamming signal. After this, the remaining signal, which still included the GPS signal but less noise, was processed further to extract the GPS information.

[@douglaswilkinson5700]

As Scottie on Star Trek said, ~"The more complex the plumbing the easier it is to clog."

[@44R0Ndin]

Exactly, and to be honest I think that all airliners that do ETOPS flights should still have sextant ports, slide rules, and pilots that know how to navigate using only those tools, an accurate watch, and the backup magnetic compass in the aircraft itself (which is already a "if this doesn't work the aircraft can not fly" system, including whatever illuminates it at night).

[@AndrewSkow1]

The more they overthink the plumbing, the easier it is to stop up the drain.

[@aalhard]

*flushing sounds*

[@mwnahas]

@@AndrewSkow1 that's it

[@zlm001]

​@@44R0NdinI like the idea, but why force airlines to update so many airplanes and spend millions retraining all the pilots, and millions more testing them and calibrating the extra equipment, and make all future training more expensive when you can just make whatever changes are necessary if that ever becomes necessary? Pilots probably need better or updated training on how to recognize and reasons to various kinds of EM jamming or spoofing, but there's probably a simpler and cheaper way to deal with a situation where a sextant might be helpful in some way. If some global event made it necessary for a time, that's when you spend millions upon millions of extra money on the new training and equipment. Until that point, which is very unlikely, your wasting money for no real reason.

[@jetjock60]

Hey Scott! Very nice primer on jamming vs. spoofing. As a professional pilot allow me to state for the worry warts out there that the vast majority of aircraft that fly long range oceanic or remote continental routes utilize multiple sensors in their FMS (flight management system) computers for system differential redundancy. For the most part they utilize a combination of GNSS with INS (inertial navigation systems). So if interference is suspected we can manually "separate" the two since overwater the INS uses GPS data to "refresh" the INS position solution, and take out the drift error that accumulates over time. Also we can perform this "single source" navigation ahead of time if we intend to conduct flight ops into or out of known areas of interference.

[@patrickchase5614]

This is one of the better descriptions of GPS jamming/spoofing that I've ever seen. I particularly appreciate your discussion of the complexities of spoofing, and the need to use highly directional antennae to "target" individual receivers. The interesting thing is that both the Ukrainians and the Russians are known to be doing exactly that to defeat GPS-guided munitions with INS sanity checks (if the munition has INS then it can detect discontinuities in the GPS position, so the spoofing signal has to gradually "walk" it off course)

[@JasonPD-m9u]

Yeah, I was surprised Scott didn't mention adding INS to the mix.

[@ddegn]

14:00 In case any of you haven't read The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for a while, here's the quote: *“The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't.”* ― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

[@user-sm4fw6ed1d]

One of my favorite books :)

[@slartybarfastb3648]

I love those books. I'm mentioned in it several times.

[@robertanderson5092]

What about the coastlines and fjords of norway?

[@jonathaniszorro]

@@robertanderson5092they’re in Africa now

[@emilymiller7827]

bowl of petunias: "not again"

[@sd_pjwal]

My favorite Douglas Adams quote of all time!...."The ships hung in the air much in the same way bricks don't." I still remember reading that as a kid nearly 40 years ago and being so taken aback, "how could anyone think to write so clever?!"

[@Mark_Bridges]

I prefer: "It's a horrible feeling, like being drunk". "What's wrong with being drunk?" "Ask a glass of water".

[@dirtdart81]

The writing of descriptions and dialogue in that "trilogy" are simply sublime

[@awhahoo]

What book is that from?

[@sd_pjwal]

@@awhahoo The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy

[@awhahoo]

@@sd_pjwal Thanks!

[@AlanTheBeast100]

Controlled Radiation Pattern Antennas (CRPA) can "throw a null" towards the jamming source so the jamming energy doesn't get into the receiver. Such antennas are larger, heavier of course (and more expensive - and as "active" systems need a processor). So military receivers "tell" the CRPA system what direction to throw the null. The antenna with the "rings" around it is called a "choke ring" antenna - originally designed to resist multipath. Many survey antennas were (are still?) using this technique. WAAS ground stations still use them. GPS signal weakness is by design - it's part of the spread spectrum design. The military signal (P(Y)) code has a much wider bandwidth, so it takes more energy to jam across the receiver bandwidth. Further there are 2 frequencies in use (L1 and L2), so jamming needs to cover the two separate bands. Military receivers are also designed to resist, detect and avoid spoofing. Most esp. when used in the encrypted mode (Y code), spoofing is fairly impossible (the crypto code is changed every 7 days). Further (unlike civil C/A code which repeats every 1 ms), military code is much longer than 1 week. (The C/A code has a "Handover Word" to tell the military corelators "where" to jump in on the PR code.) (Before anyone complains "controlled radiation pattern" because that's how you measure an antenna. Its receive gain pattern is the same as its transmit gain pattern).

[@44R0Ndin]

"Controlled radiation pattern antenna" with no context describes a simple non-omnidirectional antenna (aka it has directionality of some sort). Even a simple dipole is this. However with context, it is apparent that what you are describing is instead much better represented as an AESA antenna operated in passive (receive only) mode, and being actively steered to NOT be very sensitive to Used to defeat jamming, I can think of a relatively simple animal analogy that is easily understood by the layperson. Cats use a similar technique to not hear a loud sound that they find annoying, they pivot their ears away from the source of the annoying noise. The cat's ears are similar to the CRPA type antenna in this example, and the annoying noise for the cat is the jamming signal for the jamming-resistant GPS receiver.

[@44R0Ndin]

For GPS and other satellite navigation systems specifically, a passively directional antenna (biased to have higher sensitivity to signals that are significantly elevated above the horizon) is likely sufficient to prevent spoofing of GPS that uses low power spread-spectrum signal. EDIT: To be specific, this would be sufficient to allow operation of GPS on the border between Poland and Russia or Ukraine, but not sufficient for operation of weapons systems within territory where active jamming is intentionally being used against drones and such.

[@AlanTheBeast100]

@@44R0Ndin In military avionics and GPS, a CRPA is pretty much as I described - dynamically setting a null gain towards the threat axis.

[@Spectator1959]

Alan’s explanation is the one to follow.

[@AlanTheBeast100]

@@44R0Ndin PRO TIP: Jamming/spoofing platforms are often airborne. Well above the altitude of the spoofee.

[@Salmar80]

Russia has been real nice to Finland as a neighbor, for a long time. For example, in recent years they've jammed the GPS near our borders, letting us exercise for it. Thanks!

[@flixri726]

We all in the free Europe just can be so effin happy to have Russia as a neighbour. They really are such a blessing. So much.

[@Inchaos42]

Really, nicest neighbor one can get. Singlehandedly refreshed military-industrial complex in Ukraine

[@TWFydGlu]

Kind of surprising there wasn't ILS at Tartu airport.

[@dvv18]

@@TWFydGlu There is one. But the STARs are GPS-only.

[@churblefurbles]

Congrats on volunteering as a future nuclear exclusion zone.

[@treborg777]

One EW technique is to spoof a radar by drawing off a return signal, capturing the radar’s receiver, then dropping the jammer signal. The radar receiver processor then has to re-acquire the target & re-establish a track. Repeating this keeps the radar in acquisition mode, essentially disabling it. A GPS spoofing jammer could do the same thing, as it takes a finite time up to minutes to reacquire real satellite signals & establish location.

[@johndododoe1411]

When a civilian GPS receiver says it is "acquiring signal", this is often subterfuge covering the time to download the static data tables that are broadcast slowly by all the satellites . For anti-spoof, it is pretty trivial to just use the last valid download and get the spread spectrum pattern matching started on each sat pattern being measured .

[@vonschlesien]

@@johndododoe1411 Most commercial receivers already do this - to speed up the initial fix, they cache the data tables (both ephemerides and almanac).

[@SeanBZA]

You also get inadvertent jamming in built up areas, with harmonics of thousands of cheap poorly filtered power supplies and LED lights, all creating a much higher noise floor in the area, so that the initial lock of a GPS takes a long time. I often see that, startup time can be up to 10 minutes, or you have the GPS time out, because it cannot get a lock, yet when the power to the area is cut you get a lock within a minute just from the lower noise floor.

[@dvv18]

I kinda expected that Scott would mention RAIM and ground-based alternatives for air navigation readily available and widely used in civil aviation. And maybe more details about why Finnair couldn't proceed on its route to Tartu. Anyway, a bunch of anecdotes: 1. Consumer-grade drones are programmed to refuse to operate in the vicinity of airports based on information from GPS receivers and published airspace coordinates. The folks in the Kremlin in Moscow have been using this feature to prevent these drones from flying close to the Kremlin by cleverly spoofing GPS to make drones think that they are in the vicinity of a major airport (Vnukovo, UUWW). Quite expectedly, the use of "naive" GPS in downtown Moscow has been pain in the a** since they started doing that. 2. GPS has been jammed along the Russian-Ukrainian border since 2014. The thing about this area is that it was one of the most heavily used airspaces in Russia including routes from Russia’s European northern and central areas to Crimea, Sochi, other places in Russia's South, and to popular foreign destinations - Turkey, Cyprus, Israel, Egypt. So when close to the Ukrainian border (usually in the Rostov FIR), RAIM would detect that the GPS info is not reliable, and FMC/FMS would revert to ground-based systems or just INS. Of course, it's moot now as since 2022, there's been a huge no-fly zone in Russia stretching from the Ukrainian border all the way to the Volga. 3. From what you can find in the Estonian AIP, Tartu has an ILS approach, but its STARs are all GNSS-based with no DME/DME back up available. Apparently, Finnair couldn’t do it bypassing the STARs, so they turned back to Helsinki. Ironically, the airport in Tartu is a repurposed Soviet military airfield, so they most probably used to have NDB or even 2NDB approaches, maybe even the arcane Soviet RSBN - until it stopped being a Soviet military airfield. Otherwise, the en-route navigation over Estonia can be performed using DME-DME - the small country has a good DME coverage. So that’s that.

[@DannoFZ1]

I was expecting a recap of how Iran was able to "land" one of the U.S. drones.

[@calvinnickel9995]

RAIM is all but obsolete. SBAS has mostly replaced it. It’s also only for LNAV GPS approaches between the FAWP and MAP. It’s not for accuracy but for integrity. My iPad is every bit as accurate. Spoofing done correctly will fool RAIM as all of the satellites will (incorrectly) agree with each other.

[@Arnogorter]

As far as I understand it, please correct me if I'm wrong, RAIM and SBAS are using the same satellites and frequencies so it would not correct anything when encountering jamming or spoofing? RAIM might alert you of jamming at least?

[@dvv18]

@@Arnogorter That's the idea. RAIM is about making sure that the signals make sense and raise alarms if they don't. Augmentation is only possible when most of the signals agree with each other, and jamming certainly gets in the way of that.

[@Soordhin]

⁠@@ArnogorterJamming usually just means that there is no usable GPS signal, and the GPS receiver will flag itself as not providing a position output after a few minutes. Since commercial aircraft use several position sensors (GPS, DME/DME, IRS, LOC, VOR/DME and VOR/VOR) that doesn’t really pose a problem in most cases. It can be a certification issue for a required precision of less than 1 NM. Spoofing is not necessarily detected by RAIM and overpowers corrections by WAAS (although those are often not used to begin with), so it is much more difficult to deal with. Spoofing detection fixes from the OEMs (Airbus, Boeing) are being worked on, the timescale is years, not weeks.

[@jarink1]

One quick note about RF jamming in general - you jam the *receiver*, not the transmitter. You don't necessarily have to radiate more power than the transmitter - you just have to have more effective radiated power measured at the receiver.

[@mytube001]

One method to counter GPS jamming and spoofing, at least in the short term (seconds to minutes) is an inertial navigation unit, that keeps track of the position and velocity independent of the GPS data. It can bridge shorter gaps in bad GPS environments. It can also give a warning that spoofing is going on (jamming is obvious from the lack of "service").

[@dvv18]

Or you can use the good old DME, VOR, or even NDB navigation. Does Scott's SR20 even have an INS? 🤔

[@vladimirdyuzhev]

Costly. Not feasible for small drones.

[@ashtiboy]

alot of usa weapons do this allready so not a real issue. heck its been that way for a few decades actaly allready. alot of usa weapons do this allready when the gps has issues also alot of even few decade old civlenanin gps units and modern divices that the usa use also normaly have a bulit in inertal gidance unit so it can keep track of the map untill a gps uplink sigenl can be reaqried. heck even self draving telsas even do this too. how lese can they self drive in deep tunels where the gps normaly can't reach.

[@oldmech619]

My cell phone has accelerometers and a camera. Great for small cheap guidances systems.

[@dvv18]

@@oldmech619 now try using it as an INS.

[@billferner6741]

Thank you Scott, as an agent RF engineer, I learned a lot, mainly that software is now more important than just transmitting radio waves.

[@TheBackyardChemist]

I mean software has been pretty important for anyone doing active phased arrays

[@thirtythreeeyes8624]

Even without jamming/spoofing. Modulation and processing is super important if you want the best performance, just look at things like LoRa.

[@DrewNorthup]

​@@TheBackyardChemist Heck, most of that is done with FPGAs…so software defined hardware.

[@fax10]

Hi Scott. As a airline pilot, one of the best defences, often the only defence we have against position loss is IRS/INS as it is totally internal. GPS is used to update the aircraft position but it’s not reliant on it. If the IRS drift doesn’t match the new GPS signal, we will be warned about the loss of accurate position info. GPS still plays a very important role in our navigation equipment and EGPWS/TAWS still relies on it, as does TCAS to a much lesser extent. Having said that, I’m still an advocate of paper map reading and using traditional navigation methods like celestial nav specifically for the reasons you state. One of my aviation heroes is Gordon Vette for his role in the Cessna 188 rescue in the Pacific and his role in the Mt. Erebus crash a couple years later.

[@Soordhin]

In general that is true. However more modern aircraft designs have integrated GPIRU units where the IRS part is always and immediately updated by the GPS, which really works very well, except in case of spoofing. That said, even in more common designs the FMC position, although using different sensors, is heavily skewed to using GPS as primary information, EGPWS usually uses a standalone GPWS receiver and has to be turned off in areas of known GPS jamming or spoofing increasing the risk if controlled flight into terrain. TCAS is independent of GPS and just relies on signal timing between aircraft and Mode S altitude information. Now, jamming doesn’t really pose a danger to commercial aircraft, it is just a very common nuisance, especially in the eastern Mediterranean where it is constantly used since the start of the syrian conflict and between greece and turkey, who are in a constant low scale conflict, particularly around Cyprus. Spoofing, which is fairly new, is quite dangerous as current spoofing can lead to nearly instantaneous position and time shift, including wrong altitude information foe the EGPWS, red pull up EPGWS warnings have been received in cruise flight. The timing affects many aircraft systems and can lead to completely unrelated systems failures, but can, on Airbus aircraft, easily be rectified by switching the clock from GPS to internal only mode. That is not available on quite some Boeing aircraft.

[@homebase5934]

I always thought the back up for pilots was triangulation with Non Directional Beacons (NDB)'s with the planes radio direction finder.

[@fax10]

@@homebase5934 if you’re over the ocean, the only long range nav methods are celestial nav, GPS, INS and maybe LF but I don’t think LF broadcasts are a thing anymore. Even over land, NDB’s are being decommissioned but VOR/DME position fixes are still done

[@fax10]

@@Soordhin hybrid surveillance using ADS-B is dependent on GPS. I’m not sure how common it is but there are aircraft that use it

[@Soordhin]

@@homebase5934 NDBs are not really used anymore at all. Most airliners do not even have a receiver for them, or just one instead of the 2 we had in the old days. Just to monitor if you fly an NDB approach which in reality is just an RNP approach.

[@debrainwasher]

There is a quite effective mean to counter spoofing of GNSS-Signals: Take a mulit-system GNSS-receiver, that supports GPS, Glonass, BeiDou and Gallileo. Since it is very difficult to spoof all signals by sending false time information (the base of trilateration) in the exactly same manner, a spoofing attack can be easily discovered and circumvented.

[@farmerbrown84]

One common trick is to jam other bands and spoof (say) L1, which makes the job easier. Your point is valid, although many users do not want to use Beidou and Glonass these days.

[@peterhagen7258]

Scott; I'm not a pilot, but a mariner. If you read any chart (nautical map), Notice to mariners or text on navigation you will come across this: "Prudent mariners will not rely solely on any single aid to navigation" IMHO, GPS is a single source of navigation information. If the environment changes (e.g. especially strong aurora caused by increased solar activity) such that the satellite signals are unreliable world-wide, we should still have secondary means of navigating.

[@hakanlundberg]

Absolutely. GPS plotters and compasses shouldn’t ever be the main method. As a skipper in the Baltic Sea region on rather fast boats, eyes and good knowledge about the archipelago during daylight, and radar + knowledge during night and fog, are the main methods. Since the depth of the very shallow archipelago was measured about 100 years ago (some areas actually never, but have just been “estimated”) and as we have the land raising with about 10mm/year, plus sand moving at places, the naval charts mustn’t be relied on too much either. So we are currently gathering “visual data” of all places in the archipelago where we may go: Steering marks in nature and on radar echoes, leading lines formed by objects in nature, etc. Although I find using a digital chart with radar overlay on the plotter great, because you will see if your GPS position if off. It has happened a few times when we have just started the system, but I have never seen any other disturbances. But the archipelago is a bit further away from the places where these disturbances have been detected.

[@calvinnickel9995]

We lost SBAS coverage during the solar storm. But it was a non event as SBAS is only for certain GPS approaches. The weather was good and there were lots of traditional approaches available.

[@causewaykayak]

What a sensible comment. Perfectly true. Those who make themselves overly dependent on single technologies are lazy, negligent and author's of their own downfall. The Marine case presented here should be read and internalised.

[@causewaykayak]

The repeated attacks on Russia (including the American proxy war in the Black Sea territories) -- darned right the Russkies protect their borders. Drone Art. Check out the very recent spectacular show put on by Hong Kong. No failures.

[@JoshuaTootell]

Pilots are trained ton use charts as primary, though GPS is unofficially replacing it. But I have to be able to make a flight plan on a paper chart, calculate time in flight accounting for winds, and calculate fuel burn for each phase of flight.

[@i512]

There's a lot of GPS spoofing in Moscow. When I worked for a ride hailing app it was common to see drivers "teleport" to a single spot. Hundreds if not thousands of occurances per day, and this is before the thing. It was extreme in the summer and autmn of 2023, we could not use navigation in the center of the city at all. And right now it's working pretty good. RC plane and quad guys say that GPS does not work above 70 meters or so. I guess spoofing is now done in some clever directional way.

[@rkan2]

Sets kamikaze drone to fly at 50m 😂

[@willharmatuk4723]

This is why I’ve loved this channel since the beginning. You’re always learning, and you’re always sharing what you learned. And it is always interesting! Thanks Scott.

[@tomholroyd7519]

I love how your content has grown as a result of you becoming a pilot

[@julienvm]

I flew the 737 to Jordan a few weeks ago. GPS-L and GPS-R failed due to jamming around Israeli airspace. My Garmin Tactix 7 (same as Fenix 7) and inReach Mini 2 continued to operate flawlessly. The inReach has multi-GNSS (GPS, Glonass, Galileo, QZSS, IRNSS and Beidou) with single band (L1). The Tactix has the same multi-GNSS but also multi-band (L1 and L5). Considering the frequencies involved, I suspect the jamming was on GPS L1 frequency only (1575MHz), which may be the only one used by the 737 I operated.

[@AKjohndoe]

You know we all say "hello Scott Manley!" At the screen when your videos start 👋

[@mumblbeebee6546]

I don’t think I ever did, but now imagine some of you doing it and I am entertained, thank you! 🧡

[@paulbarnett227]

Scott knows where his towel is.

[@zwenkwiel816]

He's definitely a frood

[@paulbarnett227]

@@zwenkwiel816 A hoopy frood at that.

[@dzhiurgis]

By knowing where it isn't

[@BrandywineComm]

Thank you for this video Scott. This is something that those of us in the Position, Navigation and Timing space have been saying for years.

[@petrus_89]

Russia is almost every day doing some sort of GPS jamming here in the northern parts of Norway. Been doing it for many years now :/

[@lubricustheslippery5028]

It's great that they train the military and civil transports et c. to handle it or we would be lost when they start for real.

[@imperskiikulak446]

@@lubricustheslippery5028 You'll all be lost anyway if something starts.

[@SmaukGames]

That's what we're forced to do to protect our nation. Sorry for inconvenience

[@Antonio-ey8yd]

@@SmaukGames How is jamming exactly protecting your nation?

[@zachrome91]

How do you know it’s not your government doing it?

[@yuvbaz]

There is a lot of GPS Spoofing in Israel because of the war. Telling someone you were late because Waze thought you were in Lebanon is a totally acceptable excuse. At one point when flying a Mavic, GPS spoofing started and it suddenly refused to move, and at another time it thought it was in Beirut airport and tried to RTL but had no idea what’s it’s doing.

[@oaks348]

I was going to comment - the single-antenna phenomenon is very visible here and purposefully tailored to "place" everyone in the Beirut airport.

[@MichaelFri]

Yep. Beirut Airport... Living in Israel I find myself spending lots of time there. It's particularly funny on Waze, as at some point it takes me over to Beirut along with all the other users in Northern Israel, all bunched together reporting random road hazards just for giggles.

[@Oberon4278]

Don't people just know their way around any more?

[@thomaz1694]

Imagine if they targeted a certain helicopter that was navigating only by instruments due to poor visibility..

[@Ed-jg3ud]

I thought for sure you would mention James Bond Tomorrow Never Dies as the quintessential GPS spoofing example:)😂

[@WouterWeggelaar]

"The missile knows where it is at all times. It knows this because it knows where it isn't." As someone who uses GPS constellation simulators to test spacecraft GPS on ground, it's nice to see this video and see how you explain everything! We have a specific license to also repeat GPS signals using transmitters in the building, and great care is indeed taken those signals do not leak out and mess everything up. Fun thing to do is open a maps app on your phone and set it to give you directions somewhere and then play back some spoofed data. Commercial GPS will lock you out above a certain altitude and speed though, so it won't show you in space. But the "where's my device" will have some fun data points!

[@fredthebulldog529]

Space craft GPS? Tell me more 🙂

[@ApollosAWACS]

I work as an ATCO in the Baltics (ESMM) and we encounter it daily. Mostly jamming but some times spoofing. This affects of course the ones doing GPS related SID/STAR but also ENROUTE. We have means to help with navigation aid with vectors and such, but it takes up some capacity.

[@RogerM88]

With wide band Internet satellites such as Starlink, would be interesting using them also as backup trackers for Airliners. It would give a more detailed position in real time instead of intermittent pings.

[@theHDRflightdeck]

Hi Scott, I'm a 737 captain operating in the eastern Mediterranean and we face this problem every day. Even if we disable GPS updating, it still affects other systems like the "look ahead" terrain display and more importantly the weather radar. It seems that these newer systems have no way of rejecting spoofed signals and it makes flying very challenging.

[@rkan2]

There is a good article "gps spoof attacks irs" where it is explained that Airbus doesn't seem to suffer from the spoofing problem where as other avionics can be spoofed.

[@cyclopenguin]

For avoiding spoofing, Galileo deployed OS-NMA which offers authentication. The service is free, publicly available and backwards compatible with existing Galileo capable GNSS receivers. It's a matter of software to make use of it.

[@ponttokamera]

My DJI Mini 4 Pro got lost on a way point mission a couple of weeks ago. I'm not sure if it was due to GPS interference, but I couldn't think of any other reason. I aborted the flight and guided the drone back manually so no loss of the vehicle. In Helsinki, Finland.

[@samuraidriver4x4]

Loss of GPS was reported deep into Germany so there is a chance your experience was from Kaliningrad. It's been going on for a while now and the media isn't really picking up on it.

[@dvv18]

​@@samuraidriver4x4 Ivangorod (a random town on the Russian-Estonian border)-Helsinki: 211 km St.Petersburg-Helsinki: 301 km Kaliningrad-Helsinki: 658 km So no, I doubt GPS in Helsinki had problems because of Kaliningrad. There are much better candidates for that - particularly since drone attacks on gas/oil infrastructure near St.Petersburg.

[@samuraidriver4x4]

@@dvv18 thanks for correcting me😉 From the Estonia/Russia border or St. Petersburg would be indeed a much closer location than Kaliningrad.

[@dvv18]

@@samuraidriver4x4 Also, it's not short waves, you need line-of-sight here. For a jammer in Kaliningrad to affect a low-flying target in Helsinki, the transmitter should be up in the air above 33000m above sea level. It's kinda high…

[@samuraidriver4x4]

@@dvv18 at 2:30 Scott shows one of the maps with the interference, Helsinki is on that map. It's going to depend on exact conditions and that's a bunch of guesswork. Not saying it is the culprit I'm just saying it is a possibility.

[@personzorz]

This is starting to remind me of the electromagnetic back and forth in the Stanislaw Lem book "Fiasco".

[@barrysheridan9186]

A timely reminder of how we have become dependent in certain ways on Satellite systems. Thank you Scott.

[@aeroRCmodels]

I’m a 787 pilot and have seen jamming in several places we fly and we have to turn off our HUD and EGPWS when GPS is off

[@dzhiurgis]

what happens if it gets spoofed and suddenly all planes are in same area? would that trigger planes ads-b collision warning?

[@oldfrend]

interesting. if gps fails for an extended time, do they still teach you how to navigate manually?

[@emmata98]

​@@oldfrendof course. Aviation is about handling errors

[@unvergebeneid]

I hope those affected regions aren't very mountainous if you have to disable your ground-proximity warning system. Is there still a radar-based fallback like in the olden days?

[@emmata98]

@@unvergebeneid you should have a radar altimeter

[@LEDewey_MD]

Great video of interesting stuff! Although, I was kinda hoping you would include info on how geomagnetic storms interfere with GPS, given the magnificent storm we experienced over this past weekend! Maybe next time! ❤ :)

[@dominicfuller-rowell7301]

I would be interested to hear your take on the impact of space weather on GNSS systems. That would be a cool video

[@bryancox2807]

Very good descriptions on the current problems. Thank you Scott for publishing this.

[@aevlaistner4296]

First time I regularly experienced GPS jamming was between 1997 and 2003 whenever I drove my car past Rimini Italy / San Marino on the Italian Motorway. I had my Garmin Pilot III on the dash of my Audi at the time. I think my fastest tracked speed was just past Mach 1.5 at about 1700km/h at sea level tracking me driving in minutes halfway across the Adriatic towards Venice. It's probably the fastest that any car was ever tracked on GPS. And this always happened on an about 40km stretch of motorway passing the Republic of San Marino. But most likely, the signal jamming was linked to Italian military or other security matters. So nothung new, except the jamming range of the Russians, who now cover most os the Baltic sea and the Baltic Countries with only 2 jamming stations at Kaliningrad and St. Petersburg.

[@DonJoyce]

One of the things we are taught as drone pilots is to be concerned when the Kp index exceeds 5. The recent kp 8 storm showed how robust these drones are. Thousands of us flew with no GPS problems...or at least no problems that were apparent.

[@notsonominal]

Reading that flights in the north have to use manual procedures due to GPS jamming is a common thing when you have russia as one of your neighbours..

[@SabbaticusRex]

And X class solar storms happening so often .

[@matsv201]

Sounds like something the tabloid made up. They both have the old normal radio navigation and on top of the inertial navigation. And if we talk about distances like 1-2 hours, inertial navigation will get you pretty much the the airfield.

[@notsonominal]

@@SabbaticusRex yeah, i guess they also follow a 12 year cycle...

[@Benson_aka_devils_advocate_88]

And the russians wonder why much of the western world has such a low opinion of them.

[@Benson_aka_devils_advocate_88]

And the russians wonder why so many people despise them...

[@DmitryKandiner]

Thank you for bringing yet another interesting topic! I live in Israel, so imagine my amusement when I started my car navigation system one morning to drive to work, and discovered that apparently I'm at Beirut International Airport :)

[@pindeed]

Greetings from Poland! Props for Kaliningrad and Poland story ❤

[@conrad2468]

Couple corrections: 1) you can spoof gps with a single device (saw this done at defcon in a glovebox where a smartphone thought it was walking around) 2) kind of disappointed you didn't mention iran taking down one of our drones a few years back with spoofing.

[@IMBlakeley]

An ex employer as with most manufacturers of small cells used GPS for the timing, turns out some specific 4G downlink frequencies clash with the GPS, we'd have to shift to an external remote mounted aerial or if it was our kit switch frequencies.

[@8__vv__8]

GPS L1 is pretty close to 4G upper L band downlink, but not that close. Probably antiquated and/or garbage receiver design

[@johndododoe1411]

Another great countermeasure is to restart the high power DECCA stations in E-DECCA mode . They work just like GPS satellites but on a low frequency high power signal with no orbital variation as they are solid buildings on the ground . This is obviously limited to own territories but can protect large areas not under heavy bombardment .

[@MeppyMan]

Or eLoran

[@tatewilson7678]

I work for a farmer and all of the tractors have auto steer. The recent solar flare activity has really been messing with waas/rtk systems. If i could get signal at all, it thought i was going backwards and not where i was. Kind of unrelated to jamming, but shows how potentially fragile the system is i suppose

[@SparkyOne549]

NOAA warned about it.

[@grumpy3543]

I didn’t know you were in Novato. Beautiful area. Perfect weather. Cool breezes.

[@OCinneide]

I was in Madrid visiting the Spanish airforce museum. And when we tried to get an uber back to the city it just showed us as in San Francisco. Both my dad and me. We presumed that the base was jamming GPS but the strange thing is there was a public airport that overflew the base on landing.

[@obsidianjane4413]

That is the default initialization location. Probably not intentionial jamming but interference as Scott mentioned.

[@petergerdes1094]

Another possibility is that it was one of the people near you using small scale gps jamming so their boss/rental agency can't track where they go in the car.

[@AlanTheBeast100]

The Spanish military cannot legally jam C/A code GPS except by issuance of a NOTAM and for very brief periods (military equipment testing). This would not be done near commercial airports. I did radar work on a Spanish military base near Madrid and military bases well away from civil airports. C/A code GPS (ordinary civil GPS receiver) was w/i 10m of the surveyed position of the radar almost all of the time. (Important as we tagged targets with their L/L as well as range and bearing).

[@OCinneide]

@@AlanTheBeast100 There was definitely interference. We had to put the location in manually and even the Uber drivers phone nav messed up when he collected us.

[@AlanTheBeast100]

@@OCinneide Could be - just don't attribute it to the military when it more likely was some other source. In North America, truckers put jammers on their vehicles because they don't want their company watching their every move. These are lower power. Radius of about 100 m or so. Very illegal too (US fines over $25,000 have been issued). I detected a towing co. near here using one too.

[@AllAmericanGuyExpert]

Interesting discussion. Essentially all of this was known well enough in the 1980s, when the system was known as NAVSTAR and it was being developed for the US Navy as its main user. The fact that it took several decades to commercialize it, miniaturize it, rename it, feature-bloat it, make it economical, and make it ubiquitous doesn't change any of its military usefulness. Anything with a military use that really needs to navigate in hostile areas will always have other means of navigation: inertial, celestial, and mapping (plus a few more lesser-known types). It may be time that the commercial sector simply use those other kinds of automated navigation systems, or like Scott says, learn to read a map. As a pilot, Scott would know that airplanes routinely use several other types of automated nav systems around airport runways. What he may not realize is that the main problem GPS alleviates is the all-weather capability of airborne assets to takeoff, fly, and land accurately. Everything works great with a 5 mph wind on a sunny day and moving slowly in a straight line. Where GPS shines, however, is flying 100 m above the ocean in an 80-knot swirling wind with rough seas and low visibility at 2 am at 82 degrees latitude, moving 500 knots in an arc around a moving vessel while experiencing heavy vibrations and high-g forces. Because for military GPS hardware, this is a walk in the park. Any other nav system will quickly drift or get lost.

[@Syncros911]

RF interference from USB 3 devices is known to jam GPS signals. I learned it the hard way while trying to debug a Raspberry Pi with a TTL GPS serving as a NTP server. Everything was working fine when using a SD card as storage but no more GPS lock once the content of the SD copied to a SSD attached to a USB to SATA adapter and connected to any of the USB 3 ports of the RPi. I will always remember that eureka moment when I switched the SSD to a USB 2 port and everything started working fine again.

[@johnopalko5223]

Ground based navigational systems aren't going away. There are fewer of them now, sure, but the FAA is maintaining the VOR Minimal Operational Network (VOR MON) to ensure that aircraft will always have VOR coverage when flying above 5000 feet AGL within the conterminous United States (CONUS) and will always be within 100 nautical miles of an airport that has either an ILS or a VOR approach. Nearly all VORs within the Western United States Mountainous Area (which is given the singularly unfortunate acronym WUSMA) and those outside CONUS are being retained. The point of the MON is the FAA recognizes that GPS is not completely reliable. See Chapter 1 of the Aeronautical Information Manual for more information.

[@samthestache8]

Ugh. I work in satellite operations. Every time we go over eastern Ukraine our GPS goes haywire. Usually its just a nusance, but its kicked us into safemode a few times over the last 2 years.

[@dustinswatsons9150]

Honestly this is like one of my favorite videos in like awhile I'm really interested in GPS and antenna and ham radio I watched this guy's channel save it for parts that guy does a lot of like DIY stuff and you know amateur and well perhaps I don't know how in-depth his knowledge is but this is like a kind of what i like

[@teddp]

Very interesting. You forgot to mention the incident where Iran, allegedly using GPS spoofing convinced an American drone to land on one of its airports. It wasn't a perfect landing but they did capture it and took some photos of it.

[@vladimirdyuzhev]

Too embarrassing to remember. Rumors were the jamming was done using the Russian-made EW station.

[@peterpaniscus988]

Hey Scott, best most favourite show in a long time. Do you remember a few years ago the US navy had a rash of ships colliding with other ships? They 'explained' it as; poor training, long hours, under crewed etc etc etc. They couldn't tell the world their own Nav system was being spoofed by the Chinese/Russians, could they?

[@georgeburns7251]

Great presentation. Also, there are many good comments

[@Mark_Bridges]

This channel attracts "the right type" of person who would offer a good comment.

[@calvinnickel9995]

For me as a pilot the big thing to avoiding GPS jamming/spoofing is treating my mind like an FMS. An FMS or Flight Management System in a modern aircraft is “the GPS” to a lot of pilots today.. but it’s a multi-sensor system that is taking inputs from air data, attitude and heading gyros, accelerometers, flux valves, and ground based navaids (VOR, DME, ILS) and comparing them to each other just as it is comparing GPS satellites to each other to detect or exclude faulty ones (RAIM) or a Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS) for LPV approaches. And how I do this is yes.. maps and pilotage. If I’m on a familiar route I should see the same landmarks in the same place at roughly the same time. Also things like the position of the sun and stars. They don’t have the fidelity for even enroute navigation without charts, equipment, and training but they could be a gross error check or “parity bit” if things go amiss (this could even be misspelling a waypoint that gets past a distance or North Up MFD error check). Finally it’s just looking at those VOR needles, DME readings, and indentifiers. The FMS will come up with a position disagree flag if they are off… but it’s nice to be proactive just in case it gets confused.

[@eerolz8758]

"Who's doing it" well, considering here in Finland we see news about planes getting jammed when flying near Russian border (typically going to Tallinn), I'd say we can have quite a good hunch on who is doing it.

[@cambridgemart2075]

Your description of CDMA is good, it works even with the signal of interest below the noise floor (it looks interesting on a spectral plot), but achieving lock can take some time.

[@MrHws5mp]

One thing I never throw away is maps...

[@oeliamoya9796]

Never throw away old newspapers either. Both make great combustible material to get a fire going

[@chris-hayes]

I never throw away boxes, you never know when you're gonna need a good box.

[@MrHws5mp]

@@oeliamoya9796 Well if you haven't got a lithium-ion battery to hand to start a fire, I suppose you have to resort to truly desperate measures...

[@MrHws5mp]

@@chris-hayes I've had to clear two dead aunties' houses in the last 3 years, so yeah, nerver a truer word spoken.

[@tombombadil3185]

I have always been intrigued by maps and can spend hours studying them. So, I never throw them away. I don't throw away boxes either. They are great for catching bee swarms. For some reason bees love cardboard.

[@buttersPbutters]

The British RAF is in the news today announcing a successful airborne test of an inertial navigation system using quantum interferometry. The measurement frequency is only ~1Hz, and it's not the kind of thing that will fit in an iPhone anytime soon, but the accuracy is unbelievable. The theory is that by fusing data from "classical" optical gyros and quantum sensors, the combined system can have negligible inertial drift over a flight leg, making it possible to navigate precisely without any external references.

[@Lucius_Chiaraviglio]

"“Say … what’s a mountain goat doing way up here in a cloud bank?”"

[@thhseeking]

Gary Larson :P

[@LordZordid]

A couple of years ago a man was doing his daily construction work at Copenhagen Airport. He dabbled with radio interference equipment and he had some in his van he hadn't turned off. It caused a stirr with the radio control tower and a huge delay in landing and departures until they found the source. He was immediately fired and later on got a sizeable fine.

[@gunnargu]

What about using all GNS Systems at the same time? Or are they all being jammed?

[@philipjamesparsons]

Airline type aircraft also feature an Inertial Navigation System. As do some weapons systems. On the aircraft I fly, when GPS drops out the INS kicks in. The GPS, is somewhat more accurate and when it returns, the aircraft can make an abrupt course change to regain the GPS route. The actual jamming systems themselves are also interesting. Russia does not do micro-electronics. These jammers tend to be truck based and very large. They also seem to be mounting smaller jammers to tanks.

[@GiladTeller]

For the past 7 months, my phone always shows me at the intersection of the runways of Beirut International Airport. No matter where I go.

[@vanceg18]

GPS transmits a low level signal across a very broad spread spectrum. It is normally at a lower level than everything else at any specific frequency, but by doing a convolution across lots of frequencies looking for the signature pattern, you can pull it out of the noise. GPS jammers similarly transmit noise across a broad spectrum.

[@confuded]

The military in my area is jamming GPS in a 50 km radius. Can't fly drones, can't use Google Maps/Waze.

[@alexmarshall4331]

Where are you?

[@confuded]

@@alexmarshall4331 At the risk of being unpopular I'll just say not in the Americas.

[@Enexam_]

9:00 aahah PLL sure feels like dark magic at first... And then it feels even darker when you actually learn about it.

[@badhombre4942]

We're jammin', jammin', And I hope you like jammin', too

[@farmerbrown84]

This is my daily life as well--I'm involved in timing and synchronization, most especially for 5G cellular--but also more generally. You cannot imagine how many industries are dependent on GPS--not just for position and navigation, but timing. Life as we know it will change very dramatically if these signals goes away, just from the loss of timing. Cellular networks, data centers, power grids, broadcasters, financial centres, even social media are now incredibly tied up with availability of timing signals. There are ways to work around a loss of GNSS, but many places don't use those techniques yet. But regulators are working on making our critical national infrastructure more resilient to GNSS attacks (much too slowly, in my opinion).

[@dylanzwering2255]

"Spoofing sounds like an act where magicians shoot heroin" - John Oliver

[@cjay2]

Who's 'john oliver'?

[@MS-qx9uw]

@@cjay2british-american late night talk show host and satirist

[@sosogo4real]

@cjay2 a mediocre talkshow host.

[@chaz720]

"My ignorance of technical matters is hilarious, isn't it? Are you with me? Please laugh!" -Many Comedians

[@unvergebeneid]

​@@chaz720John Oliver often makes jokes like this to meet audiences where they are, to then take them by the hand and lead them down a rabbit hole. His writers often do incredibly in-depth research. It's a bit ironic that you basically accuse him of ignorance while seeming to be ignorant of his show or even just the context of the line you're criticising.

[@CAPEjkg]

Too many pilots rely on gps and tech in the cockpit and lose the ability to hand fly or navigate using the old gauges. Tech can always be spoofed. Love the knowledge gained from your channel as always!

[@lev3k]

There is actually a memorial to the Katyn massacre in Jersey City, just across the river from the World Trade Centers

[@peterallen5575]

Well, I'm gonna have to use this information in a sci-fi story. Thanks, Scott!

[@timprobst7905]

I'm surprised they don't have optical positioning. Using ground imaging to position themselves. With Ir cameras to see through clouds, and on board maps.

[@drkastenbrot]

the cost (including maintenance) and complexity of such a system is ridiculous compared to a simple and reliable gps receiver. if everything fails, pilots are trained to navigate by sight or instrumentation.

[@foxtrotunit1269]

IR cams see through clouds? Since when? (pls do some research before you defend your statement, those cams really *don't* see through clouds)

[@vonschlesien]

More expensive platforms do have these systems. More generally, an expensive platform will have a bunch of different absolute positioning systems of varying reliability (optical ground tracking being on the low end of reliability) and a inertial navigation system to bridge gaps in coverage and to sanity-check the absolute positioning systems when they do get a fix.

[@alexmarshall4331]

​@foxtrotunit1269 We used to use passive ir cameras when REALLY dense fog would envelop the area where we lived in North East Scotland 🧿

[@mls515]

Many airliners have a ground mapping feature on the weather radar but it doesn't get widely used. I'd use it for SA over the Arabian Gulf and make sure the shore of Iran stayed where it should be.

[@frankgulla2335]

Thank you, Scott, for keeping us informed of development by the "bad guys".

[@Name-ot3xw]

Took the UK years to track down some truck driver that was driving past Westminster every day with a GPS jammer to block his boss's tattler. My ex would take a cell jammer to class, everyone just sort of assumed that room was shielded.

[@cjay2]

The world needs more cell jammers. Really.

[@thhseeking]

@@cjay2 Especially on trains. Not so much now, but several times I came close to getting in trouble for throwing some woman's phone out the window. "I'm on the train...I'm ON the train...I'm ON THE TRAIN! I'M ON THE TRAIN!!!!".

[@natemeins]

Avionics maintenance tech here. I’d think spoofing equipment might be relatively easy to purchase commercially and rig almost right out of the box. We use GPS repeaters in our maintenance hangar, and although they are kept at a very low power to reduce/eliminate RFI from radiating outside the hangar, I’d imagine an amplifier and a proper antenna would do the trick. Not sure what “highly focused” means relatively, but a single repeater in a very large hangar of 30 business jet-sized aircraft works pretty well.

[@thehowlingterror]

I have wrapped my drone in silver foil. 👊

[@TheRobak333]

3:30 thanks for mentioning our history and the Katyń massacre. When it comes to the name of this region our government last year has ruled that Poland from now on will be using its original, historical name - Królewiec, and I think that a couple of other European nations like the Czechs has also done the same.

[@brucegoodwin634]

Call me a boomer: Basic map reading skills should be ubiquitous. Great topic/presentation-fly smart!

[@bluesteel8376]

As a millenial I agree with you.

[@jeromethiel4323]

I agree to a point. Hard to read a map while actually driving. Grew up using maps, i could not function in my current job nearly as well if i had to stop constantly to check a map to see where i was. But GPS systems lie, you have to know how to work around their shortcomings. I was just in Boston Mass, and that place is a GPS nightmare.

[@brucegoodwin634]

@@jeromethiel4323 Boston can own you, for sure, bub! It's like the old world…

[@jeromethiel4323]

@@brucegoodwin634 Oh, it's a pretty city, don't get me wrong. It's just hard to enjoy driving in it. Got so lost i had to get turn by turn direction by a guy at MIT to get me to their site so i could fix their problem. Gorgeous yes. PITA to drive in, also yes. Especially with all of the Massholes. If you live there or have visited, you know what i am talking about.

[@CyFr]

Hey, thanks for talking about this subject.

[@Krzychu-bh4rl]

There is no Kaliningrad. There is Królewiec now 😊

[@limbus_patrum]

Ah, I see You're a man of culture as well.

[@Krzychu-bh4rl]

@@limbus_patrum Trying my best. Let's rename Berlin to Bralin 😂

[@dvv18]

Only when Poland is no more, and there's Polska in its place. Besides, there's no _kreska_ in the English alphabet.

[@Krzychu-bh4rl]

Btw just joking about Berlin. But in fact territory roughly like former East Germany was inhabited by Slavic tribes back in medieval period

[@ivekuukkeli2156]

Radio navigation is mandatory in foggy and cloudly days. Inertia navigation is good too. California can have sunny days regulary but in one country there was 1.5 months continuos timeperiod without seeing sun in the winter time.

[@scottmanley]

That country could be where I grew up.

[@IronmanV5]

It would be hilarious If it came out that Ukraine is using GLONAS for their drone's navigation.

[@john_in_phoenix]

I would be really surprised if they don't frequently use the cheap chips that can use multiple GNSS. I know that Russia shut down roaming on cellular networks when they figured out it was used for video feeds to target refineries in Saint Petersburg.

[@trex2099]

Detecting GPS spoofing for anything but small drones: Just put multiple receivers on your aircraft/ship with as much distance between them as possible. If all of them show the same delay between signals received from different "satellites" then you know that you are being spoofed from a single transmitter. If the spoofer is using multiple transmitters with large distances between them, then it gets more complicated but the GPS almanac should reveal it together with fairly large error in the overdetermined system for some out your receivers.

[@kengaroo437]

Clean your room!

[@donmannw]

Jordan Peterson would totally agree

[@jashandeepsinghsidhu3361]

One thing is to have Inertial navigation system as back up to help the GPS system to decide which is the original signal.

[@Spherical_Cow]

Bingo. Seems to me like actually the most straightforward way to detect and reject any spoofing attempts. Combine with automated visual navigation by celestial objects and/or terrain topography (e.g. using onboard frequency-hopping SAR, along with IR and visual cameras for backup) to periodically correct the INS system's drift, and GPS would only really be necessary to bootstrap the system to determine initial position prior to launch/takeoff - if even that.

[@denispol79]

Ohh interesting. Now I know why my Waze was shoing I was roaming the sea during latest attack from Iran.

[@ThatOpalGuy]

best name your vehicle "Red October"

[@denispol79]

@@ThatOpalGuy Nah, I'll pass. It was red enough for me.

[@kkpdk]

Galileo has OSNMA, which is essentially digital signatures on the signals (really much more complicated but a neat trick). But it is very new, and none of the current receivers look at that information (that I have been able to get my hands on).

[@Shadow_banned_by_YouTube]

Ruzzia explained

[@-strauss1560]

This is why practicing Cross Country Dead recognizing OFTEN is a great way to maintain tacit Situational Awareness. I flew from Phoenix to Lancing Michigan once only following ground references. I suggest you try it.

[@ASalishFalcon]

I swear to god every time Scott posts one of these videos it’s a question I have NEVER even considered might exist, but the second I read it I wanna know the answer lol

[@masoodjalal1152]

Hi Scott, great informatic video, just one complaint that you didnt mention the US drone that Iran spoofed to land. It was a big story back then and is still quite talked about it. I was expecting that youd mention it.

[@mitseraffej5812]

I began my aviation career in 1980 and logged well in excess of 1,000 hours of VFR air transport. Got to the stage I wouldn’t have to look at a map for the routes I commonly flew. Now nearing retirement from an airline job my VFR skills are well atrophied and I couldn’t operate without an FMC and the magenta line.

[@edshelden7590]

That’s a great story, Scott. But a possible simple solution might be returned to a VOR system, or loran system or a good old fashion RDF aimed at broadcast stations. Something that would be very hard to jam completely and again a good old mouth might be really handy..