Going Forward - GPS Declassified: From Smart Bombs to Smartphones - page 189

warned that inexpensive spoofers would be attractive not only to terrorists but
to anyone wanting to fool gps systems—from fishing boats working of-limits
waters to financial traders exploiting split-second time discrepancies in fast-
moving markets. 31 As gps adoption increases, spoofing seems likely to prompt
new regulations, require new law enforcement techniques, and spawn a black
market in the devices.
gps and gnss systems have vulnerabilities beyond malevolent jamming
and spoofing. The Royal Academy of Engineering in London released a study,
Global Navigation Space Systems: Reliance and Vulnerabilities , in March 2011
that echoed the U.S. National pnt Advisory Board's call for a backup system
for gps. The report warned that widespread reliance on gnss signals and the
possibility that many seemingly unrelated services could fail simultaneously
because of signal disruption have created “an accidental system with a single
point of failure.” 32 Among potential causes of failure, it listed uploads of bad
navigational data, clock anomalies, loss of satellites due to the orbital envi-
ronment, atmospheric problems, attacks on the ground segment, faulty sys-
tem upgrades, and receiver bugs. The report cited bad data uploads to gps
satellites in 1993, 2000, and 2002 and clock anomalies in 2001 and 2004. In
the 2004 example, the clock error of svn-23 (the oldest gps satellite in orbit)
went undetected for three hours, producing a user-range error of about 186
miles (300 kilometers) before ground controllers spotted the problem. 33 For-
tunately, these incidents caused no serious problems, but they suggest ways
that larger failures might occur.
One potential cause of catastrophic failure listed in the report is impossible
to predict but has sufficient probability to prompt constant vigilance of the sun.
A super solar flare, or Carrington Event, named for English astronomer Rich-
ard Carrington, would saturate the orbital environment with highly charged
particles that could destroy the electronics aboard satellites. Carrington on
September 1, 1859, observed and made sketches of unusually intense sunspots—
known as solar flares or coronal mass ejections. The next day telegraph sys-
tems worldwide “went haywire,” discharging sparks, shocking operators, and
setting telegraph paper on fire.34 34 Such solar activity went unnoticed before
humans created electronic networks. Subsequent solar flares not nearly as
large have caused significant damage to telecommunications equipment and
power systems. A solar storm disabled the U.S. waas network for thirty hours
in 2003 . 35 X-rays disrupted gps for about ten minutes in 2005. 36 R esearchers
have studied chemical evidence of ancient solar storms recorded in arctic ice