This is how GPS warfare destroys civilian life

Military activities are responsible for the increased number of jamming and spoofing incidents involving smartphones, aircraft and ships.

Ships that appear to be transiting land based airports. Dating apps that match Israelis and Lebanese, provided they are in the same location. Charter planes that are forced to turn back due to sudden navigation problems – right after takeoff. Such are the consequences of the manipulation of navigation signals – modern GPS warfare – wreaking havoc on civilian smartphones, aircraft and ships on three continents.

GPS jamming and spoofing (jamming and spoofing) has been largely the preserve of militaries for the past two decades, used to protect sensitive sites from drone or missile attacks, or to mask their own activities. However, the systematic intervention of the armed forces – especially after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s Gaza offensive against Hamas – causes widespread problems for the civilian population as well. The extent of the corrupted signals became enormous.

According to data from the tracking service Flightradar24, nearly 40 million people lived in areas with unreliable GPS signals for at least half of the past six months. These include Turkey’s capital, Ankara, where the armed forces are stationed, part of the Black Sea coast, Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, several of Iraq’s largest cities, and the borders of war-torn Myanmar. The strong interference – which caused problems at least a quarter of the time – also affected areas with a total of 110 million people, including cities with military installations such as St. Petersburg in Russia, Lahore in Pakistan and Beirut in Lebanon.

“Actors are primarily driven by the desire to protect military targets,” said Thomas Withington of Rusi, a London-based defense think tank. “Drones and guided weapons generally rely on GNSS. The emission of jamming signals limits their ability to navigate properly.” .GPS is part of GNSS, which is an umbrella term for all global navigation satellite systems.NATO blames Russia for such GNSS disturbances in much of Europe, including the one carrying the British Defense Secretary. affected in March. Conflicts in the Middle East have also increased GPS manipulation in the region. Some world leaders, including Vladimir Putin, protect themselves with cell phone jammers when traveling.

However, the fake signals used in jamming – which work by flooding receivers with loud fake data – do not distinguish between military and civilian devices. Baltic government officials warned of a looming aviation disaster last month after two Finnair flights turned around mid-air due to a GNSS malfunction. Alarmed by the potential dangers, the Pentagon launched a project called “Harmonic Bastion” to create a comprehensive map of the interference, which is “of significant concern to global users.”

Almost all aircraft have alternative positioning systems, including inertial navigation using motion sensors. However, switching to backups increases the risk of errors. A plane nearly strayed into Iranian airspace last year, while a US flight nearly crashed into a mountain in 2019 after losing its navigation signal. Eurocontrol, the EU’s air traffic regulator, reported a 2,000 percent increase in disruptive incidents between 2018 and 2021. “It’s a dangerous situation,” said Todd Humphreys, a GNSS interference expert at the University of Texas at Austin. “Pilots can become so confused about their situation that they end up having to call air traffic control and ask for directions. It’s beyond the point of just being a nuisance.”

Such instrument landings are reported to be almost routine at Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. The Israel Defense Forces have admitted to blocking GPS signals in Israel as a defensive measure following attacks by the militant group Hamas on October 7 and missile launches by Iran in April. Residents of Israel, Jordan and Lebanon complain that the disruption has made it impossible to use taxis, food delivery or dating apps. Doctors Without Borders and Medical Aid to the Palestinians said ongoing communication problems were hampering their aid efforts in Gaza. However, in recent months, a more sophisticated form of GNSS interference, called spoofing, has also become more common.

The most basic solution is simply to transmit a false location signal, used for example by ships carrying illegal cargo. This tactic is commonly used to circumvent export sanctions or other regulatory restrictions such as fishing rights. Increasingly, spoofers placed on the ground or even on warships indiscriminately corrupt the GNSS signals of nearby ships and aircraft and broadcast false positions. The results create strange transport illusions, such as ships sailing over land or airplanes jumping to locations seemingly hundreds of kilometers away.

Spoofing is considered even more dangerous than jamming, as false signals can fool the sensor systems built into many GPS receivers. In April, SkAi Data Services analyzed OpenSky’s data and reported that up to 30,000 aircraft may have been tampered with. The International Civil Aviation Organization said in February that in several cases the crews had lost all navigation skills.

Shipping relies less on GNSS positioning. However, counterfeiting in the straits around the Black Sea – which is almost certainly linked to Russian military activity – carries the risk of collisions and even oil spills, experts warn. Francis Zachariae, secretary general of IALA, a maritime navigation association, said trained navigators could easily cope with the problem, but expressed concern that a less trained crew could rely too much on automated systems.

Humphreys said airlines in particular failed to heed the warnings. “The systems used in modern aircraft still lack adequate protection against spoofing and jamming.” But while aviation interference is in the headlines for now, GNSS technology is ubiquitous in civil society. Banks, railways and emergency services all rely on the system for timekeeping and location data. “We should all be aware of how dependent we are on GNSS in our daily lives,” said Withington.

One of the mysteries of modern GNSS warfare is why fake ships and aircraft often appear at airports. Some analysts speculate that the phenomenon may be an attempt to force drones to shut down when they are detected in the protected airspace of an airport, but planes and ships can also accidentally pick up on these widely broadcast signals. Most experts agree that civilians are unlikely to be the direct targets of the activity – although Dr Melanie Garson, who researches UCL cyberwarfare, said that in some cases there was also the possibility of Russian intent.

Governments are starting to take a tougher stance and even openly accuse the alleged perpetrators. In March, Lebanon threatened to report Israel to the UN Security Council over GNSS interference, while Estonia’s foreign minister said some of the incidents were part of a “hybrid attack” launched from Russia. British Foreign Secretary Lord David Cameron has described reports that Defense Secretary Grant Shapps’ plane experienced GPS jamming near the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad as “very disturbing”, adding that it was “extremely irresponsible for Russia to do this”. There is no evidence that Shapps’ plane was specifically targeted, but the area is a hotbed of disruption.

Elisabeth Braw, a researcher at the Atlantic Council, a US international relations think tank, says there’s not much more officials can do. “NATO will not declare Article 5 – the alliance’s collective defense clause – because Russia threatens air traffic in the Baltic region. So, in essence, they can carry out such activities as they want, because there is no penalty for it.”

Work is currently underway to find alternatives to GNSS, which is inherently vulnerable because its signals operate on shared frequency bands and at low power. These include eLoran, a terrestrial radio navigation system. According to Ofcom’s website, it has been possible to apply for a license to use the technology in the UK since last October, but only one has been issued so far. Other proposals include positioning based on anomalies in the Earth’s magnetic field.