GPS Retailing changes direction
Date: Sunday, April 01 @ 01:25:46 UTC
Topic:
UK Government officials and communications experts are still assessing the public safety and security implications of an article that appeared on a hacker site (edited: link removed) just over a year ago. The article provides directions for making low-cost, portable devices that can alter the GPS mapping, and therefore the directions, of third-party SatNavs.
Petior Chevinsky, a spokesman for NASA, who have been successfully defeating jammed GPS environments since 1998, says "defeating GPS jamming is one thing, but this is not jamming. It's the alteration of mapping and therefore a completely different ball game. We are powerless against this type of abuse".
Initially the Government was primarily concerned with the potential risk for military operations, but a very new level of concern has emerged. Last night, Mr. Michael Souris, the Managing Director of UK SatNav retailer Destination Diversions was arrested for deception. Mr. Souris was charged with the real-time corruption of user's SatNav maps to divert vehicles and their confused drivers to his shop. He was able to achieve this from a distance of 3 miles.
He displayed large signs both outside his shop and in the window that asked "How accurate is your SatNav?". The sign went on to say "For just £9.99 and in just 2 minutes we can recalibrate your maps to make them much more accurate." He fraudulently 'repaired' hundreds of GPS systems over a three month period.
The mind boggles as to what other ways this information could be misused. The Team at PocketGPSWorld.com have studied the plans and conclude that even those with just a small amount of technical skill could build a such GPS alteration system straight off the page!
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