A Russian GPS Using U.S. Soil Stirs Spy Fears | Hacker News Reader

A Russian GPS Using U.S. Soil Stirs Spy Fears

nytimes.com

48 pointseplanit38 comments

It's not just Russia, but India too has started deploying its own GPS system, called IRNSS comprising 7 satellites primarily covering the Indian land mass.

> With 32 satellites in orbit, GPS pretty much serves as the global reference. The US doesn’t share military grade signals with countries but civilian signals, in L1 (1575.4 MHz) and L2 (1227.6 MHz) frequencies, is free for all. But as is true with all innovators, it’s believed the US practises ‘selective denial’. In times of war, and sometimes even otherwise, the signals can be corrupted. Isro Chairman K Radhakrishnan says, “During the Gulf War, signals from some satellites were interrupted.”

> Amid such uncertainties, when the default control and navigation systems in defence projects are equipped with GPS devices, a country’s security rides on these radio signals whose control lies elsewhere. For this reason, in its upgraded BrahMos missile, India has added Glonass receivers to the standard GPS receivers because Russia, unlike US, gives access to military signals.

http://forbesindia.com/article/real-issue/isros-very-own-gps...

Opposition is against building GLONASS monitoring stations on US soil; not against GLONASS or any indigenous navigation system itself.

Comment is against the larger point being made in the article, and I quote:

>“They don’t want to be reliant on the American system and believe that their systems, like GPS, will spawn other industries and applications,” said a former senior official in the State Department’s Office of Space and Advanced Technology. “They feel as though they are losing a technological edge to us in an important market. Look at everything GPS has done on things like your phone and the movement of planes and ships.”

> The Russian effort is part of a larger global race by several countries — including China and European Union nations — to perfect their own global positioning systems and challenge the dominance of the American GPS.

For example France doesn't rely on GPS for military purpose, mostly using inertial positioning systems that drift and require re-calibration. (sometimes with dramatic effects like when 2 soldiers got killed in the wrong country in Africa because they had drifted)

There is a giant network of ground stations around the world so that french submarine can re-calibrate their positioning system periodically. It's a unique solution that only works when you have territories all over the world, since you don't want to position your nuclear power with a foreign system.

The French military have plenty of reliance on Navstar GPS; for example the AASM munitions used over Libya and Mali have GPS as a primary mode and INS, IIR or laser as secondary options.

Yeah, I was wrong to exclude everything, sorry. As part of NATO, the GPS is used for some stuff. It CAN be completely disabled would have been a more accurate description.

This is somewhat ridiculous on the part of the US government. This is data easily collected by survey-grade GNSS systems, that anyone could collect. If the Russians wanted to do SIGINT, they wouldn't announce where they're putting their gear; they would load a van up with a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of RF equipment and position near their targets.

To give you an idea of reference stations in the US for the GPS system, head on over to: http://www.ngs.noaa.gov/CORS_Map/

Granted, these are used for post-processing position data for increased accuracy, and not for updating mission-critical orbit/atmospheric error data, but the principal is the same.

Kind of "funny", if you remember that the US builds all kinds of stuff on other nations' soil:

- Tons of military bases (see: all over the world)

- NSA mass surveillance centers (see: Germany, and probably secret ones elsewhere)

I doubt they really see this as an espionage threat, even though that's what they'll spin it as.

More like a threat to the advantage of our system having dominance. Probably means the Russians are right to be concerned about our militaries capability to cut them off or send faulty data if we ever felt the need.

On the other hand, I can just picture the Russians saying to themselves,

"Everyone will think we are using it to spy no matter what we do, so maybe we might as well..."

As if the Russians can use that spying for any great effect...

Seems like a pretty simple installation. They are just monitoring (see the Brazilian installation). If they really do need them, why not just contract it out to a US firm, who simply relay the data. That should satisfy the spies.

Is an accurate Russian GPS competitor really that bad? Its not like ICBM's need ultra precise positioning. By the time nukes start falling ... its already all over.

Well, would you want some nice flock of Russian drones flying all other the place? With no ability to block navigation on these drones? I'd think not.

On the other hand Russia is probably the last country you should worry about. Nobody there is really interested in provoking the US to military actions. People in power in Russia have kids studying and living abroad, all over the place. In US, Europe, New Zealand, UK, etc.

Even if this installation somehow enhanced Russian military (and I presume they will launch the satellites regardless), surely having the installations on US soil is a _benefit_ to the US. They can be monitored and, if necessary, shut down much more easily than if they are on foreign soil.

Now now, that requires clear thinking,subtlety and finesse. Things that post 9/11 US Intelligence Industrial Complex top brass is severely deficient from.

> would you want some nice flock of Russian drones flying all other the place?

Why not? Other countries aren't out to "get you". You have far more to fear from your own government than foreign nationals or governments.

> Its not like ICBM's need ultra precise positioning. By the time nukes start falling ... its already all over.

I'm pretty sure that due to the nature of an ICBM's flight path, they can't use GPS. AFAIK, they all use extremely precise inertial navigation systems.

Not the flight path per se, but altitude over 60,000 feet and/or speed over 1,000kts are limiting factors for GPS. [0] That said, there are certain GPS devices that can bypass the limits. [1]

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CoCom

[1] http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/09/bypassin-us-gps-li...

I'm fairly sure that's an 'and', not an 'or', per your reference [0].

I should clarify that by "flight path" I meant trajectory, e.g. altitude. Which is still curiously its flight path to the target.

Optical tracking system to triangulate star positions, i.e. star trackers.

http://www.fas.org/nuke/intro/missile/icbm.htm

https://www.opci.com/ocns.htm

Near as I can tell, only Chinese missiles currently use star tracking devices [1]. US and Russian ICBMs use inertial guidance.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DF-31

On a related note, does anyone know if it is possible/how hard it is to get an accurate read on a handful of stars/pulsar in all weather/light conditions using a radio telescope? Or indeed what the state of the art is on "passive" computer/database assisted navigation?

I'd imagine with high accuracy clocks, much and high-precision information on celestial bodies, there should've been some advancements in this area? Or will the resolution (due to atmospheric effects etc) be too low for it to be useful?

The SR-71 used a regular visible light telescope to navigate with very high precision. (You can see stars during the day if you know where to look.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_SR-71_Blackbird#Astro-...

I could see it being tough near cities that give off so much excess light at night anyways. Were you thinking visible spectrum?

I was guessing there might be a few (enough) stars that would be easier to spot (with deterministic precision) in the radio spectrum?

Things like this make me believe that the cold war never truly ended. It just shifted gears again into a different type of "war". I think it's a more productive form again since we're trying to keep up technologically against them instead of fighting as many proxy wars. I think China entering the foray might be part of what has spurned some of this competition.

The cold war definitely deescalated. Considering there was never open conflict, it's hard to point to a spot where all tensions whatsoever dissolved, considering superpowers are always going to have a little tension between them here or there.

> Indeed, many smartphones and other consumer navigation systems sold in the United States today use data from both countries’ satellites.

That was surprising news for me. I had no idea that other GPS-like systems had come so far. Wikipedia says,

"GPS and phone baseband chips from major vendors ST-Ericsson, Broadcom and Qualcomm all support GLONASS in combination with GPS. Smartphones and Tablets also saw implementation of GLONASS support in 2011 with devices released that year from Xiaomi Tech Company (Xiaomi Phone 2), Sony Ericsson, Samsung (the Google Nexus 10 in late 2012), Asus, Apple (iPhone 4S and iPad Mini in late 2012) and HTC adding support for the system." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GLONASS

No so much a case of having 'come so far' as 'bouncing back'; the first satellite in the GLONASS network was launched in 1982, after a decade of development. IoC was 1993.

International access was offered in 1996, but this coincided with a decline in funding and waning of coverage. It took until 2011 to patch the gaps in the constellation.

My understanding is that units that support any kind of satellite positioning system but that don't support GLONASS are subject to fairly hefty import tariffs in Russia. My S3 supports both the US and Russian systems, and is excellent at gaining a fix.

Strictly speaking, GPS refers to the US military's GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite System). The Russian GNSS is called GLONASS, not "GPS".

Neither GPS nor GLONASS are just "military" systems in sense that they are also used commercially. And:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Positioning_System

"GPS is owned and operated by the United States Government as a national resource."

Are there any GPS monitoring stations in Russia?

No. From the article:

   The United States has stations around the world, but none in Russia.

The russian press affirms that there are 19 US GPS monitoring stations in Russia

The solution seems plain: Give the U.S. a spec and funds to build whatever is needed for Roscosmos on U.S. Soil.

And what about the just reverse?

Reply on news.ycombinator.com