Week 3

This weekend I babysat for some friends of mine. He is about to be sent to Pax River to work on an unmanned airplane. What awesome technology. It was an amusing news story he showed me on his iPhone. Apparently, it was being delivered via truck to Pax River. The reaction of the people as it passed through town was quite amusing. Apparently, this plane is intended to be used for reconnaissance missions and eventually be developed for unmanned air attacks.

However, upon looking at a recommended website from the professor, I found this disturbing story: U.S. Drone Hijacked By GPS Hack?

GPS technology has a long ways to go. Apparently, Iran has been looking for the vulnerability for sometime through various other downed drones. By finding the weakness they were able to take advantage. When a drone's GPS is jammed, the drone goes into autopilot because GPS is "its brain."

Perhaps what bothers me most is the fact that it was publicized that GPS was the drone's weakest point and have known about it for a while! *facepalm*

In this case though, Iran "spoofed" the GPS coordinates to obtain the drone.

Knowing this makes me wonder about what else GPS affects should it be jammed or spoofed. Does this mean a bored geek can try and send different GPS to a person who uses it to get to a destination and either get them lost or worse, lead them to a dangerous destination? If we think about this further, most smartphones also have GPS technology embedded in them. I use mine when I am out of town and in unfamiliar territory.

This was very enlightening to discover! I always knew that with new technology would come new threats. For some reason I had believed that GPS is invulnerable or at the very least never really thought about it being used for malicious intent. But apparently, if it's got circuits and radio waves, it's just a matter of time before someone finds a way to use it for bad intentions.