Commercial Flights Are Experiencing ‘Unthinkable’ GPS Attacks and Nobody Knows What to Do::New “spoofing” attacks resulting in total navigation failure have been occurring above the Middle East for months, which is “highly significant” for airline safety.

  • AreaKode@lemmy.world
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    1 year ago

    The problem is with the way GPS works. Your device gets telemetry from the satellites. A fake signal can screw up the whole system.

    • jormaig@programming.dev
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      1 year ago

      But if they had authentication you would know that the message doesn’t come from a legitimate satélite.

      • Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        1 year ago

        If their isn’t then there’s a big problem with implementing that now, which would require a retrofit of every single GPS system currently in use and likely a replacement of all GPS satellites

        Edit: I’m slightly mistaken, the military uses encryption but they don’t have that open for public use.

        • lolcatnip@reddthat.com
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          1 year ago

          I would hope whoever designed the satellites had the foresight to allow remote software updates.

          • Ilovethebomb
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            1 year ago

            They’re talking about the millions of receivers around the world, not the satellites.

          • Restaldt
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            1 year ago

            Nah we just need a satellite mechanic astronaut

      • Creat@discuss.tchncs.de
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        1 year ago

        you can’t have authentication in a one way system. satellites send days, planes receive it, but never send anything.

            • Nailbar@sopuli.xyz
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              1 year ago

              Playing with semantics a little, it can be thought of as the satellite authenticating with the client using the signature as password.

            • randombullet@feddit.de
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              1 year ago

              That’s not how PKI works?

              Unless you know how digital signatures work better than me

            • Nailbar@sopuli.xyz
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              1 year ago

              You can’t copy a signature, since it is different every time the signed content is different. You need to have the correct key in order to make a valid signature.

            • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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              1 year ago

              If you’ve figured out how to do that, a lot of governments would pay you a lot of money for your solution