Hacker News Reader

Comment by biker142541 | Hacker News Reader

Hacked doesn't seem like the right term. It's jamming, being overwhelmed, not infiltrated in any way. Curious if others use this term in such a way?

View on HN

The vast majority of people don’t know that GPS is only a one-way transaction anyways. They think most devices talk back to the satellites somehow.

> They think most devices talk back to the satellites somehow.

To be honest, I don't think most people realize GPS is coming from satellites in the first place. Most people simply don't think about how/why at all when using things.

GPS and almost all other GNSS is indeed downlink-only. However, Starlink and other LEO internet providers could offer a two-way GNSS service if they added precision clocks in their satellites.

The term used in industry is typically "spoofing."

https://www.u-blox.com/en/blogs/tech/gnss-spoofing-new-secur...

Spoofing is different from jamming. Spoofing is when you trick the receiver into thinking the position is one you fed it vs jamming is you preventing it from acquiring a signal at all. Jamming is much easier while spoofing can be more difficult if there’s encryption on the signal. Unfortunately I think commercial signals aren’t signed with a private key to completely prevent spoofing but I’m not 100% sure.

> Hacked doesn't seem like the right term

... and this term only appears in the headline, not (anywhere!) in the body text. Wonder if the author of the article intended that term to be used, or whether the (sub)editors put it in to help get more clicks?

lol, good point. I wouldn't doubt this as a cause.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com