Moscowites confused over a GPS anomaly around Kremlin - Polidicks

[url]https://www.yahoo.com/news/russians-seek-answers-central-moscow-gps-anomaly-091145932.html[/url] [quote]Joggers, taxi drivers, players of Pokemon Go and senior Russian officials are seeking an explanation of why mobile phone apps that use GPS are malfunctioning in central Moscow. A programmer for Russian internet firm Yandex, Grigory Bakunov, said Thursday his research showed a system for blocking GPS was located inside the Kremlin, the heavily guarded official residence of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Users of GPS have complained on social media in recent months that when they are near the Kremlin their GPS-powered apps stop working or show them to be in Moscow's Vnukovo airport, 29 kilometers (18 miles) away. Putin's spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Thursday he did not know why the malfunction was occurring and admitted experiencing the problem himself when driving recently. Peskov redirected questions to Russia's Federal Guards Service, which is responsible for protecting the Kremlin and senior Russian officials.[/quote] Putin must have some fucking amazing Pokemon at his place.

The Kremlin doesn't actually exist on this Earth, but has simply pushed the spacetime in Moscow around itself in order to appear in this dimension.

Such is life in the zone

Is it mobile? A mobile GPS blocker would be a great security layer, you could have someone disappear. But if it's stationary and only works to one location, I don't actually see the point. Because if and when whoever is tracking you sees that you suddenly disappear or teleport to a nearby airport, wouldn't they immediately know for sure you're in one of the few gps-blocked locations on earth?

Reminds me of when we turned off Georgia's GPS coverage during the war and it fucked up Russian Ops due to them using civilian GPS for most of their navigation.

How... do you block GPS? GPS works by listening for signals from three or more GPS satellites in the constellation and using geometry (and accounting for relativity) to work out your position on the planet via the known positions of the satellites you can see in the sky overhead. The only thing I can think of is that there's some kind of jammer broadcasting interference on the GPS bands, projected downwards onto the streets from rooftop/etc., which could easily overpower the real signals (which have to come from [I]space[/I]). Not really unreasonable, especially considering it'd be to defend the Kremlin. Or, in wild speculation, smartphone OSs and consumer GPS devices have some sort of hidden code to disrupt accurate civilian GPS position tracking within certain regions. if(kremlin.proximity) { fucko(); }

[QUOTE=J Paul;51245278]Is it mobile? A mobile GPS blocker would be a great security layer, you could have someone disappear. But if it's stationary and only works to one location, I don't actually see the point. Because if and when whoever is tracking you sees that you suddenly disappear or teleport to a nearby airport, wouldn't they immediately know for sure you're in one of the few gps-blocked locations on earth?[/QUOTE] GPS jamming isn't exactly a mysterious technology nor is GPS forgery; nor does it often effective against military targets.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;51245386]How... do you block GPS? GPS works by listening for signals from three or more GPS satellites in the constellation and using geometry (and accounting for relativity) to work out your position on the planet via the known positions of the satellites you can see in the sky overhead. The only thing I can think of is that there's some kind of jammer broadcasting interference on the GPS bands, projected downwards onto the streets from rooftop/etc., which could easily overpower the real signals (which have to come from [I]space[/I]). Not really unreasonable, especially considering it'd be to defend the Kremlin. Or, in wild speculation, smartphone OSs and consumer GPS devices have some sort of hidden code to disrupt accurate civilian GPS position tracking within certain regions. if(kremlin.proximity) { fucko(); }[/QUOTE] You listen to gps satellite signals and bounce them as if you are the satellite. gps wont be able to reliably know where it is, and if your signal is far stronger then the satellites, you can make it believe whatever you want, for example being in an airport 18 km away.

[QUOTE=Blizzerd;51245435]You listen to gps satellite signals and bounce them as if you are the satellite. gps wont be able to reliably know where it is, and if your signal is far stronger then the satellites, you can make it believe whatever you want, for example being in an airport 18 km away.[/QUOTE] This however is significantly more difficult. [editline]22nd October 2016[/editline] Especially considering you can't control the time it takes to receive

Do they mean GPS in general or the US GPS constellation and not GLONASS/BeiDou/Galileo

[QUOTE=winsanity;51245608]Does it mean GPS in general or the US GPS constellation and not GLONASS/BeiDou/Galieo[/QUOTE] this is what I also wonder. most smartphones support glonass so shouldn't it switch to that when gps is being weird?

That explains why a vast majority of minor car accidents recorded by dashcams take place in Moscow.

[QUOTE=kimr120;51245677]this is what I also wonder. most smartphones support glonass so shouldn't it switch to that when gps is being weird?[/QUOTE] I'm sure they thought about blocking both types.

[QUOTE=Map in a box;51245387]GPS jamming isn't exactly a mysterious technology nor is GPS forgery; nor does it often effective against military targets.[/QUOTE] You could also use AGPS from the cell tower, but I don't know about export restrictions on that.

Moscow has a lot of interesting mysteries. Like the supposed secret underground metro.

[QUOTE=elixwhitetail;51245386]How... do you block GPS? GPS works by listening for signals from three or more GPS satellites in the constellation and using geometry (and accounting for relativity) to work out your position on the planet via the known positions of the satellites you can see in the sky overhead. The only thing I can think of is that there's some kind of jammer broadcasting interference on the GPS bands, projected downwards onto the streets from rooftop/etc., which could easily overpower the real signals (which have to come from [I]space[/I]). Not really unreasonable, especially considering it'd be to defend the Kremlin. Or, in wild speculation, smartphone OSs and consumer GPS devices have some sort of hidden code to disrupt accurate civilian GPS position tracking within certain regions. if(kremlin.proximity) { fucko(); }[/QUOTE] You can probably just fill the carrier freq with noise and be done with it. Same applies with all other radio jamming.

GPS jammers are very commom and widespread, the russians are specially good at it and have been using it on ukraine since start of the war. This is probly a safety net against GPS drones who could be programmed to bomb the place

[QUOTE=Blizzerd;51245435] you can make it believe whatever you want, for example being in an airport 18 km away.[/QUOTE] Good luck with that. The timing would have to be impeccable. Setting up something to forge GPS would simply not be worth the cost. GPS jamming is much easier and cheaper.

Something like this would not be hard to get around, as long as you have a directional antenna with a pretty good gain and you dont point it at the jammer you can pretty much ignore it. Im going to assume the jammer is omnidirectional, and if it is then it will lose out in power if you are using a collimated system. Its also jamming signals just around the kremlin so I would also assume it isnt using a huge amount of power.

Normal people don't carry directional antennas

[QUOTE=winsanity;51245608]Do they mean GPS in general or the US GPS constellation and not GLONASS/BeiDou/Galileo[/QUOTE] Not sure it's even possible to test whether the last two worrk properly there, since, as far as i remember, both of them have yet to provide global coverage. Also it's obviously a newly installed thing, since i sometimes cycle there with my friend and we both record our path, but i've never seen the recorded track have any major deviations from the real one. I mean, it sometimes fuckes up and starts to jump here and there for a couple of seconds when the signal is weak, but this happens regardless of our location.

Whats even stranger is that this wouldnt even do much against a gps guided munition because they are also inertially guided, and since it isnt a long range jammer you can still hit the target without much of an accuracy impact. So why dont they want people to be able to use gps around the kremlin, assuming someone is intentionally jamming gps? Even if it was a much more powerful jammer, I think that you could still hit a building sized target using just inertial guidance. It could be that its a broadband jammer meant for something like a remotely detonated IED and it just happens to be jamming GPS as well.

[QUOTE=mecaguy03;51254538]Whats even stranger is that this wouldnt even do much against a gps guided munition because they are also inertially guided, and since it isnt a long range jammer you can still hit the target without much of an accuracy impact. So why dont they want people to be able to use gps around the kremlin, assuming someone is intentionally jamming gps? Even if it was a much more powerful jammer, I think that you could still hit a building sized target using just inertial guidance. It could be that its a broadband jammer meant for something like a remotely detonated IED and it just happens to be jamming GPS as well.[/QUOTE] I doubt it's for stopping long range guided munitions and is more for terrorist or assassination type shit.

A bit more information: The person who did research on this says the jammer is probably made by [URL="http://www.ni.com/"]National Instruments[/URL] and it fully jamms military bands and sends fake response on civilian bands. Also he's made a map of jammer coverage area and approximate jammer location ([URL="https://www.google.ru/maps/@55.7519546,37.6252515,15.04z"]here is the same location on google maps[/URL]): [IMG]http://servmon.ru/screenshots/2016/10/2016-10-25_10-11-23.png[/IMG] Also Russian GLONASS signal is faked/jammed too I believe.

[QUOTE=Map in a box;51245387]GPS jamming isn't exactly a mysterious technology nor is GPS forgery; nor does it often effective against military targets.[/QUOTE] But it's effective against something like a drone bomb made by terrorists. [QUOTE=kimr120;51245677]this is what I also wonder. most smartphones support glonass so shouldn't it switch to that when gps is being weird?[/QUOTE] Considering it's their own system...