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Ben Gurion Incident Exposes West's Vulnerability to GPS Disruption

Oksana Bedratenko

   WASHINGTON - This story originated in [1]VOA's Ukrainian service.
   A spate of GPS disruptions at Tel Aviv's Ben Gurion Airport has
   confirmed what several prominent tech analysts have long feared: that
   Western nations, and theU.S. in particular, areunusually vulnerable to
   foreign meddling with location-based technology.
   Most location-based software programs, such as the U.S.'s Global
   Positioning System (GPS), the European Union's Galileo,
   China'sBeiDouand Russia'sGlonass, depend on the Global Navigation
   Satellite System (GNSS), the vast network of international satellites
   orbiting the Earth.
   The technology plays an integral part in our everyday lives, affecting
   such things as personal phone use, car navigation,international
   shipping, air travel, power grids, financial markets, andlaw
   enforcement and emergency response services. It's also vital to
   military operations.
   Soit is no surprise that authorities were alarmed last week when
   several aircraft flying near Ben Gurion reported disruption to their
   satellite navigation systems. Officials said they thought the
   disruptions were caused by signals emanating from Syria, where Russian
   forces are involved in that nation's long-running civil war.

References

   1. http://ukrainian.voanews.com/

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