(August 8, 2016) As reported by NBC News, “criminals, rogue employees and even otherwise law-abiding citizens are using illegal “jamming” devices to overpower GPS, cellphone and other electronic signals in localized areas.”
Experts say the threat to the Global Positioning System (GPS) is escalating as potentially more destructive “spoofing” devices become readily available, according to NBC News. Signals come from 12,000 miles away in space making them “extremely faint and susceptible to interruption by jamming (interference by transmitters operating at or near the same frequency) or spoofing (tricking GPS receivers into reporting they are somewhere they are not or producing an incorrect time signal).”
Those taking advantage of the small devices “have found ways to profit from its weaknesses with illegal jamming devices” – now “widely advertised on the internet for $50 or less and require no expertise to operate,” reported NBC News.
Experts said that “the devices — which typically disrupt GPS and sometimes other frequencies over areas ranging from about 980 feet to more than 5 miles, according to one test — have become almost standard issue for criminals engaged in certain kinds of serious crime like cargo theft and drug trafficking. Drug traffickers regularly use them to try to foil electronic surveillance by law enforcement or rival gangs.”
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