Bush Prepares for Possible GPS Shutdown

There is a new system in the works by the europeans, Galileo. It is
supposed to be independent of military control so you won't see threats
of system shutdown. I'm sure the pentagon is working out how to jam it,
etc.

http://www.esa.int/export/esaNA/GGGM...C_index_0.html
http://www.eubusiness.com/press/EUPress.2003-12-22.1818

Let the cat'n'mouse games continue. In previous centuries road signs
were moved around and fake maps made to confuse the enemy, I doubt that
has happened in a while. But the stakes are always getting higher, no
one died as a direct result of a sign movement (the guys with guns
lying in ambush on the other hand...)

-lance smith

Let the cat'n'mouse games continue. In previous centuries road signs
were moved around and fake maps made to confuse the enemy, I doubt that
has happened in a while. But the stakes are always getting higher, no
one died as a direct result of a sign movement (the guys with guns
lying in ambush on the other hand...)


Including the last one...

In the '80s I had a friend that was assigned to a recon unit of a USA Mech
Inf. batallion in Germany. According to him his squads primary duty if the
ballon went up what to destroy every highway, road and other such marker in
what I thought was a fairly large area of Germany.

"Jay Honeck" wrote in message
news:v1Cwd.276204$R05.193754@attbi_s53...

But there are only a few dozen major computer networks providing the
backbone of the internet in the U.S. This is all speculation, of course,
but I would bet you ten bucks that there is an NSA task force whose main
job
is to maintain the capability of (a) monitoring (b) defending, and (c)
disabling these networks, as needed.

Could they take down the whole internet? No. But could they prevent 90%
of
Americans from seeing the internet? You bet -- at least for a time.
--


In the late 1980s the military split off from the Internet and onto what, I
believe, they call Mil-net. However, I wonder how much of Mil-net (routers,
backbone, etc.) is truly seperate from the Internet. Since there are always
bugs in software/hardware (especially if it has never been tested as is the
case in shutting down the Internet) I would expect that a shutdown of the
Internet will have totally unanticipated effects on the military networks.
Since so much of society is now interwoven into the Internet we probably
will be shooting ourselves in the foot if we shutdown the Internet in a time
of crisis.

Earl G

On Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:23:15 GMT, "G.R. Patterson III"
wrote:



Ron Rosenfeld wrote:

I did not see that article, and cannot locate it just now. But I don't
understand the logic that would imply that for a TSO146 GPS unit.

Can you elaborate?

Well, I found that one and couldn't find the reference I thought I read. But I
did find another article that contained this "Currently, two manufacturers of GA
avionics — UPSAT and Chelton — have WAAS-certified receivers that can be used
for 'sole-source' IFR navigation, meaning no other navigation systems are
required on the aircraft. UPSAT expects to receive certification for vertical
navigation ('glideslope') within two months. Other manufacturers will be
offering WAAS receivers soon." That states I was wrong.


This latter stuff you quote is what I thought also. As the owner of a
CNX80, I did not think other equipment was required (although, of course,
it is present).

And the vertical navigation to which your article refers has been available
on the CNX80, as a free, factory-installed upgrade, since the beginning of
October. Mine is going in next week for that upgrade process.


Ron (EPM) (N5843Q, Mooney M20E) (CP, ASEL, ASES, IA)

wrote in message
ups.com...
There is a new system in the works by the europeans, Galileo. It is
supposed to be independent of military control so you won't see threats
of system shutdown. I'm sure the pentagon is working out how to jam it,
etc.

http://www.esa.int/export/esaNA/GGGM...C_index_0.html
http://www.eubusiness.com/press/EUPress.2003-12-22.1818


There's been noises in the past that the Chinese might want to be part of
that project, and also that the birds might carry hardware for encrypted
communication/datalink as well. That's the part that really got the DoD's
attention. A large part of our military advantage these days lies in the
incredible speed at which we can move information around securely from
bottom to top and back down again. It's safe to assume that strategic rivals
like China would get around to doing this on their own sooner or later, but
cooperating with the Europeans to do so would make a rather interesting
geopplitical statement.

-cwk.

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...

The Missile Defense Shield (or whatever they're calling it) is being
*DEPLOYED* now, before it is fully developed! If it were merely an
experiment, it's lack of performance might be more reasonable.

But hey, it's only a trillion dollar bill.* :-(

Well, given the rather precarious attachment with reality that the Norks
have, count me as glad to see we at least have some chance of a shoot-down
in case they decide to go postal. Longer term we have to be thinking about
the Iranians as well. They're going to build their bomb sooner or later and
the missiles to carry it. Having intercept capability, even a 50-50 one,
reduces the odds that it will ever come to shooting.

-cwk.

In article . com,
says...

There is a new system in the works by the europeans, Galileo. It is
supposed to be independent of military control so you won't see threats
of system shutdown. I'm sure the pentagon is working out how to jam it,
etc.



Galileo has won some European funding approval this year, so it should move
forward to at least the next stage.It is a very clever initiative, because it
plays on the Europeans' pride (particularly the French) in not having to rely
on something developed and offered (even for free) from the Americans. If it
does come to pass, it will of course be offered at high cost to users (just as
IFR users are already heavily taxed on "airway use" fees) GPS receivers will
be mandated to be "Galileo compliant" (more market share for Europen equipment
manufacturers) and it will be geared toward commercial operations, offering
little of the flexibility and cost effectiveness required by private
operators. If Europeans could see past their pride, they should hope that
Galileo never gets past the next budget hurdles, and they should become
victims, once again of slavery to free, reliable, scalable US initiatives.

G Faris

"Earl Grieda" wrote in message
nk.net...

....snip...
I would expect that a shutdown of the
Internet will have totally unanticipated effects on the military networks.
Since so much of society is now interwoven into the Internet we probably
will be shooting ourselves in the foot if we shutdown the Internet in a
time
of crisis.


The infrastructures of society evolve slowly and do so with great inertia.
It is not easy to change direction quickly without unanticipated effect.

For example, trying to make a "sudden" move away from air travel after 9-11
caused a spike in automobile deaths. 1000 people more than normal died on
the roads in just the three months following (
http://www.sciencentral.com/articles...392244&cat=1_7 )
..

Any big infrastructure change.... whether closing the internet or closing
down the GPS system or moving away from an automobile-oriented society....
will certainly be "shooting ourselves in the foot", if done suddenly. So
the reasons for doing it have to be huge.

So also, are the reasons for trying to foresee where the current
infrastructures *should* be changing.... (power usage and/or power
generation, for one example)... so that their evolution can be planned, or
at least anticipated. It's gonna take a long time to get there.

"Slip'er" writes:

set back by what critics
called a stunning failure of its first full flight test in two
years.

I would hate having my experiments all open to public scrutiny.

If my experiments cost $80M a pop I would expect them to be open to
public scrutiny.

"C Kingsbury" writes:

"Larry Dighera" wrote in message
...

The Missile Defense Shield (or whatever they're calling it) is being
*DEPLOYED* now, before it is fully developed! If it were merely an
experiment, it's lack of performance might be more reasonable.

But hey, it's only a trillion dollar bill.* :-(

Well, given the rather precarious attachment with reality that the Norks
have, count me as glad to see we at least have some chance of a shoot-down
in case they decide to go postal. Longer term we have to be thinking about
the Iranians as well. They're going to build their bomb sooner or later and
the missiles to carry it. Having intercept capability, even a 50-50 one,
reduces the odds that it will ever come to shooting.

The problem is this tends towards the emotional, away from the
rational.

There are always limited resources to secure our safety. Therefore
our dollars should always be funding those projects with the best
estimated marginal rate of return for security.

So the half-assed MDS (or whatever it's called), with a very sorry
history of performance and reliability, is being given tens of
billions of dollars, while obvious stuff like checking incoming cargo,
or trying to round up Russia's nuke material, is apparently
underfunded and proceeding much slower than it could. But those
aren't macho. It looks better on your resume to have done a mighty
missle project than rounding up loose nukes or figured out how to
check containers efficiently.

Islamic terrorists, and probably not even N. Korea, are not
fundamentally a military problem, but we are treating it as such.
There may indeed be military elements to reducing the islamic
terrorist threat, but military solutions should not be primary. Bush
and his idealogues are fighting the last threat, global communism, not
the current threat.