A Modern Horror Story

Every Halloween we present this familiar horror story:

You wake up. Emergency and rescue radios are down.

Your location app is offline and planes are grounded worldwide.

You attempt to go shopping, but the credit card isn't working. The ATM is down, too.

As the day progresses both cell and internet service are lost, stores and restaurants are closed, and you can't even get gas.

By the next morning the power is out.

The cause? GPS is down.

In the past, when we presented this tale it was met with disbelief from the general public (after all, there are a lot of other things to worry about). But recent news and articles (in Wired, The Atlantic, The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc., etc.) have made this more well-known.

But, while awareness is growing, the threats are accelerating much faster: jamming, spoofing, anti-satellite missiles, anti-satellite satellites, lasers, the sun, and even operator error.

And our reliance on GPS has caused people to forget that it has an off switch. GPS was originally built for the US military, and it took a pair of Executive Orders to make it available to the wider civilian world.

And within the last few years that off switch is getting more usage as GPS was briefly shut off to deny its use in the Middle East. And the rise of drone warfare, and now drone terror attacks, may lead to the further denial of the widespread GPS signal. Counter-intuitively, this off switch may force the change necessary to avoid a horror story. Already some countries are developing their own local GPS-independent PNT solutions to reduce the risk.

Happy Halloween!

Last Week's Theme: The Evolution of PNT