| ▲ | yladiz 5 hours ago |
| Related Veritasium video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz23G_UXCGA |
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| ▲ | sschueller 41 minutes ago | parent | next [-] |
| Why is the video out at the same time as this article? Also the user posting this article on HN was only created 5 hours ago. Is the US planning for war with Russia and are manufacturing consent again? |
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| ▲ | jaapz 35 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Because the video is based on the research done in this article, it even specifically calls out the article's authors in the description | | |
| ▲ | nativeit 6 minutes ago | parent | next [-] | | Is that normal? To promote a research paper in ArXiv so heavily? I think the parent comment’s concerns still apply, saying a large, well-funded YouTube channel is specifically releasing coordinated content to promote this prompts more questions than it answers, in my mind. | |
| ▲ | TechSquidTV 13 minutes ago | parent | prev [-] | | Am I correct it looks like this was published 3 days ago? They made that video.. in essentially 2 days? | | |
| ▲ | yladiz a few seconds ago | parent [-] | | I doubt it based solely on that there are multiple interviews including from one of the paper’s authors. Given that Veritasium is a very well known channel at this point I wouldn’t be surprised if they were contacted instead and then roughly coordinated the timing of the paper and video release together. |
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| ▲ | sippeangelo 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The theory that they broadcast communication on a band near GPS in order to discourage jamming of their early warning system sounds likely. Flexing the ability to jam GPS is pointless, since it's obvious that any state actor who has military satellites in orbit has considered this option or have the capability already. Therefore, the disruptions must either be regular tests of the capability, or just actual communication. Right? |
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| ▲ | ordu 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > The theory that they broadcast communication on a band near GPS in order to discourage jamming of their early warning system sounds likely. Is it? If it is an early warning system, could it be jammed briefly so it would fail to warn, couldn't it? It will be a global disruption of GPS, but a brief one and I'm sure people wouldn't be concerned of it due to other news. > Flexing the ability to jam GPS is pointless Do you believe that cutting sea cables is a sensible action? Or sending drones to neighbors? It is what they call "hybrid asymmetric warfare", I'm not sure how it is supposed to work, but presumably it may let them take over the world or something. Probably they just strive to normalize deviations, to boil frog slowly. When people become used to some stupid actions they widen their repertoire, until everything short of tanks crossing the borders became just normal news noise nobody reads twice. | | | |
| ▲ | rcxdude 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There is definitely value in having a demonstrated as opposed a simply supposed capability, though. And actions that are 'almost-certainly-but-not-completely-provably-us' is very much something Russia likes to do. (One question I would have about the comms theory is whether the amount of power being used would be reasonable for that use-case. Jamming tends to be much higher power than just communicating, but also GNSS signals are very low bandwidth as comms channels go) | | |
| ▲ | ralferoo 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > One question I would have about the comms theory is whether the amount of power being used would be reasonable for that use-case. Jamming tends to be much higher power than just communicating, but also GNSS signals are very low bandwidth as comms channels go GPS is suprisingly low power. I believe the satellites themselves transmit between 20W and 50W, and in general the signal is quieter than the background noise threshold. It's only by correlating with the PRNG stream [1] that the data signal can be detected at all [2]. [1] The PRNG stream is 1023 bits at 1.023Mbps, so repeats every 1ms, and only autocorrelates with the correct stream when they are aligned. When the streams are not aligned, the data looks like random noise, and each transmitter has a different LFSR configuration to provide a different sequence such that each stream has a low level of correlation with another. [2] The PRNG stream bits at 1.023Mbps are exclusive-or'd with the data stream at 50bps, so when the decoder is using the correct PRNG and sequence offset, exclusive-or'ing with that produces detectable long pulses at the expected 50bps. |
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| ▲ | throw0101a 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > Flexing the ability to jam GPS is pointless, since it's obvious that any state actor who has military satellites in orbit has considered this option or have the capability already. Forget "state actors", truck drivers have taken out entire airports with GPS jammers: * https://www.cnet.com/culture/truck-driver-has-gps-jammer-acc... People like the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation have been trying for years to get some kind of GNSS backup accepted: * https://rntfnd.org China has certainly put their money into resiliency (both navigation and timing): * https://www.gpsworld.com/china-completes-national-eloran-net... * https://rntfnd.org//2026/03/19/china-has-built-a-triad-of-sa... * https://rntfnd.org/2023/11/28/china-eloran-used-for-critical... Some folks are certainly cluing in: South Korea has (e)Loran and the UK and France are joining up with them: * https://rntfnd.org/2025/04/30/the-uks-system-of-systems-appr... * https://rntfnd.org/2025/11/12/s-korea-leads-meeting-with-u-k... | | |
| ▲ | mrngld 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | The US still has a fairly robust network of VOR's / VOR with DME / VORTAC stations. Good for navigation, but there's no timing component, beyond what's inherent in how they operate. Admittedly, that'll never be of use outside aviation as its line-of-sight only. But if the sun threw a Carrington event (or worse) at us, I think a lot of western aviation could carry on. | | |
| ▲ | throw0101c 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | > The US still has a fairly robust network of VOR's / VOR with DME / VORTAC stations. Good for navigation, but there's no timing component, beyond what's inherent in how they operate. Admittedly, that'll never be of use outside aviation […] I'm aware of the FAA's MON, Minimum Operating Network. Exactly: that doesn't help boats. Or people in cars. Or farmers: * https://www.deere.com/en/technology-products/precision-ag-te... It doesn't help those that use GNSS for precise timing (TCXOes can only 'free run' for a finite amount of time before drift compounds 'too much'). |
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| ▲ | Havoc 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Unless the actor happens to be a state that puts a great deal of emphasis on flexing & appearances regardless of how pointless it is | |
| ▲ | Scroll_Swe 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >Flexing the ability to jam GPS is pointless No, Russia does these "tests" all the time to see and gauge the reactions. Ex flying just a bit into EU airspace. https://euromaidanpress.com/2026/06/05/nato-fighters-interce... | |
| ▲ | wcarss 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Or actual jamming mistargeted for some reason, or used because it was deemed necessary. | | |
| ▲ | alex_duf 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Repeatedly, over years, only for 2 to 5 seconds at a time? Seems unlikely | | |
| ▲ | wcarss 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | yeah, I have to admit I was commenting on possibilities here without having gone into the article yet -- having now looked for real, I agree that the disruptions don't seem very useful for actual jamming and repeatedly like this for years across satellites and bands in this specific way doesn't make sense for some mistaken targeting either. | |
| ▲ | idiotsecant an hour ago | parent | prev [-] | | There is a very good reason to do this. Suppose you had a device that would make the shoplifting detectors at stores go off. The first time you did it everyone would get hassled. And the second time and so forth. But if you kept doing it eventually the employees would stop caring. Then you just walk out the door with your stuff. |
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| ▲ | sam_lowry_ 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| The video did not settle on the jamming of von der Leyen plane on approach to Plovdiv, but AFAIR it was a (likely unintentional) lie. Never acknowledged by von der Leyen nor by her press secretary because it exposed the lack of basic world knowledge around von der Leyen and her office. |
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| ▲ | sam_lowry_ 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Why downvotes? Here's the press conference where it was announced: https://audiovisual.ec.europa.eu/en/media/video/I-276341 FlightRadar24 disproved the story shortly after: https://twitter.com/flightradar24/status/1962565122326700178 TLDR: Neither von den Leyen nor her office knew about ADB-S nor about the multiple services that collect ADB-S broadcasts and republish, and there was none around who could stop them from announcing an embarrassing lie. | | |
| ▲ | embedding-shape an hour ago | parent [-] | | > Why downvotes? Probably because some missing mention of some specific thing you care deeply about doesn't imply "lack of basic world knowledge" for an entire political office, really strange thing to say and most likely why people are downvoting. It's neither kind, curious and definitively a snark/swipe that doesn't really add anything to the point you were trying to make. | | |
| ▲ | sam_lowry_ an hour ago | parent [-] | | I think you normalize the deviation, here. If you listen to the press conference, Podesta (the press secretary) spoke about the plane circling and not being able to land. When preparing the press conference, she should have checked if this obvious lie can be obviously disproved, but she did not. This probably means that she did not know this was a lie, but then someone who ordered this to be announced knew. My bet is that von der Leyen or her close aide told Podesta to announce the lie in these terms, and the thing that worries me as a European is that there was none to warn these war-mongering ladies that they are making a mistake. This whole situation screams for an intern that sets up the mics and has a callsign and who can stop Podesta as she walks to the pied de stal of shame and explain that the position of planes is monitored all the time and is public information. But I bet that all their interns are servile 3rd generation eurocrats. P.S. The whole press conference (and many others) are fascinating to listen to. The language these people use is softened by the media. What do you think von der Leyen was doing on that plane? She was going "along the frontline" to inspect our preparedness for war where "the frontline" is the Eastern EU border. P.P.S The story made rounds in EU circles, and there was a parliamentary question offering a chance to apologize, but von der Leyen chose to ignore it. | | |
| ▲ | embedding-shape 25 minutes ago | parent [-] | | > I think you normalize the deviation, here. I don't care about Ursula von der Leyen nor her plane, merely explaining that if you try to extrapolate that a group of people don't have "basic world knowledge" based on not knowing a specific technology nor how/why it's used, the community is actually doing the rest of us a favor by downvoting it. Want to discuss her office's use of a plane and how it's related to inspecting ammunition factories or whatever tirade you're going on about? Do create a new submission where that can be discussed, hardly related to the interesting story and methods of trying to track down GNSS interference. | | |
| ▲ | sam_lowry_ 11 minutes ago | parent [-] | | It's a 9 months old story, even the MEP who wrote the question got over it. I raised it because it was mentioned in the Veritassium video, but they stopped short of calling it a lie. They wanted to stay on topic, but the beauty of HN is that we can wander slightly off-topic and discover curious facts without being punished. | | |
| ▲ | embedding-shape 6 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Yeah, curious facts like "it exposed the lack of basic world knowledge around von der Leyen and her office". Go outside brother, and get some fresh air before that too disappears :) |
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