While GPS is often touted as a navigation tool, it is far more than that. GPS serves as the invisible backbone of modern infrastructure, synchronizing everything from power grids and financial transactions to cell networks and the internet. However, while adversaries like China and Russia have already built thorough backup systems, the US faces a massive national security concern with its GPS vulnerability.

For today’s podcast episode, I am joined by two experts on GPS policy. Dana Goward is president of the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation and a former member of the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing Advisory Board who served as the maritime navigation authority for the United States. We were also joined by retired Coast Guard Rear Admiral Jeff Hathaway, who is also one of the foundation’s board members. Together, we discussed the main threats GPS faces, along with the importance of building a more resilient national GPS system, led by designated leadership.

Below is a lightly edited and abridged transcript of our discussion. You can listen to this and other episodes of Explain to Shane on AEI.org and subscribe via your preferred listening platform. If you enjoyed this episode, leave us a review, and tell your friends and colleagues to tune in.

Shane Tews: Dana, I want you to tell us a little bit about your organization, but also why GPS matters.

Dana Goward: We are the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation. We are a public benefit 501(c)(3) that advocates for policies and systems to protect GPS satellites, signals, and users. And on the one hand, that’s a very narrow policy niche, but on the other hand, it’s something that concerns every American and every facet of the United States government. So we visit and work with the Department of Defense, Transportation, DHS–I was just at the Department of Energy this morning, and it’s an invisible utility that is critical to everything that we do in our technologically oriented society. You mentioned timing. So people think of GPS, as you mentioned, as the device in their car or on their phone that tells them where to go. And it does that. It’s really good. And GPS as a system is great. But we really, in a sense, don’t care that much about GPS or the 32 satellites that are up there. What we care about is the service that we get from GPS, which is called positioning, navigation, and timing. And actually, timing is the most important. If this were the Lord of the Rings, it would be the one ring that rules them all, right? GPS satellites are essentially suites of highly precise clocks, usually three rubidium or cesium clocks that transmit a time signal. And when they all transmit the time signal simultaneously, it arrives at various times in your cell phone, and through a miracle of microchip technology and algorithms, it figures out where you are on the earth in three dimensions.

So let’s take jamming first. What is it when you’re jamming the GPS system?

So if we were talking about cybersecurity, this would be a denial of service attack. GPS, as I mentioned, is great. And it does exactly what it’s supposed to do. But it was designed to have a very, very weak signal, so it doesn’t interfere with other signals. And also because it’s powered by solar panels and a bunch of other reasons, it’s a very, very, very faint signal. So that means that just about any radio noise on or near the frequency can deny reception to your receiver, depending on how close the transmission is to you. 

So it’s essentially interfering with that very, very weak signal. That’s what jamming is. And it can happen either accidentally or intentionally. The European Union did a survey several years ago and found over 450,000 signals that had the potential to interfere with GPS and the other global navigation satellite systems. But only about 10 % of those were intentional. The others were random radio noise from machinery, accidental transmissions, and that sort of thing. So jamming and other spurious interferences are a real concern.

But spoofing, I understand, is the real problem.

Spoofing is not denial of service. Spoofing is hacking, if you would; if we’re talking cybersecurity. It’s transmitting false GPS signals so that the receiver thinks that it’s someplace where it’s not. And we see that a lot, especially in conflict zones, although we’ve seen it here in the United States as well. It’s often a common tool in cargo theft. Guy Fieri, the celebrity chef, had a million dollars’ worth of his tequila stolen using a GPS spoofer device — folks misdirected the truck to someplace where they wanted it to be.

But more insidiously and more dangerously, it can cause aircraft to wander into prohibited spaces, it can cause ships to collide, and it’s done all of those kinds of things. And unfortunately, that’s 3 relatively easy to do now as well. Back in the day, when GPS was first developed, it wasn’t such a problem. But with the advances in microchip technology, now anyone with a fairly sophisticated knowledge of hobby-level hacking can buy a software-defined transmitter and transmit fake GPS signals or other global navigation satellite signals and make a receiver think it’s someplace that it’s not.

Is there a movement for it to ever become a more free-market environment? I mean, is there competition emerging for GPS beyond what we’ve talked about with the international players?

It’s kind of hard to compete with something that’s free and provided by the government. And that’s actually been the challenge because while GPS is great and functions exactly as it should, it and its receivers are vulnerable, and users can be deceived or denied service relatively easily. And that’s a real danger. And so folks have been encouraged to find other sources for their positioning, navigation, and timing in order to back up or complement GPS.

The challenge is that everything costs money, right? And while there are technologies available, none have been deployed widely and affordably. And it’s primarily because everyone’s looking to the United States government because they provide GPS. If it goes wrong, it’s the United States government’s fault and not the individual business owner who, if they spent money on an alternative system, would be at a competitive disadvantage because they’re buying this insurance that their competitors don’t have to buy, right? So lots of issues in terms of backing up GPS.

Let’s say the agricultural–terrestrial–thing you’re talking about, is it a similar type of system that they’re using?

Jeff Hathway: It could be, there are several different technologies that can be used today, which Dana will get into, because it really gets us to what is that backup to GPS that makes sense? And in order to get there, Dana will tell you that we need to have some leadership. 

We’re lacking national-level leadership to define the criteria that would make up that backup utility to GPS. And we haven’t really gotten into that, but that’s really the core of what our foundation is advocating for. And that’s for somebody to pick up the football. The football’s sitting in the middle of the field, who’s gonna pick it up and run with it? I don’t care if it’s the defense, the offense, somebody pick up the friggin’ football.