Thread

1. gorgoiler · 1790191708 · focus · HN ↗

   Presumably when World War 3 kicks off the very first thing each adversary will do is knock out their opponents satellites? These are like flying lightbulbs that shine down usefulness from above, so step one is to cut the lights.

   Presumably-squared there is some kind of military backup to survive once the lights (GPS) go dark? Whatever that technology is, why hasn’t it proliferated into civilian life so that we all benefit from a resilient, non-GPS backup?

   Perhaps the answer is that every tank has a 10lb inertial navigation gyro or some other thingy in it as a backup, and the platoon around it uses the tank as a moving trig point? In that case I can see it being infeasible to deploy that for civilians.

   Perhaps-squared it’s just economics — GPS is cool and cheap now, so why burn profit margin on developing an alternative?

   1. scottyah · 1790202238 · focus · HN ↗

      Knock out? no, best option is to have them all pre-hacked and send out spoofed data at the most desired times, especially if you knew what weapon systems were relying on them. Knocking out the satellites is like flipping the table in chess, you'd only do it if you were pretty sure you had no chance of winning because everyone else in the tournament won't like it. The duopoly-based cold war is over and those winner-take-all tactics were what drove USA policymakers to try so hard to get China to play on the world stage.

      1. FlowingRiver · 1790212653 · focus · HN ↗

         You could have the GPS constantly changing in the same way as time sensitive rolling key authenticators work. Without the base private key, you wouldn't be able to decode it in time. So it remains functional for those that need it but becomes useless, actively works against those without it.

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