STUPID US Defines Plans to Shut Down GPS in C rises

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

_______________ Forward Header _______________
Subject:        US Defines Plans to Shut Down GPS in Crises
Author: Ross Stapleton-Gray <ross () stapleton-gray com>
Date:           15th December 2004 5:12:29 pm

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/12/15/financial1859EST0389.DTL
Bush prepares for possible shutdown of GPS network in national crisis

TED BRIDIS, AP Technology Writer
Wednesday, December 15, 2004

(12-15) 15:59 PST WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush has ordered plans for 
temporarily disabling the U.S. network of global positioning satellites 
during a national crisis to prevent terrorists from using the navigational 
technology, the White House said Wednesday.
Any shutdown of the network inside the United States would come under only 
the most remarkable circumstances, said a Bush administration official who 
spoke to a small group of reporters at the White House on condition of 
anonymity.
...


It would be nice to think that "the most remarkable circumstances" would be 
limited to "in the event of porcine aviation," but this feels like yet 
another hunting-ants-with-a-shotgun hysterical response to the Boogeyman of 
Terror.  GPS is a critical service for myriad services, and increasingly 
incorporated into devices, vehicles and other products; presumably the 
scenarios they're imagining are along the lines of "Terrorists program 
backyard cruise missile to hit Rose Garden using GPS guidance," and rest 
assured there are countless alternative ways to manage that.

The most ominous note in the article might be, "The president also 
instructed the Defense Department to develop plans to disable, in certain 
areas, an enemy's access to the U.S. navigational satellites and to similar 
systems operated by others," presumably applying to Europe's planned 
Galileo, or Russia's GLONASS (http://www.glonass-center.ru/frame_e.html). 
Unilateral denial of service against foreign governments' or alliances' 
strategic infrastructure, absent direct conflict with *them*, strikes this 
semi-informed reader as... unwise.

As someone who occasionally researches "red team" threat scenarios, I'd be 
interested in others' thoughts on whether there are credible circumstances 
where one could actually see "turning off" GPS over some non-trivial 
operating area as useful to *us* (and of course, creating new protocols 
whereby one can turn off GPS wholesale invites more opportunities for 
someone to hack that process, and turn it off as a threat *against* us...).

Ross



-----

Ross Stapleton-Gray, Ph.D., CISSP
Stapleton-Gray & Associates, Inc.
http://www.stapleton-gray.com



-------------------------------------
You are subscribed as interesting-people () lists elistx com
To manage your subscription, go to
  http://v2.listbox.com/member/?listname=ip

Archives at: http://www.interesting-people.org/archives/interesting-people/