The explosive nature and impact of so-called “GPS spoofing” was also a major topic for the EKF panel at the Salzburg conference. This is not about the suppression or “taking away” of satellite data by an opposing actor, but rather its unnoticed or calculated diversion or redirection.
The topic was considered a major problem in the future in the answers given by the panel participants, when you can no longer rely on your JDAM to the ubiquitous dozens of screens and tablets, from weapon effects to logistics. To make matters worse, this also affects civilian applications. Only a short time later, it became known that a “phenomenon” that had already occurred in the summer was being investigated, where the signal was not simply disrupted or generally distorted in a region, but hundreds of individual users – primarily ships or their AIS signal – were each individually “given” different positions. They then circled around a spoofing epicenter near Shanghai, even though they were located somewhere else or in ports. And at speeds of up to 60 km/h. The fact that this took place in China is by no means surprising. The consensus in Salzburg was that the USA and the West had criminally neglected the issue over the past 20 years.
