In fact most are patchable.
Posts by dermotw
19 publicly visible posts • joined 7 Jun 2017
Bug hunters on your marks: TETRA radio encryption algorithms to enter public domain
TETRA radio comms used by emergency heroes easily cracked, say experts
£2B in UK taxpayer cash later, and still no Emergency Services Network
Startup raises $30 million for wireless power delivery system
Doors closed by COVID-19, Brit retro tech museums need your help
Register Lecture: Hidden heroes of Alan Turing's Enigma
Microsoft debuts Bosque – a new programming language with no loops, inspired by TypeScript
Fun fact: GPS uses 10 bits to store the week. That means it runs out... oh heck – April 6, 2019
Wednesday 13th February 2019 08:13 GMT
Base Stations
Every 10+ year old BS that we use has an external "professional level" GPS device to maintain the long term RF clock accuracy, we don't care about the time/date.... But still they all reported errors the first time this happened, but likely they've all been swapped out for newer by now... I hope... :)
Mobile networks are killing Wi-Fi for speed around the world
Britain mulls 'complete shutdown' of 4G net for emergency services
Thursday 31st May 2018 17:45 GMT
Re: How much?
Well, back in the day... Moto won the original Airwave contract because they committed to introduce AIE (Air Interface Encryption) to a timescale which Nokia, the only other contender, who in fact initially won, would not commit to. They then used AIE with fixed keys, and only changed this much later, whereas Nokia went straight to (imho) proper AIE in one step (but took longer)...
Forget cyber crims, it's time to start worrying about GPS jammers – UK.gov report
Thursday 1st February 2018 08:58 GMT
Re: FFS - Measure the risk first
Guys, guys... I've been going down though this thread...
Its true that all the mobile phone system masts (or at least the systems I am familiar with!) use GPS as a clock reference (but usually not primarily as a time reference, they use it to maintain clock accuracy). So what happens when its jammed? Well nothing, really. The clock accuracy starts to degrade. On the kit I am familiar with, it will take 6 MONTHS to a year for anything to shift enough to matter. I routinely see GPS fails on TETRA or GSM sites, its not critical.
World's first dedicated computer centre declared 'irreplaceable' by Historic England
Wednesday 4th October 2017 15:49 GMT
Good!
It's pleasing to see that we are managing to preserve this, I visited NMOC myself a year or 2 back, it's well worth it imho. Flowers, Turing and the (many) others that did some astonishing things deserve the recognition as well! Jack Copeland has an interesting book on Colossus, well worth a read imho.
Sci-Fi titan Jerry Pournelle passes,
aged 84
Europe to upgrade its continental GPS
Wednesday 7th June 2017 09:54 GMT
"I'm having extreme difficulties trying to imagine a scenario in which rescue workers within 17 metres of a person in distress are having major difficulties locating it. Sure, more precision is always a good thing, I just don't see it making much difference in that case (let alone for any aircraft - I don't think any of them is expected to fly within 17m of any treetops...) ..."
Errr well, how about a burning building, person on the other side of a wall? Or ditto & add smoke... High precision is wanted for aircraft as well, because then GPS can be used for navigation (proper, airplane navigation). That is one of the things Galileo is supposed to bring, it should have sub-1M accuracy, allowing you to e.g. land a plane with it.
Phone GPS chipsets are spec'd basically for US accuracy level GPS, i.e. not very...
Biting the hand that feeds IT
