US Wary of Allowing Russian Electronic Monitoring Stations Inside US 232
cold fjord writes "The New York Times reports, '... the next potential threat from Russia may not come from a nefarious cyberweapon or secrets gleaned from Snowden. Instead, this menace may come in the form of a ... dome-topped antenna perched atop an electronics-packed building surrounded by a security fence somewhere in the United States. ... the Central Intelligence Agency and the Pentagon have been quietly waging a campaign to stop the State Department from allowing ... the Russian space agency, to build about half a dozen ... monitor stations, on United States soil ... These monitor stations, the Russians contend, would significantly improve the accuracy and reliability of Moscow's version of the Global Positioning System ... The Russian effort is part of a larger global race by several countries ... to perfect their own global positioning systems and challenge the dominance of the American GPS. For the State Department, permitting Russia to build the stations would help mend the Obama administration's relationship with the government of President Vladimir V. Putin ... But the C.I.A. and other American spy agencies, as well as the Pentagon, suspect that the monitor stations would give the Russians a foothold on American territory that would sharpen the accuracy of Moscow's satellite-steered weapons. The stations, they believe, could also give the Russians an opening to snoop on the United States within its borders. ... administration officials have delayed a final decision until the Russians provide more information and until the American agencies sort out their differences.'"
Re:... w ... t ... f ... (Score:5, Informative)
No it doesn't. If you bother to read the story it states, "The United States has stations around the world, but none in Russia."
The US does not have any stations in Russia (Score:5, Informative)
Re:... w ... t ... f ... (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the US ground station map. http://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/control/ [gps.gov] Nothing in Russia.
Can't the Russians just put theirs in Cuba?
Many smartphones use both Glonass and US GPS (Score:5, Informative)
One interesting thing I learned from the article is that many (?most) current smartphones use both Glonass and the US GPS system for position fixes.
One motivation for this is the Russian requirement which heavily taxes devices which don't support Glonass. Apparently the iPhone 4S started support and many others also added support.
I guess it's good to have two systems (with a possible third with the EU system). This can provide redundancy and improve reliability. Of course these are useful tools for warfare which is why we have several systems ("We've always been at war with Eastasia").
Re:Many smartphones use both Glonass and US GPS (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed. Allegedly, my VZW Droid 4 can grok Glonass.
I have no idea if it actually works -- if there's an app for that, I haven't seen it.
This one can differentiate between Navstar (GPS's actual name, it is only a GPS)
and GLONASS: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.eclipsim.gpsstatus2 [google.com]
Round sats in the status display are Navstar, square ones (satellite numbers 80+) are GLONASS.
Note that most GLONASS-capable phones will only switch it on if Navstar reception alone is weak
and/or unreliable, because it involves additional cirquitry and therefore reduces battery life. So if you
have excellent reception, you might not see any "squares" even with GLONASS-capable hardware.
Re:... w ... t ... f ... (Score:4, Informative)
Besides, what does GPS need ground stations for?
You need ground stations for SBAS (WAAS [wikipedia.org] is the GPS SBAS, not sure whether GLONASS currently has an equivalent and if so what it's called); there main function is to measure ionospheric delay characteristics, process the results, and upload it to the satellites so GPS/GLONASS devices with SBAS capability can receive it and use it to refine their position estimates.