GPS Flaw: Security Expert Says He Won't Fly April 6
There's a bit more to worry about. Over the past 20 years, many individual GPS device and receiving-system manufacturers have restarted the clock on their own, usually to compensate for a device-specific error, and they could encounter time-rollover problems at any given in the next 20 years.
"The failure is not limited to April 6/7 2019," the U.S. Naval Observatory presentation says. "A common fix for week-number ambiguity [in some GPS devices and receivers] was to hard-code [a] new pivot date, which shifts [the April 6 rollover] event to [an] unknown date/time in future."
So that this doesn't happen again any time soon, GPS devices made in the past decade use 13 bits for the week counter, yielding a total of 8,192 weeks or 157 years. Those devices will not have to restart time until 2137, by which time our descendants will have created a whole new set of technological problems.
There's a bit more to worry about. Over the past 20 years, many individual GPS device and receiving-system manufacturers have restarted the clock on their own, usually to compensate for a device-specific error, and they could encounter time-rollover problems at any given in the next 20 years.
"The failure is not limited to April 6/7 2019," the U.S. Naval Observatory presentation says. "A common fix for week-number ambiguity [in some GPS devices and receivers] was to hard-code [a] new pivot date, which shifts [the April 6 rollover] event to [an] unknown date/time in future."
So that this doesn't happen again any time soon, GPS devices made in the past decade use 13 bits for the week counter, yielding a total of 8,192 weeks or 157 years. Those devices will not have to restart time until 2137, by which time our descendants will have created a whole new set of technological problems.
