Car thieves making clean getaway with GPS jammers
Car thief gangs have begun using imported GPS jammers to allow them to escape tracking technology.
Illicit kit imported into Europe from China operates on the same frequency as GPS satellites to drown out timing signals and confound in-car devices. Because of this in-vehicle systems are unable to either determine their position or report in to vehicle tracking centres in cases where cars or lorries registered with GPS-based tracking technology are stolen.
Vehicles "disappear from the radar" when the GPS jamming technology is deployed, Professor David Last of the University of Wales at Bangor told The Guardian. Professor Last has acted as an expert witness for prosecutors in recent prosecutions involving the seizure of illegal GPS jamming kit.
GPS jammers also have the potential to drown out mobile signals locally, a factor that has reportedly been applied to stop truckers contacting the police in lorry heists in Germany, as well as other applications. Experts reckons some German motorists have used the devices in attempts to avoid GPS-based road charging, introduced for trucks in 2005.
Ownership of the technology is a legal grey area even though it is against the law in both the UK and Germany to either sell or use jamming devices. GPS satellite signals are low power, so jamming devices need not be powerful.
We'll be seeing more and more of these low skill operators using provided technology mechanisms as time goes on.
Detecting and shutting down jammers in a timely fashion in anything other than a high security area is not going to be a realistic goal. This is a contest that the adversaries will always win.
