You know what feels wrong? You can easily buy GPS tracking devices on Amazon, but it is illegal to use a GPS jammer in USA, Canada and many other countries.
So companies spying you is fine, but blocking a GPS signal to prevent them from spying can get you a $16,000 fine.
Edit: my thought experiment is not about truck drivers being monitored but more about those fancy new EVs that sell your GPS based data to data brokers… You usually can’t turn off the GPS in those EVs.
The reason this needs to be illegal is because jamming the signal is not specific to you. You block your signal but you probably will also be blocking it for anyone else in the vicinity. Plus the way these things work they can create interference for other types of signals as well. It isn’t the blocking itself that’s illegal, but the interference that you’re causing.
GPS signals are incredibly weak and super vulnerable to interference.
We all deserve the right not to be tracked.
The solution to this isn’t in GPS jamming the solution to this is in data collection laws. They should absolutely refuse to sell cars that don’t have the option to turn off cellular links and GPS tracking.
I’m no GPSjamologist, but if a jammer was running in your car, wouldn’t the signal reach other nearby cars while in traffic or does it do it all within the confines of your automobile?
That is exactly why this is illegal. These things can have a range of up to hundreds of meters and thus you’re affecting other people aswell and not just yourself.
From the low power models I’ve seen (which are still very much illegal, same as the most powerful ones) only work between 5 to 10 feet at the very most.
It’s like when the companies place trackers in cars, we have to assume they have the best intentions in mind (it is definitely for the customers security right?!)
But if we, the customers, block them from tracking us by jamming the GPS signal, they assume we have the worst intentions in mind (surely we are dirty criminals right?!)
They broadcast a powerful radio signal on the GPS frequency. You might have to be within 10 feet for it to completely drown out the real GPS frequency, but the waves don’t stop they just spread out and get “thinner” with distance. If it completely blocks the signal at 10 feet, it will severely reduce accuracy further out than that. Likely everyone within line of sight of your car will lose accuracy on their GPS.
And that would include airplanes, line of sight is a really long distance up above your car. Airplanes use GPS for critical functions including making sure they don’t crash into the ground when they’re flying through clouds / rain / fog so you could potentially cause serious problems. Most likely force the airplane to land in a different city — because they will not land if their altitude equipment isn’t working… yes they have other ways of measuring altitude but all of them are unreliable, which is why they have GPS. You’re taking away one layer of their patchwork system of landing safely and if too many layers are gone then they abandon the landing and fly elsewhere - happened to a friend of mine recently, turned a quick 2 hour flight home into an 18 hour trip.
Not really. Radio power decreases with the square of the distance. So at if “blackout” is at 10 feet then at 100 feet your at 1% of your original power. So realisticly your blocking your GPS signal and partially obstructing signals for 2-3 cars adjacent to you and likely less than that. You wouldn’t be reaching any planes without a lot of power and a big transmitter.
Planes avionics are more then sufficient to navigate and fly the plane without GPS. And planes will most definitely land without GPS as a.) GPS isn’t the predominant tool for altimetry and b.) a plane has to land or it will crash. GPS is primarily used for navigation of routes and most critically for planning approaches and landings. It enables the tower to send an approach plan directly to a plane. So, really important for packing the skies with planes, but a malfunctioning gps unit isn’t going to stop a plane from landing at its designated airport. May stop one from taking off though. This really only applies to big planes. Small planes don’t always have gps and don’t always land at airports using gps. Still really nice to have so you don’t get lost, though.
Accurate GPS is a fairly recent luxury as until the 90s it was made inaccurate by design as only the military could access the full radio spectrum, and only recently has the full constellation of current gen sats been fully deployed. Also interestingly commercial gps receivers won’t function beyond 600 mph and/or 60 000 ft to prevent people from using them for missiles. Military ones (in missiles) or if you home brewed it won’t have this restriction though.
You are right though. Running a jammer is illegal as hell and you can really fuck other people’s day. Especially do not try bring a jammer on a plane. They monitor radio very closely at and around airports. You will be caught and you will be sent to federal “pound me in the ass” prison.
Let me preface this by saying I completely agree that there’s a conflict here, but it’s pretty much required in this day and age.
Let’s look at the current situation: Someone buys a tracker for under $100, sticks it to your car, and they can see you wherever you go. It’s scary, because they can know where you are at all times, and there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to figure out who did it.
Now an alternative where GPS trackers are illegal: Someone buys the generic parts for a GPS tracker, sticks it to your car, and they can see you wherever you go. But also legitimate uses for GPS trackers aren’t possible any longer. Say goodbye to things like tiles and air tags, hell maybe even GPS in your phone since you can get an android device with GPS for less than $100 and load it with software to do the tracking. At best you’ve prevented easy tracking with a huge detriment to the average user, at worst you’ve outlawed GPS tech entirely.
The final alternative is allowing jamming. I don’t have a nice story for this one, because the implications are far reaching. Is your jammer too strong? You’re interrupting other people’s GPS in a huge area, including things like navigation, child/pet/item tracking, time sensitive hardware could be using GPS as well, or things checking elevation. Not to mention, jammers can be used for nefarious purposes as well. Kidnapping a child and jamming a tracker on them, stealing a phone/wallet/keys and blocking its ability to report where it is.
There’s no perfect situation here, but the current state is the least harmful to the general population.
They have devices installed which include GPS and an accelerometer. They report back to base via a cellular connection when you drive erratically or aggressively etc.
Just wait until your smart toilet can tell the insurance companies what chemical substances you’ve consumed so that the can raise your rates, deny your claims, or sell the info to your boss so the company can fire you with cause.
We already live in hell and there’s no upper limit on the thermostat.
I would use one for privacy but there would be black vans following me around and probably land a felony. It is really easy to track these things. All they have to do is look for big blob of gps unavailable bubble moving around and they can also triangulate the signal with fairly cheap tools. Jamming is just spamming noise after all.
Yes and there was an article few months ago telling that burglars now use wifi jammers to turn off wifi security cameras before breaking and entering. Those jammers are pretty much illegal as well but criminal do illegal stuff anyways…
That being said, how would blocking only the GPS help criminals in their criminal activities? I lack imagination I guess.
Your phone or car saying you were near the scene of a crime when it occurred. Your phone or car showing that you regularly cross paths with a person of interest. Jammer would keep those devices from rating you out.
you make that comment, in a week where we have had a megacorp public assassination of a whistleblower and cypherpunk crypto money has risen to a record high value versus government money?
So professional drivers, watched by their employer, are using those to escape the control.
Even if they allow them to disable the GPS, it would be a reason for firing smb. Or to cut their wage since, drivers with GPS on will get a bonus if they are faster. Or sth shit like that.
This is a safety thing. There are laws about how long you can drive without breaks because tired truckers kill people in accidents. They can’t force a driver to actually rest when stopped, but if there’s no law, then you know they’ll never rest. I would agree if this was simply active monitoring of location on a company sedan, but it’s different when the job is specifically driving for long periods
I agree. But the post I replied to literally describes a way for the employer to spy.
Rather than the employer spying, how about we keep the timer local on the vehicle. You don’t even need GPS for that either. Vehicle on, timer starts. Beeping after set amount of time. Beeping gets louder for every 10/15 minutes ignored. Insert an alucap condensator and resistor to not reset the timer after a certain amount of time.
But I have no experience with truckers or their vehicles. So I might as well just be talking out of my ass.
My experience with US trucking is it used to be done on paper. It probably still uses a lot of paper but electronic systems are common. The paper logs would be reviewed by the employer but could also be checked at road checkpoints. They could be easily pencil whipped, hence the move to electronic. There is a constant drive from the logistics side to get better telemetry about shipment speed and from governing bodies to maintain safety. Local storage of data isn’t too feasible for access to that data when the trucks most at risk of violating limits are the ones that rarely go home. I guess it could have a standardized wired interface at inspection like obdii and checked as often as paper logs, but wired mobile devices are a rarity in any field these days.
You are registering where your own vehicle is driven by an employee that should not be using it for personal things anyway. In contrast to his/her face, this is not registering anything personal about this employee.
It can also tie into mandatary rests, that the vehicle has to be stationary. And that is good thing as it makes it harder for emplyers to exploit their drivers.
It’s illegal, at least in my country, to use your camera to keep an eye on your employees. You can only view it in case of illegal activities, for example something being stolen, etc. You also cannot save the footage for more than a certain amount of time, unless it needs to be used for an investigation of said illegal activities. I think it was 2 weeks, but I’m not sure.
Using the camera to check up if your employees are working is illegal.
This article centers on those driving work vehicles that their employer has installed trackers on. I know recently auto makers have been found snooping, which I don’t even have words for, but this isn’t that.
The article is talking about lorry drivers making trips for work though. I am not sure I understand the need for the drivers to conceal their location while they work?
Hm yeah in a working context its different, but still, why would they need to be tracked, other then MAYBE logistics (which lorry drivers would be), so yeah, gets muddy
Many lorry drivers are paid by the trip. If they get stuck in traffic, they are losing money. They are also required to take regular breaks, to avoid fatigue. If they jammed the GPS, then the company can’t prove they didn’t take their break, and worked through, to make up time.
It also allows for disallowed detours. “Sorry boss, I was stuck in traffic for over an hour”. In fact they went for a pub lunch, on the clock.
I don’t see how it’s “greatly” helps at all in practice.
Worst case you have routes which drastically fluctuate in driver demand and you’re sending drivers to cover multiple routes a day, and hiring more drivers is probably the better solution.
Calling drivers seemed to be really practical before GPS existed, at best you can argue it’s more efficient for the boss.
You need less workers to track other workers. Instead you have devices that you pay for one time instead of a salary in theory. I’d guess the bean counters have looked at it and figured it saves money in salary and also in other ways.
I know that UPS was (and I assume still is but I have not l been with the company in about 15 years) big into telematics. I remember one of their biggest safety concerns was backing and they knew how many times you did it and if you did it before or after you parked. If you backed over a certain amount of times per day or if you did it once after parking and turning off your package car, you’d be in with management being questioned about it.
They should 100% be opt in. If I want to use GPS I’ll use my phone. I don’t know a single person that uses the one built into the car.
But obviously they want all that juicy data. It’s not enough that they charge insane rates on the vehicles themselves, they must also add microtransactions and track when we have sex, and with who too.
It should be a violation of our basic civil and human rights for this shit to be opt-out, especially in such a way that you are not even aware of it, or the ability to opt out.
I would say depends. For company owned cars thats justified as it should purely meant for business trip only. For duel use vehicle, that there should absolutely have switch to turn it on or off.