Advantages of GPS jammers you can't think of

If you spend enough time looking for interesting electronic devices, you will definitely find some suspicious gadget suggestions. This is how I recently discovered these miniature gps jammer that plug directly into the car's 12 V power socket. It is shipped to your door for less than $10 and seems to be the perfect device torn apart in the name of science.

Now, you may want to know what legal uses of this device might be. Well, as far as I know, there is nothing. The only reason you want to block GPS signals in and around the vehicle is if you want to avoid things you shouldn't do. Maybe you are driving a tracked company car outside and want to take a quick nap in the parking lot for two hours, or you are about to disable the integrated GPS in the car and you steal it long enough to bring it to the seal shop. You know, just like a person. However, we will not elaborate on the potential evil causes of GPS jammer devices. Hackers have never been too picky about the equipment they want to research and test, so there is no reason to start now. Instead, let's use this gray area of ​​hardware to test the drive and see what makes it ticking.

Although the GPS constellation has an average altitude of 20,200 kilometers (12,550 miles), which may not be as high as communications satellites in geosynchronous orbit, they are still far apart. Considering this incredible distance, and considering the antenna size of most GPS jammer-equipped devices, it’s no wonder that the received signal is very weak. In fact, it is so weak that it is usually below the noise floor. Only with clever algorithms and a little witchcraft, your phone can turn this kind of whisper from a star into anything similar to useful information.

It is this vulnerability that makes such low-cost jammers possible. It doesn't take much to overcome legal signals. Remember, a device like this is not imitating GPS satellites, it's just broadcasting nonsense big enough that the real satellites can no longer be heard.

After the GPS jammer is powered on, we can clearly see how the already weak signal is completely eliminated by the broadcast mode of the device. There is no competition at all; the legal signal distance is tens of thousands of kilometers, and this thing is reaching out to touch. I did not test the range of this device, mainly because I don't want it to be powered on for longer than the required time, but it can at least complete the task within a few meters.