Re: New and Better GPS Satellite Launched - Good News, or Bad ?

"Jeffrey F. Bloss" <jbloss@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:2256231.uc46PlHvbZ@xxxxxxxxxxxxx:

> nemo_outis wrote:
>
> I disagree. Any cooperative collection of persons is going to carry
> with it institutionalized coercion of some flavor. ....
>
> Maybe I don't understand the philosophy though...


Another Hobbesian - how depressing :-)


.....

>> However, spoofing of GPS recordings is already being done by some
>> truck drivers.
>
> How? Moving units around by hand? That's SO lame. <g>


Spoofing can easily be done right now by generating false GPS signals.
The devices to do this are moderately expensive ($1000 to 20,000 and up -
the low end will do fine, though) but they aren't black market or
anything - they're used quite normally for calibrating GPS receivers,
etc. And current GPS receivers are very "trusting" shall we say, not
incorporating even rudimentary circuitry to detect over-powerful spoofing
signals, etc. See, for instance the 2002 paper,"A Simple Demonstration
that the Global Positioning System (GPS) is Vulnerable to Spoofing" by
Johnston & Warner. (They also describe simple fixes for most current GPS
spoofing.)



>> Say you are required to take a urine test for drugs which you believe
>> you might fail. Rather than trying to avoid testing positive it
>> might be better to surreptitiously add a goodly shot of cocaine
>> metabolites to your urine sample. Although you would test positive
>> the sample might show, for example, 100 times the lethal quantity of
>> cocaine would have to be snorted to get such a result. You could
>> then make a strong argument that the lab or other test procedures
>> were obviously seriously flawed.
>
> Until they tested you again and either found normal levels of a drug
> or another outlandish result. At which point you'd be fired/jailed, or
> prosecuted. :(


Actually most cocaine metabolites, such as benzoylecgonine, are
eliminated from the body rather quickly. By the time you protested and
they got around to retesting you you'd likely be squeaky clean (unless
you were so stupid as to indulge again in the meantime). Contrast that
with pot whose metabolites take much, much longer to fully clear the
system.

However, the example was intended to be illustrative and a number of
tedious details were left out for the sake of a story that doesn't drag.

However, I'll give another example of the power of false positives, again
drawn from the drug culture.

Let's say that Toronto customs folks use a sniffer dog on air passengers
coming in from Florida. You have a confederate mingle with those lined
up for the ticket counter in Florida and he surreptitiously drops (or
smears) the teensy-tiniest amount of cocaine on the bags of, say, a dozen
passengers (nice ordinary folks). He, of course, doesn't get on the
plane.

When the folks arrive in Toronto, Bowser the sniffer dog, goes berserk
but the subsequent searches show up nothing. Repeat this a few times and
old Bowser will be retired as having lost his knack. Moreover, faith in
the whole process will be weakened and anybody dragged into court has a
wonderful bull*** line of defence about the process being deeply flawed
and merely a pretext for ethnic profiling of Columbians :-)

Again, only a crude sketch, not a detailed plan - but you get the point.


> I prefer to tell them to bugger off right up front when they ask. And
> yes, I'm willing to pay the price for making that decision. Been
> there, done that.


I, as a professional, have the luxury of telling such folks to go ***
themselves. However, many poor working stiffs have such intrusive
bull*** foisted upon them who aren't able to so easily give up thier
jobs. So it devolves upon folks like us to raise ten times as much ***
when we are confronted hoping there will be a spillover effect.

Or, as I prefer to merely protesting, "set up" the VP in charge of the
whole program (I don't have to tell you how to ensure he will test
positive or will be holding, do I?) and then drop a dime on him. Yeah,
I'm a really nasty vindictive prick.

Regards,


.

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