GPS

I still don't understand how GPS works if the satellite/ballon/skyhooks/divine intervention supported devices are so close to the surface of the Earth. At least not without knocking off an order of magnitude off the speed of light. Or assuming that GPS signals are not sent via EM radiation. Given that so much of the GPS standard is open and has been used by many people, myself included. Its not clear to me how the conspiracy would work unless of course the chip manufacturers are in on it and do something very clever although again its not clear what but it would for sure need 2-way communication between the GPS unit and the satellite.

This is why us Round Earthers find it so hard to believe in The Conspiracy: while elsewhere on the forum it's quoted that only about 10 people in the world need to be in on it, the more and more complex the FE explanation for things like GPS becomes, the more people would need to be "in the know". For a start, the people making and guiding/flying the jet balloons - which oddly enough nobody ever sees going up or down to and from the ground. And the people writing the trick software. The tower explanation for GPS can be dismissed fairly easily by the fact that you can get a GPS signal from a deep chasm in the ground where it's more or less impossible to pick up other high frequency signals, as long as you can see a decent patch of sky.

This is why us Round Earthers find it so hard to believe in The Conspiracy: while elsewhere on the forum it's quoted that only about 10 people in the world need to be in on it, the more and more complex the FE explanation for things like GPS becomes, the more people would need to be "in the know". For a start, the people making and guiding/flying the jet balloons - which oddly enough nobody ever sees going up or down to and from the ground. And the people writing the trick software. The tower explanation for GPS can be dismissed fairly easily by the fact that you can get a GPS signal from a deep chasm in the ground where it's more or less impossible to pick up other high frequency signals, as long as you can see a decent patch of sky.

Contractors are willing to do anything for money, as long as they get paid.

Quote from: Thermal Detonator on September 16, 2009, 11:48:15 AM

This is why us Round Earthers find it so hard to believe in The Conspiracy: while elsewhere on the forum it's quoted that only about 10 people in the world need to be in on it, the more and more complex the FE explanation for things like GPS becomes, the more people would need to be "in the know". For a start, the people making and guiding/flying the jet balloons - which oddly enough nobody ever sees going up or down to and from the ground. And the people writing the trick software. The tower explanation for GPS can be dismissed fairly easily by the fact that you can get a GPS signal from a deep chasm in the ground where it's more or less impossible to pick up other high frequency signals, as long as you can see a decent patch of sky.

Contractors are willing to do anything for money, as long as they get paid.

The sort of people who will do anything for money are exactly the sort of people who would blow the lid on the Conspiracy if they could make a quick buck out of it. Which of course they could. So the more likely your explanation of simple greed is, the less watertight the Conspiracy becomes, thus helping my side of the argument.

Quote from: Thermal Detonator on September 16, 2009, 11:48:15 AM

This is why us Round Earthers find it so hard to believe in The Conspiracy: while elsewhere on the forum it's quoted that only about 10 people in the world need to be in on it, the more and more complex the FE explanation for things like GPS becomes, the more people would need to be "in the know". For a start, the people making and guiding/flying the jet balloons - which oddly enough nobody ever sees going up or down to and from the ground. And the people writing the trick software. The tower explanation for GPS can be dismissed fairly easily by the fact that you can get a GPS signal from a deep chasm in the ground where it's more or less impossible to pick up other high frequency signals, as long as you can see a decent patch of sky.

Contractors are willing to do anything for money, as long as they get paid.

Shady contractors are irrelevant.  The data structures of the civilian information embedded in the GPS signals are publicly available.  Anyone with the proper equipment is free to point an antenna at the sky and check the data themselves.

Prostitutes are willing to do anything for money, as long as they get paid.

Fixed that for ya. No parts 'n' labour just the call out fee to pay.

Quote from: Kathleen Wilcox on September 16, 2009, 12:58:03 PM

Prostitutes are willing to do anything for money, as long as they get paid.

Fixed that for ya. No parts 'n' labour just the call out fee to pay.

Whole new meaning to 'eat in or take out', huh?

Controversial though it might be, I shall return to the OP:

For a start, the people making and guiding/flying the jet balloons - which oddly enough nobody ever sees going up or down to and from the ground.

So let's say that the Conspiracy has ties to the military leadership of, for instance, the US/NATO - not unreasonable, given prior evidence of money disappearing from NASA and defence procurement schemes.  If a pilot of, say, an SR-71 (now officially retired, but still flightworthy) or U-2 gets a mission to fly on a long, high altitude course to test radar and/or espionage equipment, do you think he/she will be able to tell the difference between that and carrying a GPS-spoofing device?  He's not likely to go bragging to his mates down the pub how he's part of the great conspiracy, since as far as he's concerned he's just doing his day job.

The same can be said for airliners, which could conceivably be wired to provide some form of distributed GPS signal designed to (locally) spoof point-like sources. This would be harder, since the equipment would have to be concealed as something else, such as a flight computer, data recorder, or communications equipment, and the civilian nature of the aircraft means the equipment is more likely to be discovered, but it's food for thought about the tactics that may be employed (remember that both Boeing and Airbus are heavily funded by the national governments on each side of the Atlantic).

You don't have to know you're part of the Conspiracy to help it in its task - it's smarter than that or it would have been found out already.

All of these are possible if the standard were closed but it isn't its open. The chips have to be aware of this. Also if they are as close as the height of airliners (and SR-71's) then there is some pretty awesome timing technology in the one in a car.

All of these are possible if the standard were closed but it isn't its open. The chips have to be aware of this. Also if they are as close as the height of airliners (and SR-71's) then there is some pretty awesome timing technology in the one in a car.

I don't see how having a fast jet at 100,000ft covering the same angular distance as a faster satellite at 20,000km is any different, provided you have some control over the area that can receive the signal...

Well yeah but the quantity that they broadcast is a 4-vector position of the 'satellite'. As the standard is open we know that the position sent claims to be far from the Earths surface. If it isn't then a correction factor needs to be applied, which depends on the position of the unit. Also the time difference between unit and source will be far less, you may be able to generate a similar triangle but the length of the sides will still be shorter by order of magnitude. GPS is already at the limit of the 'cheap' timing technology used in commercial units.

Well yeah but the quantity that they broadcast is a 4-vector position of the 'satellite'. As the standard is open we know that the position sent claims to be far from the Earths surface. If it isn't then a correction factor needs to be applied, which depends on the position of the unit. Also the time difference between unit and source will be far less, you may be able to generate a similar triangle but the length of the sides will still be shorter by order of magnitude. GPS is already at the limit of the 'cheap' timing technology used in commercial units.

...which is why you need some form of control over the radial footprint the signal is sent to on the ground, to ensure that the modification you make to the timing signal is verified by all observers within the aircraft's range. All you're doing is sending out maybe 10 pulses to different radial bands, each of which is designed to work with it's own collection of emitters - you only need to exercise this minor degree of control to reproduce a believable GPS signal to within measurement uncertainty.

yeah but the correction is unique to a given location. So the units need 2-way communication, which they just don't have. I event have mine apart in front of me.

It doesn't need 2-way communication, since every location on the surface sees its own unique mix of radially-varied timing signals.  The flight paths of the aircraft and the time-varying radial functions required to produce this effect to within the measurement accuracy of your receiver are an analytical problem that your desktop computer could solve in a few hours.  The 2-way communication issue is removed by making the received signal location-dependent, just like in RET GPS.

That would be true if the signal were encoded but it isn't. The number received by the unit is a location far from the Earths surface, I don't see how the transformation is not dependent on the unit of the location.

It doesn't need 2-way communication, since every location on the surface sees its own unique mix of radially-varied timing signals.

It's not clear how these "radially-varied timing signals" would work? Care to expand/embellish?

The problem is well suited to a genetic algorithm - you divide up the surface into regions equivalent to GPS accuracy, then add a tolerance that you are happy with.  Then, you input the number of signals each plane of capable of transmitting, their range and their range of radial control, and set the computer off figuring out flight plans required to provide a spoofed signal - recalling that a GPS receiver can attain a signal from several sources to compute its position, this is a difficult problem, but one with a solution suitable to either brute-force or adaptive computing.

this is a difficult problem

Yup it's a difficult problem. Without a solution you're in the happy realm of centaurs and purple tigers.

Quote from: Matrix on September 17, 2009, 12:08:32 PM

this is a difficult problem

Yup it's a difficult problem. Without a solution you're in the happy realm of centaurs and purple tigers.

Except I have a solution - since the Earth is flat and GPS works, I think it's you that has the problem proving things.

So let's say that the Conspiracy has ties to the military leadership of, for instance, the US/NATO - not unreasonable, given prior evidence of money disappearing from NASA and defence procurement schemes.  If a pilot of, say, an SR-71 (now officially retired, but still flightworthy) or U-2 gets a mission to fly on a long, high altitude course to test radar and/or espionage equipment, do you think he/she will be able to tell the difference between that and carrying a GPS-spoofing device?  He's not likely to go bragging to his mates down the pub how he's part of the great conspiracy, since as far as he's concerned he's just doing his day job.

The same can be said for airliners, which could conceivably be wired to provide some form of distributed GPS signal designed to (locally) spoof point-like sources. This would be harder, since the equipment would have to be concealed as something else, such as a flight computer, data recorder, or communications equipment, and the civilian nature of the aircraft means the equipment is more likely to be discovered, but it's food for thought about the tactics that may be employed (remember that both Boeing and Airbus are heavily funded by the national governments on each side of the Atlantic).

You don't have to know you're part of the Conspiracy to help it in its task - it's smarter than that or it would have been found out already.

Well done for a comprehensive demonstration of your ignorance of aviation. Given that both military and civilian aircraft may have to change their course from what has been filed in their initial flight plan, and frequently do, that would cock up your signals as they'd not be coming from where they should be, plus you'd see a big drop off in GPS efficiency in the wee small hours when less aircraft are about. You are also insulting the intelligence of aircraft engineers. Your idea that the less evidence of the conspiracy you can find, the smarter it is, is almost equivalent to saying the less evidence of it there is the more likely it is that it exists. In other words, silly.

Well done for a comprehensive demonstration of your ignorance of aviation. Given that both military and civilian aircraft may have to change their course from what has been filed in their initial flight plan, and frequently do, that would cock up your signals as they'd not be coming from where they should be, plus you'd see a big drop off in GPS efficiency in the wee small hours when less aircraft are about. You are also insulting the intelligence of aircraft engineers. Your idea that the less evidence of the conspiracy you can find, the smarter it is, is almost equivalent to saying the less evidence of it there is the more likely it is that it exists. In other words, silly.

So... wait... you're saying that the RET GPS system has no capacity for dealing with systems failures or for poor weather obstructing a signal?  Wow, RET GPS sucks compared to the real world system, it would appear.

In addition to your rather unsuccessful character assassination attempt, your argument holds remarkably little weight - so a plane develops a fault or has to change course for some other reason... big deal, another plane is launched to plug the gap, and in the meantime your GPS receiver runs off of the other 8 transmitters it can see.  You are aware that radio transmitters can be turned off in-flight?  Also, if you have control over the timing and location of the signal being broadcast (as I described), even a deviating plane would be able to participate in the system, by redirecting its antennae. 

As I said, the system is capable of being robust enough to maintain performance globally, certainly a match for your satellites orbitting 20,000km overhead.

Quote from: Thermal Detonator on September 17, 2009, 12:30:26 PM

Well done for a comprehensive demonstration of your ignorance of aviation. Given that both military and civilian aircraft may have to change their course from what has been filed in their initial flight plan, and frequently do, that would cock up your signals as they'd not be coming from where they should be, plus you'd see a big drop off in GPS efficiency in the wee small hours when less aircraft are about. You are also insulting the intelligence of aircraft engineers. Your idea that the less evidence of the conspiracy you can find, the smarter it is, is almost equivalent to saying the less evidence of it there is the more likely it is that it exists. In other words, silly.

So... wait... you're saying that the RET GPS system has no capacity for dealing with systems failures or for poor weather obstructing a signal?  Wow, RET GPS sucks compared to the real world system, it would appear.

In addition to your rather unsuccessful character assassination attempt, your argument holds remarkably little weight - so a plane develops a fault or has to change course for some other reason... big deal, another plane is launched to plug the gap, and in the meantime your GPS receiver runs off of the other 8 transmitters it can see.  You are aware that radio transmitters can be turned off in-flight?  Also, if you have control over the timing and location of the signal being broadcast (as I described), even a deviating plane would be able to participate in the system, by redirecting its antennae. 

As I said, the system is capable of being robust enough to maintain performance globally, certainly a match for your satellites orbitting 20,000km overhead.

I don't need to assassinate your character. You're doing it yourself with your clotted reasoning. All your excuses listed there rely on people and aircraft changing their behaviour in the event of a problem, thus blowing a hole in your "they're part of the conspiracy but they don't know it" idea. Even if the pilots dind't know it, someone has to be giving orders to misdirect the planes purely on the basis of keeping the GPS looking good. So you are suggesting the air traffic controllers are the baddies now?

I don't need to assassinate your character. You're doing it yourself with your clotted reasoning. All your excuses listed there rely on people and aircraft changing their behaviour in the event of a problem, thus blowing a hole in your "they're part of the conspiracy but they don't know it" idea. Even if the pilots dind't know it, someone has to be giving orders to misdirect the planes purely on the basis of keeping the GPS looking good. So you are suggesting the air traffic controllers are the baddies now?

A few points before we continue:

1) spy planes don't need to give a crap about air traffic control
2) it's only the emitting hardware that needs controlling, not the plane - the pilot can do whatever he wants (within reason) and the signal could be modified remotely to keep it consistent.

Quote from: Thermal Detonator on September 17, 2009, 12:42:46 PM

I don't need to assassinate your character. You're doing it yourself with your clotted reasoning. All your excuses listed there rely on people and aircraft changing their behaviour in the event of a problem, thus blowing a hole in your "they're part of the conspiracy but they don't know it" idea. Even if the pilots dind't know it, someone has to be giving orders to misdirect the planes purely on the basis of keeping the GPS looking good. So you are suggesting the air traffic controllers are the baddies now?

A few points before we continue:

1) spy planes don't need to give a crap about air traffic control
2) it's only the emitting hardware that needs controlling, not the plane - the pilot can do whatever he wants (within reason) and the signal could be modified remotely to keep it consistent.

How many spy planes flying at 100,000 feet would it take to provide one GPS signal for approximately 1/2 of the earth's surface at the same time?  Multiply that number by 24 to get the number of planes needed to simulate the GPS constellation currently in orbit.  Now, double (or even triple) that number to allow for coverage while planes are being refueled in flight, down for maintenance, crew rotation, etc.

Guess it's a good job that NASA owns U-2's as well then...

Guess it's a good job that NASA owns U-2's as well then...

U-2s are strictly subsonic.  They can't fly fast enough to simulate a GPS satellite orbit.  If they tried going supersonic, the shock wave would rip the wings off.  As it is, the difference between stall speed and the speed of sound at the U-2's maximum altitude is only a few miles per hour.

Quote from: Matrix on September 17, 2009, 01:13:02 PM

Guess it's a good job that NASA owns U-2's as well then...

U-2s are strictly subsonic.  They can't fly fast enough to simulate a GPS satellite orbit.  If they tried going supersonic, the shock wave would rip the wings off.  As it is, the difference between stall speed and the speed of sound at the U-2's maximum altitude is only a few miles per hour.

Hmm... U-2's are perhaps not the best candidate, although who knows what the trusty skunkworks have chucked out over the past few years

Matrix is a knowledgeable physicist, though I agree he hasn't described his idea here particularly clearly. If you have and aircraft at some position represented by a 4-vector X it can lie about its position by sending out a position translated to somewhere far in space at position Y. Although the data reveived at P are from Y_1-4 the actual propagation time will be from X_1-4, assuming that a normal timing cheap is even capable of distinguishing pulses from a few hundred miles. Assuming that it is possible to determine the timing without 2-way communication if Y_1-4 != X_1-4 the calculated position will be incorrect.

Quote from: Thermal Detonator on September 17, 2009, 12:42:46 PM

I don't need to assassinate your character. You're doing it yourself with your clotted reasoning. All your excuses listed there rely on people and aircraft changing their behaviour in the event of a problem, thus blowing a hole in your "they're part of the conspiracy but they don't know it" idea. Even if the pilots dind't know it, someone has to be giving orders to misdirect the planes purely on the basis of keeping the GPS looking good. So you are suggesting the air traffic controllers are the baddies now?

A few points before we continue:

1) spy planes don't need to give a crap about air traffic control
2) it's only the emitting hardware that needs controlling, not the plane - the pilot can do whatever he wants (within reason) and the signal could be modified remotely to keep it consistent.

Oh, we're dropping the commercial airliners now are we? Yes, it was a stupid idea wasn't it?
And you don't step round the problem by saying the signal gets modified remotely - someone still needs to do the modifying, wherever they may be.

Except I have a solution - since the Earth is flat and GPS works, I think it's you that has the problem proving things.

Except you've not properly explained your solution. Only half hinted at what is some very dodgy physics.

If you can't explain it then it isn't an adequate solution to the dilemma of how GPS works on a flat earth.

Sorry.

Still, glad to see you're onto spy planes now. It's amazing what the conspiracy can do.

Hmm... U-2's are perhaps not the best candidate, although who knows what the trusty skunkworks have chucked out over the past few years

Apparently not.  However you never answered my question.  How many planes/pseudolites/towers/whatever would it take to provide a single GPS signal to approximately 1/2 of the surface area of the earth?