When the National Space-Based Positioning, Navigation, and Timing (PNT) Advisory Board meets June 6 and 7 in Virginia they will be hearing about an experimental enhancement to GPS signals that could thwart spoofing and make life harder for computer hackers.
The Advisory Board is the leading expert body in the U.S. on GPS and other elements of PNT. They provide policy and technical insights to the National Executive Committee for Space-Based PNT (ExCom). The ExCom coordinates GPS-related matters across multiple federal agencies to ensure the system addresses national priorities as well as military requirements.
Among the many interesting presentations will be one on Chimera, a proposed enhancement to the L1C signal that uses encrypted watermarks embedded in the signal and delayed keys to prove that the signal is authentic and not spoofed. The technology also enables users to prove their location to a third party — something that can be used to protect computer systems by thwarting hackers trying to access systems from suspicious locations. An experimental version of Chimera will be broadcast from the NST-3 satellite, which is set to launch in 2022.
The meeting is open to the public and will be held June 6-7 at the Westin Hotel, Alexandria Old Town at 400 Courthouse Square, Alexandria, Virginia. The board will meet from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Eastern Time on June 6 and from 9:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. on June 7.
