The Quiet Numbers Station: Decoding Nineteen Years of GPS Cryptography
UCL researchers analyze 19 years of GPS cryptographic signals, evaluating their long-term security and evolution.
Published on UCL's Bentham's Gaze blog, this research analyzes GPS cryptographic signals over a 19-year span, likening the satellites to 'quiet numbers stations.' The authors explore the evolution of GPS encryption (such as military P(Y) code and civilian authentication), evaluating their cryptographic strength and potential vulnerabilities using modern computational analysis.
This article, published on *Bentham's Gaze*, the official blog of the Information Security Group (ISG) at University College London (UCL), likens the satellites of the Global Positioning System (GPS) to "silent numbers stations" in space. Numbers stations were often used for espionage during the Cold War, broadcasting seemingly random numbers to transmit encrypted messages; GPS satellites likewise continuously broadcast highly structured and partially encrypted signals to the entire world from space.
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