5 ms·

It was required. But that was gotten rid of by the Clinton administration. See https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/ https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps

It was required. But that was gotten rid of by the Clinton administration. See https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/ https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/ .

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
loeg 6y ago
The thing you're thinking of is true, but there are still speed limits on commercial GPS chips to prevent their use in missile guidance systems. TFA seems to be clearly flouting that law, so, good luck to them.
- hjb 6y ago
  If you dig into their website, they appear to be based in Singapore and Japan. I've no idea if those countries have similar laws.
  - londons_explore 6y ago
    US law applies worldwide when it comes to this sort of stuff... You can bet if you started producing these chips and selling them to Iran, you would either be arrested and child porn found on your laptop, or have an 'accident'.
  - opencl 6y ago
    They indicate plans to sell hardware on Crowdsupply which is based in the US. Presumably this is going to be FPGA-based which brings up all the fun questions of how ITAR applies to software. Would adding a speed restriction in their VHDL that could be trivially bypassed by patching out one line of code satisfy ITAR requirements? AOSP has this sort of code in it (search for ITAR_SPEED_LIMIT): https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/master/services/core/java/com/android/server/location/GnssLocationProvider.java https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/...
    - gsnedders 6y ago
      > Presumably this is going to be FPGA-based which brings up all the fun questions of how ITAR applies to software. I mean there's plenty of prior art with open-source crypto implementations here.
      - tezzer 6y ago
        Crypto is its own category in the ITAR, one whose impact decreased over time as events made the restrictions less relevant. Most crypto is now EAR not ITAR, but treated as a special category. I'm not sure the software classification lessons are going to apply.
centimeter 6y ago
Selective Availability was something they did on the satellites (intentionally induce pseudorandom noise into the timing). The regulations on the GPS chips themselves are different.

It was required. But that was gotten rid of by the Clinton administration. See https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/ https://www.gps.gov/systems/gps/modernization/sa/ .

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

loeg 6y ago

The thing you're thinking of is true, but there are still speed limits on commercial GPS chips to prevent their use in missile guidance systems. TFA seems to be clearly flouting that law, so, good luck to them.

hjb 6y ago
If you dig into their website, they appear to be based in Singapore and Japan. I've no idea if those countries have similar laws.
- londons_explore 6y ago
  US law applies worldwide when it comes to this sort of stuff... You can bet if you started producing these chips and selling them to Iran, you would either be arrested and child porn found on your laptop, or have an 'accident'.
- opencl 6y ago
  They indicate plans to sell hardware on Crowdsupply which is based in the US. Presumably this is going to be FPGA-based which brings up all the fun questions of how ITAR applies to software. Would adding a speed restriction in their VHDL that could be trivially bypassed by patching out one line of code satisfy ITAR requirements? AOSP has this sort of code in it (search for ITAR_SPEED_LIMIT): https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/master/services/core/java/com/android/server/location/GnssLocationProvider.java https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/...
  - gsnedders 6y ago
    > Presumably this is going to be FPGA-based which brings up all the fun questions of how ITAR applies to software. I mean there's plenty of prior art with open-source crypto implementations here.
    - tezzer 6y ago
      Crypto is its own category in the ITAR, one whose impact decreased over time as events made the restrictions less relevant. Most crypto is now EAR not ITAR, but treated as a special category. I'm not sure the software classification lessons are going to apply.

centimeter 6y ago

Selective Availability was something they did on the satellites (intentionally induce pseudorandom noise into the timing). The regulations on the GPS chips themselves are different.