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Final version:
Opposition to HB 115
My name is Dr. Strangelove, I live in District 13 and have been a Maryland Citizen for 51 of my 55 years on this earth. I speak here for myself and not my employer nor the agency I am contracted to; I must tell you that per the Hatch Act because I will reference my employment to establish my bonafides. I am a Lab Manager and Senior Electrical Technician at Goddard Spaceflight Center, one of my primary job functions is preventing EMI/RFI (electromagnetic interference/radio frequency interference) from affecting spacecraft and ground support systems. What that means is I know how to easily defeat any technology that relies on the rather weak radio signals used by GPS (Global Positioning System) and the orders of magnitude stronger radio signals used by cell phones.
A maxim of science fiction is that any sufficiently advanced technology will seem to be magic to the ignorant, GPS is not magic but someone either thinks it is or has watched far too much fictional television. We Citizens and Taxpayers expect a little more diligence and basic research from our elected representatives before our money gets wasted on blind stabs at fantasy and science fiction.
I will now tell you why it is a complete waste of our tax dollars to consider Delegate Conaway’s HB 115 Task Force to Study Firearms and Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) Devices. GPS signals are extremely weak and earthbound technology is based on receivers, not transmitters. As has been/will be mentioned by others testifying against this bill, it requires an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites for a GPS receiver to work, this means in a building, surrounded by tall buildings, in a deep geological formation like a canyon, under a bridge or in a tunnel GPS does not work. This also means putting a gun in a safe, pickup truck toolbox, most car trunks and taking it inside most houses renders GPS tracking useless.
Signal strength and RF (radio frequency) power are complex issues with many variables, the most critical variable is distance from the transmitting antenna. The central part of Maryland (Frederick, Montgomery, Howard, Baltimore, Prince Georges and Anne Arundel counties) is one of the densest areas of the country for both FM radio stations and cellphone towers. That means high signal strength due to low distance between the transmitter and receiver. GPS is pretty much even across the surface of the planet as the base distance to the GPS transmitters is approximately 12,600 miles from the mean surface of the planet. The GPS signal is so weak that it is below the noise floor of the receivers and it is only because we know it’s there, we know what it looks like and special processing that we can dig it out of the electronic and thermal noise inherent in all electronic devices. Being a technician I know how to make things work or in this case not work and understand to a degree why they do or do not work; I am not an engineer that knows the theory so I will give you a few numbers and an analogy that I got from consulting with a few of the acknowledged experts in this field in the US. Assumptions have been made such as distance from FM radio or cellphone towers and the density of towers, this is a best estimate for our area without spending a lot of time and money.
“GPS comes from earth-orbiting satellites and the field strength is such that the signal comes into a GPS receiver below its own noise floor. It is only due to processing gain (knowing what to look for, and filtering out thermal noise) that the GPS signal is useful. Therefore the signal strength from GPS is under the best conditions vanishingly small and of interest only to GPS receivers. Of course as anyone knows who has used GPS, the signal is further diminished in an area with tall buildings or mountains that block satellite signals from the horizon.
Cell phone signal strength varies depending on distance from a transmitter, wither a cell phone itself or a cell tower. Cell towers output around 100 Watts, and your phone about 0.5 Watts. If one assumes dipole-like gain that means the field strength at a distance is
E (V/m) as a function of distance = 7 * P/r,
with
P = transmit power in Watts, and
r = separation from tower or phone, in meters.
By law, the maximum EIRP (equivalent isotropic radiated power) from a US FM tower is 50 kW. EIRP includes the directivity from the transmit antenna.
So the maximum field strength at a distance from an FM broadcaster is:
E (V/m) as a function of distance = 1.23 /r,
with
r = separation from antenna tower, in kilometers.
Note that 50 kW is the maximum allowed, many stations run at lower powers. You can find out by searching the website of the station in question. They have to list that sort of information.”
“In order of increasing power density magnitude:
1. GPS: approx. -175 dBW/m2 ~ 3x10-18 Watts/cm2 = 0.000000000000000003 Watts/cm2 - Barely detectable (in the noise).
2. FM Broadcast Station (100 kW): at 10 km distance approx. 40.6 mV/m (using FCC’s field calculator) -> -~6x10-9 W/ cm2 = 0.000000006 Watts/cm2
3. Cellphone (0.6 Watts): next to head based on SAR (specific absorption rate) limit of 1.6 W/kg is ~0.0006 Watts/cm2
If the results are shown in a table form, the relative magnitudes of the different RF sources become obvious:
RF Source Power Density (Watts/ cm2
GPS 0.000000000000000003
FM Broadcast 0.000000006
Cellphone 0.0006
Now let us convert those power density numbers into inches.
GPS = 3 inches high
FM radio = 6,000,000,000 (6 billion) inches high
Cellphone = 60,000,000,000,000 (60 trillion) inches high
Still huge and barely comprehensible numbers so let’s use objects.
GPS = the thickness of a sheet of paper (.003”, three one thousandths of an inch)
FM radio = Hagerstown, MD (94.696 miles, Hagerstown is 95.9 miles away according to Google Maps)
Cellphone = almost four times the distance to the moon (946,969.696 miles, the moon is 238,900 miles away)
To track anything via GPS it either has to transmit or be queried via radio frequency. There is currently no way to transmit directly to a satellite with anything small enough to fit on a firearm and not render the firearm too heavy to use. I seriously doubt DOD or NASA would let you transmit directly to their satellites. You could do it with a very small, short range cell phone type transmitter but that has its own set of problems. First, no matter what method you choose to transmit with, you place a financial burden on the end user. Second, who is going to pay for the dedicated cell phone bandwidth you’re going to need, do you think the FCC or one of the major carriers like Verizon is just going to give it to you? Third, there is no current battery technology with a long enough useful charge life to allow constant transmission thus forcing the end user to either recharge the system or change the batteries.
To query the individual firearm via radio frequency involves secure coding tied to the serialized firearm. How will you ensure the system cannot be hacked? The Maryland Healthcare Exchange debacle should be ample evidence of the state’s technological ineptness. Again bandwidth and battery life crop up as show stoppers. But there is an even bigger show stopper…Got a warrant? That pesky Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, along with Articles 1, 2 and 26 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, say you need a warrant to search the papers and effects of a Citizen and GPS tracking of vehicles requires a warrant according to the Supreme Court. Are you ready to fight the court battle over the same concept applying to firearms?
Finally, I will demonstrate just how easy it is to defeat any system that relies on weak radio signals. I could use one of these tapes we use on satellites that anyone can order off the web. I could also do it with a fairly common anti-static bag that many commercial electronic devices are shipped in, it takes a couple of layers but it does work. But I’ll go one better and do it with a simple cellphone and a piece of common, ordinary aluminum foil from my kitchen. I have samples of the tapes and anti-static bag for “show & tell”. I will do a quick demonstration with my cellphone and kitchen grade aluminum foil.
That ladies and gentlemen is called a Faraday cage and it is a very simple thing to make. Before you propose anything based on technology you might want to consider educating yourself on it first rather than waste our tax money.
There are not only tapes, foils and anti-static bags that one could use but also conductive coating and paints that are easily obtained. In this day and age of the internet, don’t think there won’t be dozens if not hundreds of you tube videos showing how to defeat GPS tracking of small objects between the time you pass this bill and the enactment date. For every step you take to steal our Liberties many people will devote time, energy and money to take our Liberty right back.
Don’t waste our money studying something this easily defeated with simple methods and materials. What Delegate Conaway has proposed only exists in fiction and as such it deserves to be tabled immediately.
Opposition to HB 115
My name is Dr. Strangelove, I live in District 13 and have been a Maryland Citizen for 51 of my 55 years on this earth. I speak here for myself and not my employer nor the agency I am contracted to; I must tell you that per the Hatch Act because I will reference my employment to establish my bonafides. I am a Lab Manager and Senior Electrical Technician at Goddard Spaceflight Center, one of my primary job functions is preventing EMI/RFI (electromagnetic interference/radio frequency interference) from affecting spacecraft and ground support systems. What that means is I know how to easily defeat any technology that relies on the rather weak radio signals used by GPS (Global Positioning System) and the orders of magnitude stronger radio signals used by cell phones.
A maxim of science fiction is that any sufficiently advanced technology will seem to be magic to the ignorant, GPS is not magic but someone either thinks it is or has watched far too much fictional television. We Citizens and Taxpayers expect a little more diligence and basic research from our elected representatives before our money gets wasted on blind stabs at fantasy and science fiction.
I will now tell you why it is a complete waste of our tax dollars to consider Delegate Conaway’s HB 115 Task Force to Study Firearms and Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) Devices. GPS signals are extremely weak and earthbound technology is based on receivers, not transmitters. As has been/will be mentioned by others testifying against this bill, it requires an unobstructed line of sight to four or more GPS satellites for a GPS receiver to work, this means in a building, surrounded by tall buildings, in a deep geological formation like a canyon, under a bridge or in a tunnel GPS does not work. This also means putting a gun in a safe, pickup truck toolbox, most car trunks and taking it inside most houses renders GPS tracking useless.
Signal strength and RF (radio frequency) power are complex issues with many variables, the most critical variable is distance from the transmitting antenna. The central part of Maryland (Frederick, Montgomery, Howard, Baltimore, Prince Georges and Anne Arundel counties) is one of the densest areas of the country for both FM radio stations and cellphone towers. That means high signal strength due to low distance between the transmitter and receiver. GPS is pretty much even across the surface of the planet as the base distance to the GPS transmitters is approximately 12,600 miles from the mean surface of the planet. The GPS signal is so weak that it is below the noise floor of the receivers and it is only because we know it’s there, we know what it looks like and special processing that we can dig it out of the electronic and thermal noise inherent in all electronic devices. Being a technician I know how to make things work or in this case not work and understand to a degree why they do or do not work; I am not an engineer that knows the theory so I will give you a few numbers and an analogy that I got from consulting with a few of the acknowledged experts in this field in the US. Assumptions have been made such as distance from FM radio or cellphone towers and the density of towers, this is a best estimate for our area without spending a lot of time and money.
“GPS comes from earth-orbiting satellites and the field strength is such that the signal comes into a GPS receiver below its own noise floor. It is only due to processing gain (knowing what to look for, and filtering out thermal noise) that the GPS signal is useful. Therefore the signal strength from GPS is under the best conditions vanishingly small and of interest only to GPS receivers. Of course as anyone knows who has used GPS, the signal is further diminished in an area with tall buildings or mountains that block satellite signals from the horizon.
Cell phone signal strength varies depending on distance from a transmitter, wither a cell phone itself or a cell tower. Cell towers output around 100 Watts, and your phone about 0.5 Watts. If one assumes dipole-like gain that means the field strength at a distance is
E (V/m) as a function of distance = 7 * P/r,
with
P = transmit power in Watts, and
r = separation from tower or phone, in meters.
By law, the maximum EIRP (equivalent isotropic radiated power) from a US FM tower is 50 kW. EIRP includes the directivity from the transmit antenna.
So the maximum field strength at a distance from an FM broadcaster is:
E (V/m) as a function of distance = 1.23 /r,
with
r = separation from antenna tower, in kilometers.
Note that 50 kW is the maximum allowed, many stations run at lower powers. You can find out by searching the website of the station in question. They have to list that sort of information.”
“In order of increasing power density magnitude:
1. GPS: approx. -175 dBW/m2 ~ 3x10-18 Watts/cm2 = 0.000000000000000003 Watts/cm2 - Barely detectable (in the noise).
2. FM Broadcast Station (100 kW): at 10 km distance approx. 40.6 mV/m (using FCC’s field calculator) -> -~6x10-9 W/ cm2 = 0.000000006 Watts/cm2
3. Cellphone (0.6 Watts): next to head based on SAR (specific absorption rate) limit of 1.6 W/kg is ~0.0006 Watts/cm2
If the results are shown in a table form, the relative magnitudes of the different RF sources become obvious:
RF Source Power Density (Watts/ cm2
GPS 0.000000000000000003
FM Broadcast 0.000000006
Cellphone 0.0006
Now let us convert those power density numbers into inches.
GPS = 3 inches high
FM radio = 6,000,000,000 (6 billion) inches high
Cellphone = 60,000,000,000,000 (60 trillion) inches high
Still huge and barely comprehensible numbers so let’s use objects.
GPS = the thickness of a sheet of paper (.003”, three one thousandths of an inch)
FM radio = Hagerstown, MD (94.696 miles, Hagerstown is 95.9 miles away according to Google Maps)
Cellphone = almost four times the distance to the moon (946,969.696 miles, the moon is 238,900 miles away)
To track anything via GPS it either has to transmit or be queried via radio frequency. There is currently no way to transmit directly to a satellite with anything small enough to fit on a firearm and not render the firearm too heavy to use. I seriously doubt DOD or NASA would let you transmit directly to their satellites. You could do it with a very small, short range cell phone type transmitter but that has its own set of problems. First, no matter what method you choose to transmit with, you place a financial burden on the end user. Second, who is going to pay for the dedicated cell phone bandwidth you’re going to need, do you think the FCC or one of the major carriers like Verizon is just going to give it to you? Third, there is no current battery technology with a long enough useful charge life to allow constant transmission thus forcing the end user to either recharge the system or change the batteries.
To query the individual firearm via radio frequency involves secure coding tied to the serialized firearm. How will you ensure the system cannot be hacked? The Maryland Healthcare Exchange debacle should be ample evidence of the state’s technological ineptness. Again bandwidth and battery life crop up as show stoppers. But there is an even bigger show stopper…Got a warrant? That pesky Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution, along with Articles 1, 2 and 26 of the Maryland Declaration of Rights, say you need a warrant to search the papers and effects of a Citizen and GPS tracking of vehicles requires a warrant according to the Supreme Court. Are you ready to fight the court battle over the same concept applying to firearms?
Finally, I will demonstrate just how easy it is to defeat any system that relies on weak radio signals. I could use one of these tapes we use on satellites that anyone can order off the web. I could also do it with a fairly common anti-static bag that many commercial electronic devices are shipped in, it takes a couple of layers but it does work. But I’ll go one better and do it with a simple cellphone and a piece of common, ordinary aluminum foil from my kitchen. I have samples of the tapes and anti-static bag for “show & tell”. I will do a quick demonstration with my cellphone and kitchen grade aluminum foil.
That ladies and gentlemen is called a Faraday cage and it is a very simple thing to make. Before you propose anything based on technology you might want to consider educating yourself on it first rather than waste our tax money.
There are not only tapes, foils and anti-static bags that one could use but also conductive coating and paints that are easily obtained. In this day and age of the internet, don’t think there won’t be dozens if not hundreds of you tube videos showing how to defeat GPS tracking of small objects between the time you pass this bill and the enactment date. For every step you take to steal our Liberties many people will devote time, energy and money to take our Liberty right back.
Don’t waste our money studying something this easily defeated with simple methods and materials. What Delegate Conaway has proposed only exists in fiction and as such it deserves to be tabled immediately.
Oh wait, this is Maryland - substitute "black smartcars" for "black SUVs."
