Backing up technology: Radio navigation and paper ballots (episode 289)

Roughly Speaking

Maybe the newest technology isn't always the best, or maybe the best needs a backup. That is turning out to be the case in two arenas of life — navigation and voting. While GPS is in wide use now — military, commercial and civilian — it's not foolproof. "The Coast Guard has reported multiple episodes of GPS jamming at non-U.S. ports," reports Sean Gallagher, the Baltimore-based IT and national security editor for Ars Technica. "South Korea has claimed on several occasions that North Korea has jammed GPS near the border, interfering with aircraft and fishing fleet navigation." So what's the answer? A return to the LORAN system — a land-based radio navigation system developed during World War II and declared unnecessary within the last decade. Gallagher describes how a LORAN comeback is in the offing as a backup for GPS.And while new technology has entered the realm of elections and voting, there still are major concerns about hacking, enough that security experts suggest a return to good old paper ballots, like those now used in Maryland elections. Paper records are needed to back up e-ballots. Gallagher attended the recent Def Con computer security conference, where hackers were easily able to break into voting machines and voter databases.Links:http://gpsworld.com/us-coast-guard-issues-gps-jamming-alert/https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/08/radio-navigation-set-to-make-global-return-as-gps-backup-because-cyber/http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-35940542http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/technology/335734-can-congress-establish-a-backup-for-gps-before-its-too-latehttp://fortune.com/2017/07/31/defcon-hackers-us-voting-machines/http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/computing/networks/defcon-hackers-find-holes-in-every-voting-machine