HCR | Une année 2016 particulièrement mortelle en Méditerranée
▻http://asile.ch/2016/06/07/hcr-2
Le 31 mai, lors d’une conférence de presse, le Haut Commissariat aux réfugiés est revenu sur le nombre de morts en Méditerranée pour ce début 2016. Particulièrement mortelle cette année, la traversée a jusqu’ici couté la vie à 2’510 personnes. En comparaison, 1’855 personnes étaient décédées en mer lors de la même période en 2015, […]
Statement in light of the current situation in the Mediterranean Sea and yesterday’s events
Yesterday, on Thursday the 26th of May, it took more than four hours for rescue vessels to arrive. Four hours of worrying and of attempts to support the anxious people on board of an overcrowded wooden boat. In a SOS call at 6.21am, our WatchTheMed Alarm Phone shift team passed on the GPS coordinates to the Italian Maritime Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Rome. Shortly before, an emergency call had reached us via a satellite phone. The caller informed us about two boats carrying 500 people each, among them many Syrian and Iraqi refugees. At 10.31am, rescue finally approached but an hour earlier, the second boat had already capsized, within eyeshot. So far it is unclear how many people drowned or disappeared. MRCC Rome reported in their daily statement about one capsized boat and 96 survivors. Fatalities were not mentioned. However, the private rescue boat Sea-Watch, which arrived at the site of distress in the early afternoon, had to recover bodies of drowned people.
▻https://alarmphone.org/fr/2016/05/27/watchthemed-alarm-phone-statement-in-light-of-the-current-situation-in-t
Doctors should prescribe gardening for patients more often, says report | Society | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/may/17/doctors-should-prescribe-gardening-for-patients-more-often-says-report?
Doctors should prescribe gardening far more often for patients with cancer, dementia and mental health problems, the NHS has been urged in a new report.
Outdoor spaces including gardens can reduce social isolation among older people as well as help patients recover and manage conditions such as dementia, according to the influential King’s Fund health thinktank.
Jane Ellison, the public health minister, backed the plan, which could see GPs in particular advising patients to spend more time outside as a way of alleviating their symptoms. “[Gardening] is profoundly good for you … [it] is a great way of keeping people active, of keeping them outside and keeping their sense of wellbeing very high,” she said. “There are things we can do around physical activity in particular that bring immediate payback ... I’m trying to put this right across the agenda of dementia and cancer.”
GPS Tracking Devices Catch Major U.S. Recyclers Exporting Toxic E-Waste
▻https://theintercept.com/2016/05/10/gps-tracking-devices-catch-major-u-s-recyclers-in-improper-e-waste-exp
A two-year investigation of electronics recycling using GPS tracking devices has revealed that policies aimed at curtailing the trade in toxic e-waste have been unsuccessful, with nearly one third of the devices being exported to developing countries, where equipment is often dismantled in low-tech workshops — often by children — endangering workers, their families, and contaminating the surrounding environment. A report from the Basel Action Network (BAN), a Seattle-based nonprofit devoted (...)
South Korea Revives GPS Backup Project After Blaming North for Jamming - gCaptain
▻https://gcaptain.com/south-korea-revives-gps-backup-project-after-blaming-north-for-jamming
South Korea has revived a project to build a backup ship navigation system that would be difficult to hack after a recent wave of GPS signal jamming attacks it blamed on North Korea disrupted fishing vessel operations, officials say.
Global Positioning System (GPS) and other electronic navigation aids are vulnerable to signal loss from solar weather effects, radio and satellite interference and deliberate jamming.
[…]
The latest jamming campaign from the North began on March 31, lasting nearly a week and affecting signal reception of more than 1,000 aircraft and 700 ships, originating from five locations along the border, South Korean officials said.
Aircraft traffic was not affected because the GPS system is normally used as a backup, not a primary navigation tool, one of the officials involved in telecommunications policy said.
[…]
Part of the problem is that it’s not easy to detect a GPS outage caused by jamming.
“When GPS/GNSS (Global Navigation Satellite Systems) fail, transportation is impacted immediately. It slows down, becomes more dangerous, and every mode can carry less capacity,” said Dana Goward, president of the non-profit Resilient Navigation & Timing Foundation.
“As short-term backup clocks start to desynchronize with each other … cell phone towers start to fail, IT networks slow down or fail, financial systems are impacted, management of the electrical grid becomes problematic. That is the really scary part,” said Goward.
GPS vulnerability poses security and commercial risks, especially for ships whose crews are not familiar with traditional navigation techniques or using paper charts.
If you use Waze, hackers can stalk you
▻http://fusion.net/story/293157/waze-hack
Millions of drivers use Waze, a Google-owned navigation app, to find the best, fastest route from point A to point B. And according to a new study, all of those people run the risk of having their movements tracked by hackers. Researchers at the University of California-Santa Barbara recently discovered a Waze vulnerability that allowed them to create thousands of “ghost drivers” that can monitor the drivers around them—an exploit that could be used to track Waze users in real-time. They (...)
#Google #Waze #GPS #géolocalisation
The secret US army study that targets Moscow – POLITICO
▻http://www.politico.eu/article/the-secret-us-army-study-that-targets-moscow
Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster has a shaven head and gung-ho manner that only add to his reputation as the U.S. Army’s leading warrior-intellectual, one who often quotes famed Prussian general and military theorist Carl Von Clausewitz. A decade ago, McMaster fought a pitched battle inside the Pentagon for a new concept of warfare to address the threat from Islamist terrorists and insurgents in Afghanistan, Iraq and other trouble spots. Now, his new mission is more focused.
Target: Moscow.
POLITICO has learned that, following the stunning success of Russia’s quasi-secret incursion into Ukraine, McMaster is quietly overseeing a high-level government panel intended to figure out how the Army should adapt to this Russian wake-up call. Partly, it is a tacit admission of failure on the part of the Army — and the U.S. government more broadly.
“It is clear that while our Army was engaged in Afghanistan and Iraq, Russia studied U.S. capabilities and vulnerabilities and embarked on an ambitious and largely successful modernization effort,” McMaster told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week. “In Ukraine, for example, the combination of unmanned aerial systems and offensive cyber and advanced electronic warfare capabilities depict a high degree of technological sophistication.”
In Ukraine, a rapidly mobilized Russian-supplied rebel army with surprisingly lethal tanks, artillery and anti-tank weapons has unleashed swarms of unmanned aerial vehicles and cyberattacks that shut down battlefield communications and even GPS.
[…]
McMaster’s response is the Russia New Generation Warfare Study, whose government participants have already made several unpublicized trips to the front lines in Ukraine. The high-level but low-profile effort is intended to ignite a wholesale rethinking — and possibly even a redesign — of the Army in the event it has to confront the Russians in Eastern Europe.
It is expected to have profound impact on what the U.S. Army will look like in the coming years, the types of equipment it buys and how its units train. Some of the early lessons will be road tested in a major war game planned for June in Poland. Says retired Army Chief of Staff General Gordon Sullivan: “That is all designed to demonstrate that we are in the game.”
Et donc, contraints de démontrer que si, si, #still_in_the_game
Yemen: US Bombs Used in Deadliest Market Strike | Human Rights Watch
►https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/07/yemen-us-bombs-used-deadliest-market-strike
Saudi Arabia-led coalition airstrikes using United States-supplied bombs killed at least 97 civilians, including 25 children, in northwestern Yemen on March 15, 2016, Human Rights Watch said today. The two strikes, on a crowded market in the village of Mastaba that may have also killed about 10 Houthi fighters, caused indiscriminate or foreseeably disproportionate loss of civilian life, in violation of the laws of war. Such unlawful attacks when carried out deliberately or recklessly are war crimes.
Human Rights Watch conducted on-site investigations on March 28, and found remnants at the market of a GBU-31 satellite-guided bomb, which consists of a US-supplied MK-84 2,000-pound bomb mated with a JDAM satellite guidance kit, also US-supplied. A team of journalists from ITV, a British news channel, visited the site on March 26, and found remnants of an MK-84 bomb paired with a Paveway laser guidance kit. Human Rights Watch reviewed the journalists’ photographs and footage of these fragments.
Ces petits bijoux, pilotés par GPS ("satellite guided") ont une précision (erreur circulaire probable) de 13 mètres (30 mètres en mode dégradé quand le signal GPS n’est pas disponible).
Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) GBU-31 - Smart Weapons
▻http://fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/smart/jdam.htm
Once released, the bomb’s INS/GPS will take over and guide the bomb to its target regardless of weather. Guidance is accomplished via the tight coupling of an accurate Global Positioning System (GPS) with a 3-axis Inertial Navigation System (INS). The Guidance Control Unit (GCU) provides accurate guidance in both GPS-aided INS modes of operation (13 meter (m) Circular Error Probable (CEP)) and INS-only modes of operation (30 m CEP). INS only is defined as GPS quality hand-off from the aircraft with GPS unavailable to the weapon (e.g. GPS jammed). In the event JDAM is unable to receive GPS signals after launch for any reason, jamming or otherwise, the INS will provide rate and acceleration measurements which the weapon software will develop into a navigation solution. The Guidance Control Unit provides accurate guidance in both GPS-aided INS modes of operation and INS-only modes of operation. This inherent JDAM capability will counter the threat from near-term technological advances in GPS jamming.
Malware scam appears to use GPS data to catch speeding Pennsylvania drivers
▻http://www.theverge.com/2016/3/27/11312960/speeding-ticket-malware-scam-email-pennsylvania
A new malware scam is posing as a speeding ticket email with a fake link that is said to load malicious code onto users’ computers. The emails, sent to at least few local residents in Tredyffrin, Pennsylvania, purport to come from the local police department. Malware emails that masquerade as something official are not rare, but these messages are fairly unique: they are said to contain accurate speeding data, including street names, speed limits, and actual driving speeds, according to the Tredyffrin Police Department, located close to Philadelphia.
Y a vraiment des artistes et des génies dans le tas
The global effort putting the world’s most vulnerable people on the map - Humanosphere
▻http://www.humanosphere.org/basics/2016/01/the-global-effort-putting-the-worlds-most-vulnerable-people-on-the-map
In developed countries, we frequently take for granted that Google and other platforms have pulled data from satellite photography and GPS to plot all the roads, building and corners that make up our surroundings. But the vast majority of the developing world has, until recently, remained predominantly unmapped. The Missing Maps project is now filling in these gaps, for some of the world’s most vulnerable human populations in the farthest corners of the globe.
The Missing Maps project, launched in 2014, is a collaboration by the American and British Red Cross, the Humanitarian OpenStreetMap Team and Doctors Without Borders to put 20 million at-risk people on the map in two years. Using OpenStreetMap as a platform, Missing Maps aims to fill in the world’s “missing maps” before the next crisis arrives, so that detailed maps are available and ready for emergency responders.
When I Am Laid In Earth: Mapping with a Pyrograph
Exhibition of 3 LensCulture Earth Award Winner: Vienna, March 16 - June 30, 2016
The exhibition “Seen on Earth” will feature the three winners of the Fine Art/Conceptual category from the LensCulture Earth Awards 2015. Simon Norfolk’s award-winning series seen here, along with the work of Mandy Barker and Eduardo Leal, will be shown in an exhibition at the Kunst Haus Wien in Vienna (with prints generously donated by Foto Leutner). Don’t miss the opening party on March 16, 2016!
Below, we share Norfolk’s original artist statement as well as a recently conducted (and exclusive) interview with the artist himself (and a video documentary produced by Norfolk!).
Artist’s Statement
These fire lines indicate where the front of the rapidly disappearing Lewis Glacier was located during various times in the recent past; the years are given in the titles. In the distance, a harvest moon lights the poor, doomed remnant of the glacier; the gap between the fire and the ice represents the relentless melting. Relying on old maps and modern GPS surveys, I have rendered a stratified history of the glacier’s retreat.
It seems entirely appropriate to make these images here. Mount Kenya is the eroded stump of a long-dead, mega-volcano. Photographically, I hope to re-awaken its angry, magma heart. The mountain has an especially fierce demeanor; the peaks are childishly sheer and ragged, and since I first saw them, I’ve been thinking of Gormenghast and Tolkien.
The “Fire vs. Ice” metaphor I employ is especially satisfying. The fire is made from petroleum. My pictures contain no evidence that this glacier’s retreat is due to man-made warming (glaciers can retreat for lack of sufficient snow, or due to thinning cloud cover), but it is nonetheless my belief that humans burning hydrocarbons are substantially to blame.
So, see it now before it’s gone: get over there quick before Mount Kenya is just an unadorned rocky stump, robbed of its innocent, frozen crown. Unless, of course, you feel that flying around the world and injecting tons of hot CO2 into the troposphere in order to witness the melting of Africa’s glaciers is just a little too ironic.
—Simon Norfolk
▻https://www.lensculture.com/articles/simon-norfolk-when-i-am-laid-in-earth-mapping-with-a-pyrograph
#photographie #map #kenya
Using drones to save lives in Malawi - BBC News
▻http://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-35810153
The drone used in the test is less than a metre long and is programmed to travel along a designated route, passing predetermined way points, which are plotted using an app.
No pilot is necessary, instead it requires a health worker with a password and a GPS signal on their mobile phone. At the swipe of a button the vehicle is airborne.
It has already been certified as safe by Malawi’s defence ministry, which has approved an air corridor for the drone’s use.
But in the months ahead, the team from the Silicon Valley will run tests to measure the drone’s resilience, cost effectiveness and efficiency.
“You put a payload box and a fresh battery on the drone,” says Ms Santana, as she demonstrates how the device can carry up to 1kg (2.2lb) of dried blood samples in a compartment tucked under a battery. “You then open the app and select the location, you swipe and you hit take off.”
As the drone makes its maiden flight in Malawi in front of a group of invited guests, villagers lined the edge of a nearby maize field.
This Is What Peaceful Borderlines Between European Countries Look Like - My Modern Met
▻http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/borderline-frontiers-of-peace-photo-project
In light of current global conflicts and the push for tightened borders throughout Europe, Netherlands-based photographer Valerio Vincenzo is shining a light on a more hopeful, inspiring aspect of society through a project titled Borderline, the Frontiers of Peace. The series explores the radical changes that have occurred in the last decade, following the signing of the Schengen Agreement in Europe. This contract has allowed the borders between participating countries to essentially be erased, and symbolizes a giant step towards the progressive unification of Europe through the perpetuation of open, peaceful borderlines.
The Schengen Area is an area comprised of 26 European countries, all of whom have agreed to abolish passports and border control at their shared borders. With this agreement, over 16,500 km of borders between neighboring nations have become free to explore. Armed with a GPS and detailed maps, Vincenzo travelled along these erased borderlines, creating images that showcase “the essence of these now-peaceful crossings” and dismantle the stereotypical idea of what a border looks like. Through his collection, he poses the fundamental question: What is a border anyway?
Why You Can’t Trust #GPS in China
One of the most interesting, if unanticipated, side effects of modern copyright law is the practice by which cartographic companies will introduce a fake street—a road, lane, or throughway that does not, in fact, exist on the ground—into their maps. If that street later shows up on a rival company’s products, then they have all the proof they need for a case of copyright infringement. Known as trap streets, these imaginary roads exist purely as figments of an overactive legal imagination.
►http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/digital-maps-skewed-china
Archie’s Press: Maps
▻http://www.archiespress.com/maps.php
New research indicates that #GPS's are hindering our ability to create #mental_maps of our surroundings. My maps aim to install a “Map from the Mind”, simplifying structures and neighborhoods in the most efficient and beautiful way.
#cartographie cc @supergeante
Big Mother : is tracking technology a threat to a healthy childhood ?
▻http://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/feb/05/big-mother-gps-tracking-technology-threat-privacy-childhood
Tracking children with GPS-enabled devices is becoming practical and affordable, but child rights and privacy campaigners are worried Losing track of a child is a terrifying prospect. The recent emergence of GPS devices that can report on youngsters’ whereabouts, coupled with the falling prices of gadgets, seem to offer parents a tech solution. Swedish firm Trax, for example, has designed a GPS tracker, on sale for $249 (£170), that issues alerts when children step outside of pre-set (...) #GPS #géolocalisation #Trax #surveillance_de_la_famille #surveillance_des_jeunes #contrôle_social #Weenect
Using #GIS technology to map shelter allocation in #Azraq refugee camp
About two years ago, Hassune was working on his first day as Associate Field Officer in Azraq, a new camp located in central-eastern Jordan that currently hosts about 26,000 Syrian refugees living in 10,000 shelters. The camp hadn’t opened yet, and Hassune was in charge of getting the shelter allocation system ready for day one. Bernadette Castel, who was the camp manager at the time, asked him:
#camp_de_réfugiés #GPS #technologie #urgence #humanitaire
cc @louca @shenriod
Après Kunduz, Homs, Haydan, Taiz : Sadeh
Yemen : Another MSF supported hospital bombed | Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) International
▻http://www.msf.org/article/yemen-another-msf-supported-hospital-bombed
Sana’a – An MSF supported hospital has been hit by a projectile in Northern Yemen causing at least four dead and 10 injured and the collapse of several buildings of the medical facility. Three of the injured are MSF staff, two in critical condition.
(...) “All warring parties, including the Saudi led coalition (SLC), are regularly informed of the GPS coordinates of the medical sites where MSF works and we are in constant dialogue with them to ensure that they understand the severity of the humanitarian consequences of the conflict and the need to respect the provision of medical services”, says Raquel Ayora Director of Operations. “There is no way that anyone with the capacity to carry out an airstrike or launch a rocket would not have known that the Shiara Hospital was a functioning health facility providing critical services and supported by MSF”.
Pour #France_24 la zone en question est « tenue par les rebelles houthis », point final
Yemen: Five medical staff dead in third bombing of Doctors Without Borders facilities - World Socialist Web Site
▻http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2016/01/12/yeme-j12.html
Yemen: Five medical staff dead in third bombing of Doctors Without Borders facilities
By Thomas Gaist
12 January 2016
At least five medical workers were killed and 10 others wounded when an explosive projectile slammed into a Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)-affiliated medical facility in the Shiara Hospital in Razeh district on Sunday. The attack on the hospital, which led to the destruction of multiple buildings within the MSF-linked center, came amid an ongoing surge of fighting in Yemen’s northern province of Saada. As of Monday afternoon, rescuers continued to work through the rubble, where more medical staff and patients are believed to be trapped.
MSF cite directement l’#arabie_saoudite
▻http://www.msf.org/article/yemen-health-facilities-under-attack-msf-wants-answers
The war in Yemen is being fought with total disregard for the rules of war
Syrie : les deux plus grands hôpitaux d’Alep-Est touchés par des frappes
Les deux plus grands #hôpitaux dans la partie rebelle de la ville syrienne d’#Alep ont été touchés mercredi à l’aube par des frappes aériennes, les mettant temporairement hors service, a affirmé à l’AFP l’ONG qui soutient ces établissements.
▻http://www.courrierinternational.com/depeche/syrie-les-deux-plus-grands-hopitaux-dalep-est-touches-par-des
Two hospitals bombed in rebel-held part of Aleppo amid government assault
BEIRUT — The two largest hospitals in the Syrian city of Aleppo were bombed Wednesday, knocking them out of service and worsening an already dire medical crisis in the besieged city, medical workers said.
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/two-hospitals-bombed-in-rebel-held-aleppo-amid-government-ground-assault/2016/09/28/80a4b630-7fd4-43c8-a0eb-9082f7752335_story.html
A very good talk on “Time and Computers” UTC, atomic clocks, Posix, #NTP, GPS, Bureau International des Poids et Mesures, and of course the debate on #leap_second
▻http://seriot.ch/resources/talks_papers/20151022_time_and_computers_softshake.pdf
Poachers using science papers to target newly discovered species | Environment | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jan/01/poachers-using-science-papers-to-target-newly-discovered-species
Journals begin withholding locations after warnings the data is helping smugglers drive lizards, snakes and frogs to ‘near-extinction’
The International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature does not oblige scientists to provide GPS coordinates for newly discovered species, but many do as an act of empirical completion.
Even when species locations are not precisely mapped, black market traders can often track them down, using local contacts and big cash offers that turn the heads of poor farmers.
Just four months after Zootaxa published discovery information about a new leaf-tailed gecko in Madagascar last summer, the animal began appearing in Europe.
China Cracks Down on Politically Incorrect Maps - CityLab
▻http://www.citylab.com/politics/2015/12/china-cracks-down-on-politcally-incorrect-maps/421032
Ouh la, j’ai eu chaud (retrospectivement) !
When it comes to maps, China isn’t messing around.
Starting next year, you don’t want to be caught with the “wrong” maps—that is, maps containing content “that endangers the country’s sovereignty, safety and interests,” according to a statement by China’s government mapping official Le Weibin.
In an effort to “boost” the mapmaking industry—and clamp down on maps that run counter to the government’s stance on issues like Taiwan’s independence and the territorial dispute over the South China Sea—China announced new regulations earlier this year on the creation, distribution, and publication of both print and online maps. The government will be monitoring maps for violations like “errors in compilation” and “leaks of secret geographic information and personal information,” according to China’s official state media, Xinhua.
Also included in this new set of regulations, which will replace mapping laws drawn up in 1995, is a section dedicated to regulating the fairly young industry of online mapping. It requires all online mapping data to be hosted by servers inside the country, and all GPS providers to obtain a cartography certificate.
#chine #cartographie #manipulation #frontières #territoires_contestés #mer_de_chine_méridionale
“Europe’s four Galileo satellites are now working as clocks accurate to a few billionths of a second, disseminating the exact time through their signals expressed as the UTC Universal Coordinated Time global standard.”
▻http://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Navigation/Galileo_starts_to_tell_UTC_the_world_s_time
US approves sale of ’smart bomb’ kits to Turkey
▻http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2015/Dec-08/326502-us-approves-sale-of-smart-bomb-kits-to-turkey.ashx
The U.S. State Department has approved the sale of precision bomb kits valued at $70 million to Turkey, a member of NATO and a key part of the U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State militants in Syria, the Pentagon said Thursday.
Lawmakers have 15 days to block the sale, although such action is rare. Once it has cleared that hurdle, Turkey and the U.S. government can negotiate the actual sale.
The Defense Security Cooperation Agency, which oversees foreign arms sales, told lawmakers that the government of Turkey had asked to buy 1,000 Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) tail kits that are used to turn unguided bombs into all-weather smart munitions using GPS guidance systems.
“It is vital to the U.S. national interest to assist our NATO ally in developing and maintaining a strong and ready self-defense capability,” the agency said in a notice to lawmakers that was posted on its website on Thursday.
It said the proposed sale would enhance the Turkish Air Force’s ability to defend its own territory and work together with NATO allies.
Suspicious boats with decomposed bodies found drifting off Japan - Yahoo News
▻http://news.yahoo.com/suspicious-boats-decomposed-bodies-found-drifting-off-japan-134707754.ht
Japan is investigating nearly a dozen suspicious boats recently found drifting off the country’s coastline, some with decaying bodies aboard, officials said Friday, as media speculated they came from North Korea.
At least 11 cases involving wooden boats — some badly damaged — with 20 bodies on board have been reported during October and November, a coastguard spokesman told AFP.
Many of the boats have been towed to Japanese ports, but the bodies are yet to be identified, he said, adding that investigations were ongoing.
On Tuesday, one of the boats was pulled ashore at Fukui port after three sets of remains were found inside when coastguard personnel spotted it some 100 kilometres (62 miles) offshore in the Sea of Japan, private TV channel Tokyo Broadcasting System reported.
The body of water is known as the East Sea in North and South Korea.
TBS said the remains were badly decomposed and partially skeletonised, while Japan’s public TV broadcaster NHK said Korean writing was visible on the boats as well as clothes left inside the vessels.
Experts suspect the vessels are fishing boats from North Korea as the impoverished state prone to poor harvests is trying to expand its fishing industry to bolster food security, NHK said.
But a number of North Korean fishing boats have been lost due to a lack of modern equipment, including the Global Positioning System capability, it added.
’Where are you?’ ’Input.Caring.Brain’ | Business | The Guardian
▻http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/01/meet-me-there-what3words-redefines-geolocations
When Chris Sheldrick ran a business organising music events, he repeatedly came across the same problem: getting equipment to the right place at the right time. In London, this meant the drivers could end up at one of the 17 other entrances to Wembley stadium rather than the one they were supposed to be at, while in Dubai, they could get lost by turning at the wrong landmark.
After trying and failing with GPS coordinates, Sheldrick sought to find a simpler mapping system. The answer came by using three random words strung together to divide the entire globe, oceans included, in three-metre-by-three-metre squares.
The Navy is Reinstating the Ancient Art of Celestial #Navigation
▻http://www.govexec.com/defense/2015/10/navy-reinstating-ancient-art-celestial-navigation/122833
... satellites and GPS are vulnerable to cyber attack (paywall). The tools of yesteryear—sextants, nautical almanacs, volumes of tables—are not.