Most of us use GPS—the Global Positioning System—on a daily basis: to find our location when we’re driving, running, shopping, dating, and so much more. But GPS is even more important, and more vulnerable, than you think.In the last few years, GPS interference has been reported all over the world, from war zones to shipping routes to public squares. What was once the fanciful plot of a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_Never_Dies" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Bond movie</a>—bad guy manipulates GPS to start World War III—is increasingly plausible. How did the world come to rely so heavily on such an unreliable system?In this episode of Decoder Ring, host Willa Paskin talks to journalist <a href="https://katherinedunn.me/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Katherine Dunn</a>, author of the new book <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/little-blue-dot-9781639734313/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Little Blue Dot: How GPS Shaped the Modern World</a>. You’ll learn how GPS works, why it was created, how it became so ubiquitous, and why it’s now under attack. You’ll also hear from <a href="https://ae.utexas.edu/person/todd-e-humphreys/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Dr. Todd Humphreys</a>, an aerospace engineer who manipulated GPS to trick an $85 million superyacht into following his direction—for science, of course.This episode was written and produced by Max Freedman. It was edited by Willa Paskin and Evan Chung, our supervising producer. Merritt Jacob is Senior Technical Director. Our intern is Phoebe Mulder.If you have any cultural mysteries you want us to decode, email us at <a href="mailto:DecoderRing@slate.com" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">DecoderRing@slate.com</a> or leave a message on our hotline at (347) 460-7281.Sources for This Episode&nbsp;Burgess, Matt. “<a href="https://www.wired.com/story/black-sea-ship-hacking-russia/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">When a tanker vanishes, all the evidence points to Russia</a>,” WIRED, Sep. 21, 2017.Dunn, Katherine. <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/little-blue-dot-9781639734313/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Little Blue Dot: How GPS Shaped the Modern World</a>, Bloomsbury Publishing, 2026.Dunn, Katherine. “<a href="https://thewalrus.ca/how-to-hack-a-superyacht/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">How to Hack a Superyacht</a>,” The Walrus, Jun. 13, 2026.Hopper, Nate. “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/tech/annals-of-technology/the-thorny-problem-of-keeping-the-internets-time" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Thorny Problem of Keeping the Internet’s Time</a>,” The New Yorker, Sep. 30, 2022.Hopper, Nate. “<a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2024/09/ukraine-timekeeper-kharkiv-clocks-standards/679923/" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">The Timekeeper of Ukraine</a>,” The Atlantic, Sep. 21, 2024.Need to set up your Slate Plus feed? If you subscribed through Slate.com, check out our <a href="https://slate.com/podcastfaqs#plusbenefits" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">FAQ</a> at slate.com/podcastfaqs for easy instructions. Members subscribed via Apple Podcasts get automatic access—no setup required.<hr> Hosted on Acast. See <a style='color:grey;' target='_blank' rel='noopener noreferrer' href='https://acast.com/privacy'>acast.com/privacy</a> for more information.

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