U.S. Military Turned GPS into a Global "Numbers Station"

A University College London security researcher has discovered that the U.S. military has been covertly broadcasting encrypted cryptographic keys through public GPS satellites for nearly 20 years using a hidden 176-bit data sequence. The researcher, Steven Murdoch, identified the transmissions by analyzing over 12 million GPS observations since 2007 and confirmed the timeline matched the military's Over-the-Air Distribution network rollout in 2011, meaning every GPS-enabled device has unknowingly received these government messages. The encrypted broadcasts appear designed to automatically distribute security keys to military personnel worldwide, replacing the previous manual distribution method.