Please.

[Mike O'Dell]

sorry John,
i didn't intend it as a political commentary,
much less an anti-anyone comment. if it came
off that way, it was quite unintended.
even smart people with the best intentions can do
incomprehensible things sometimes.
except for my characterization of the decision to dismantle
Loran as epically boneheaded, the other statements are factual.

the important issue is that GPS, as the current single source of PNT,
has finally been recognized as not merely "critical infrastructure",
but that the breadth of the reliance upon it makes it one of,
if not the most critical infrastructure element today,
and it can be extremely vulnerable.

the success of GPS has produced huge unintended consequences
which have very serious strategic implications which have been
created completely outside the threats imagined by GPS denial.

This is another example of the "consumerization" of technology.
the Enterprise IT guys are having control ripped from their hands
as the "bring-your-own-device" tsunami of mobile devices has
washed over them. likewise with the impact of social networking,
and the original injection of "personal computers" in the workplace.

GPS has been coopted by everyone needing PNT and a huge amount
of the economy, far bigger than the DoD, is dependent upon it.
That puts the people who thought they were in charge in a very
unfamiliar position - having to listen to a vast constituency that
was explicitly unconsidered when the project was started.

This has nothing to do with elections or the people at opposite
ends of Pennsylvania Avenue in DC.

It does have everything to do with a fundamental
transformation in the forces driving innovation and the pervasive
influence those forces exert on all kinds of institutions and organizations.
The policy machinery at all levels has yet to understand, much less 
internalize,
the broad implications for these changes, and that leads to strategic risk.

Given that Amateur Radio is one of the few communications technologies
which can operate perfectly well in the face of massive denial of 
precision PNT,
there are significant implications for hams.

     cheers,
     -mo





On 11/24/12 12:12 PM, John Teller wrote:
> Mike,
>
> Can we all agree to dispense with anti-[your most hated political 
> figure] screeds on this list?  There's enough of that going on 
> everywhere else.
>
> Thanks.
>
> ---JST
>
>
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