The threat and vulnerability of GPS

The critical reliance and important usage on GPS nowadays, both in civil and military, has recently brought up a hot discussion again for the concerns in its threat and vulnerability.

Anyhow, this issue is not new, and has been discussed among technology experts for many years. Just that when GPS usage become more and more widespread, its threat and vulnerability need to be brought to its users' awareness, especially in the military, government and business sectors.

The GPS operation relies on signals from some 30 over orbiting satellites surrounding the earth in the space. In order for a GPS receiver to triangulate its position on earth, it needs to get signals from at least 3 GPS satellites.

GPS signal is known to be exceptionally weak. Each satellite transmits a signal equivalent to the power of a 25W light bulb from an distance of about 20,000km away. Such a weak signal can be readily interfered with or denied by unintentional or deliberate radio wave interference.

Portable GPS jammer devices such as the one shown in the diagram below have been made available for quite some times.

Some car security system and transportation logistic system make use of GPS to keep track on the position of the vehicle. It has been reported that car thieves make use of GPS jammer to disrupt the GPS signal and defeat the vehicle tracking system, therefore render the vehicle unlocatable.

Employees who drive vehicles that are tracked by their companies can also make use of the GPS jammer to hide their tracks.


In Germany, it is believed that some drivers are using GPS jammer to evade GPS-based road charging system.

Robbers can also easily spoof the GPS signal and guide the target vehicle to drive to their trap location.

Imagine what would happen if terrorists make attack on the GPS function of air traffic and/or naval traffic.

Beside its global positioning function, GPS is also used as a time server for time synchronization in certain infrastructure. This function can also be defeated by the jammer, and time critical system could be hacked in this way.

The GPS signal used by the US military is different from the civil signal, and is encrypted. However, it is also vulnerable to GPS jammer and subjected to interferrance from the enemy.

Imagine a GPS dependent missle being mislead by the enemy to attack on wrong target, or worse still, to attack to ally target instead of the enemy.

By intercepting the GPS signal, the position of military GPS user could be exposed to the enemy.

In the video below, you can see the GPS jammer in action and how it defeated the civil and military GPS.



So, what can we do to minimize the threat to GPS? Beside waiting for the US to strengten on the signaling, when we want to make use of GPS, also use some other alternative methods so that GPS could not be a single point of failure.

What are CPM, CPC, CPA, CPE, etc in online advertising

You might have noticed that my blog currently serves ads from Google Adsense and Innity Performance Network.

If you are familiar with online advertising, you should know about CPM, CPC, CPA, CPE, etc. If you are new to it, you might wonder what are these jargons about.

Well, they actually refer to the model in which you will be paid for ads running on your website or blog.

• CPM - Cost Per Mille or Cost Per Thousand Impressions. This is the easiest model to generate earnings, as every time the ads appear to a visitor to your site, you will get an amount of money. The rate is at 1,000 ad served. If your site produces less than 1,000 impressions for the ad, you will get a proportion of it. Google Adsense reports the estimated CPM rate you receive based on your earnings with Effective CPM (eCPM).
• CPC - Cost Per Click. You'll generate earnings when your visitors click on the ads displayed on your site.
• CPA - Cost Per Acquisition. You will be paid for leads generated on your site (e.g. product trial sign up, submission of survey, etc.)
• CPE - Cost Per Engagement. You will be paid for engagements generated by visitors from your site. Engagement is defined when a user response to the ad through the act of experiencing the features of the ad format. These features include advergames, videos or even social sharing.

Currently, you can get CPM and CPC ads from Google Adsense, while Innity Performance Network supports more models including CPM, CPC, CPA and CPE.

The rule of thumb: No matter what the revenue model is, visitor traffic is the key for you to get some earnings from online advertising.

Shareholders dividend under the single tier tax system (STS)

Malaysia has introduced single tier tax system (STS) in Budget 2008 to replace the existing imputation tax system with effect from year of assessment 2008. This has brought major impact to the treatment of dividend paid to the shareholders.

You might have noticed that some of the companies already giving out dividends under the new STS, although they have a 6 year transitional grace period until 31 December 2013 to fully convert from imputation to STS.

Under this STS, corporate income is taxed at corporate level and is a final tax. No tax is being deducted from dividend paid, credited or distributed to shareholders. As a result, there will be no Section 110 tax credits deduction for any dividend paid under STS to individual tax payers.

While this has negative impact to lower income individual shareholders whose top income tax bracket is less than the statutory company tax rate, as they no longer eligible to claim for a Section 110 tax credits refund under the new STS, there are several benefits of moving forward from imputation tax system to single tier tax system:

• The company is able to reduce administration cost as there is no need to maintain Section 108 balances anymore.
• Individual tax payer no need to bother about dividend income and Section 110 declaration for dividends received under STS.
• High income bracket individuals need not pay tax on the differential between his marginal tax rate and the company tax rate.
• Companies with capital gains and non taxable accounting profits are able to declare dividends without any constraint. This might bring higher dividend yields to shareholders.
• Companies with huge Section 108 balances may pay special dividends during the transitional period.

Meanwhile, if you still receive dividend warrant that shows a gross dividend amount, tax deducted from the dividend and net dividend paid out, it means that the company has opted to continue using its section 108 tax credits balance to pay franked dividends to shareholders under the transitional period before 2014. And the normal procedure of declaring gross dividend income and deducting back the Section 110 tax credits in your income tax assessment BE/B Form still applicable.